People Ask Why I Don't Post...

And I say...

I know, I know, I know. I am truly glad I'm not one of those reporters who have a weekly column that they have to write each week, or egad, a sermon. Instead I prefer to be one of those, "when the mood strikes" kind of writers and when you've had a few days like mine, the mood hasn't struck.

First, there's been the insomnia. The wacky "I want to sleep, God, please let me sleep, and yet I'm awake and staring at the digital clock numbers" kind of insomnia. This insomnia has been enhanced by the wildly alluring "Cat Race Around the House/Boy-0n-Boy Cat Porn Tease" which is my two male (and neutered) cats. Add to that mixture, the crazy dreaming about the home I lived in when I was seven but which was surrounded by a toxic waste dump which was threatening to pollute me, but which my spiritual guru was just walking through without being burned by the foamy red ooze (huh...figure that one out? I mean really, I actually did have a really relatively sweet and innocent childhood despite the tremors of divorce which erupted when I was eleven or twelve, and which even then was relatively rational and calm).

On top of the insomnia has been the partner insomnia...that is, my sweet husband's insomniac issues which leave a lonely spot in our bed and which, for some reason unbeknownst to me, cause me to bolt upright, out from under the quilt, and search for him in the mess of covers on the left side of the bed. He, meanwhile, is watching exciting documentaries about the Bubonic plague on the Discovery channel in the family room, documentaries with soundtracks of people coughing ominously. What can I say, this kind of stuff soothes him.

Second, the family issues. Things have simply been hairy here. Emotionally. Really hairy. And I'm spent, absolutely spent. I find myself (true confessions here) sitting with my jaw dropped and drool pooling on the pillow next to me watching some truly inane reality television on MTV which involves lots of bleeps as sultry language is edited out, and lots of teenaged girls obsessing about their hair extensions and prom dates. And what's worse...I like it. I like it because I don't have to think...it's like handing Cheerios to a toddler in a highchair. I'm a drooling toddler, only moments away from a complete meltdown if my whole grain goodness is taken away.

Third, the "what-if's" of fertility treatments. I cannot get my brain around the notion that I simply have to just shut my mind off and allow things to simply be. As the wise and wonderful fundamentalist Christian Dr. B the fertility master (who limits his listening choices in his office to strictly Christian rock [so the refrains sound like this, "Oh, Jesus...Oh, Jesus...Oh, Jesus...I love you" sung by breathy female vocalists...not the most, ahem, "appealing" music to be played in a reproductive doctor's office if you ask me, in fact I think studies would show that sperm actually swim more lethargically when exposed to Jesus music])told me in a perhaps costly three-digit-phone "consultation" this week, "Remember, this is in God's hands." Dammit, but I've never been good at taking my sticky hands off the controls. And frankly, that's easy to say from a man who has four pictures of strikingly beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed genetically perfect children sitting on his desk.

So, that's why I've not been posting...spent, grumpy, sarcastic, spiritually dry, searching for meaning. Yep. That sums it up.

And, to be honest, no one really asked me why I don't post more often. But I like to pretend I have an imaginary audience who reads this and clamors for my attention like I'm the White House Press secretary.

And, now, how are you feeling? (She asks in her best chaplain voice, all the while making meaningful eye-contact and nodding her head compassionately).