My Calves Feel Suffocated

It's official.
Autumn is here, folks.  How do I know this?


I'm wearing pants today.


Rather than donning my usual shorts and T-shirt, I busted out my jeans to "bundle up" against the morning chill.  Pants, people!  Shoes replace flip-flops, sleeves are growing longer, soon we'll be wearing jackets as the leaves die and fall around us in a seasonal fireworks display.


This summer B. and I tag-teamed summer school, worked full time jobs, gave up vacations, visited family and continued to learn and grow together as a couple.  She got a raise.  I was accepted into my program at school.  We've improved, grown, laughed, fought, kissed, talked and enjoyed each other through the months of sweltering heat and no A/C.

Now two long semesters are staring us down.  Two semesters of heating bills, student loans, homework, projects, late nights, early mornings, and working through weekends.  For about 8 months we're getting downgraded from spouses to roommates.  We'll see each other on the weekends I guess.  Well, Sundays.  We can do homework in the same room and call it "family time."

With so much of my time spoken for, I can hardly keep up the pace of blogging I maintained during the summer.  When I rebooted this project on Father's Day, I had no idea how big of a reaction and a following it would get.  Many avid readers, fans and friends have been more than supportive, some have even encouraged me to start writing fiction and try to get published.  Your enthusiasm has bolstered my enthusiasm, and a blog whose entries were spotty at best quickly became a frequent, regular news feed of my meager musings. 

But alas, as I said before, times are a-changin'.  I'm currently signed up for six classes (17 credits total) this fall.  And with such a heavy workload I'm afraid I must put more of my focus, my time and my energy into my education.  In an attempt to avoid slacking off (yet again) this summer, I posted with almost religious regularity.  But now, rather than my usual four or five posts per week, I will limit my entries to probably about once a week.  I'm not abandoning writing; if anything I'm more encouraged by this blog to continue writing.  Part of me really does want to take some of your advice and try my hand at fiction, should time allow.


But, truth be told, I can't blame homework entirely for my backing off.  I feel like I've been sort of spinning my wheels a little for the past few weeks.  My posts have veered off-topic.  Rather than talk about how we're working out our bug(g)s, I've selfishly sunk into simple reminiscences or rampaging rants.  I mean, I know we're a pretty crazy couple, but there's only so much dysfunction I can use for material.

I feel myself starting to run out of things to say.

Well, things of value, anyway.  That's a good sign it's time to shift gears. 

I shouldn't have to force anything.  I don't want to feel like I'm stretching to keep your attention.  I don't want you to stop enjoying what you read because the posts feel were only written to meet some arbitrary self-imposed deadline.  Some of these posts I'm really proud of.  Others I might end up deleting.  I have editing rights as a writer, right?  Think of this summer writing blitz as making up for time lost in my long hiatus last year when I started this blog.  Regardless, limiting posts to weekly updates will really allow me time to edit, ponder, and mull over what exactly I think should be said, rather than just what I could say.

Plus, I really enjoy including little illustrations with some of these stories, so spacing them out allows me time to add visual embellishments.

Good luck to all of you this fall.  Hopefully we'll all come out relatively sane by Christmas.  In the meantime keep reading, keep commenting, and keep sharing.  I love to see new people reading, asking questions and participating in this conversation.



See you next week.

Promise.



S