On Drama and Blogging

I've been having trouble coming up with things to blog about. It's not that there's absolutely nothing going on in my life, or that I don't have plenty of ideas swirling around my mind that I'd like to put into text. It's just that, well, I've been having a somewhat rough couple of weeks. As a result, most of the things I've thought to write about have been...well...not really cheery.

Now, I'm not one of those people who feels the need to put a smiley face on everything. I understand that not every lemon can be used to make lemonade. But I do think that it's very, very easy to let a blog devolve into melodramatic whining, and once it reaches that level it has a tendency to stay there. Some things are simply better shared one-on-one with friends who know the full back story, rather than than with the whole of the internet, most of whom have no idea who you are or why so-and-so's seemingly innocent comment would be interpreted as the worst insult/betrayal ever.

So if I've got a lot of crap going on in my life, yet I feel the desire to blog, how do I do that without being all "woe is me"? It seems to narrow it down to one possibility: the This Was My Day blog. I don't like This Was My Day blogs. If you can't turn an event into an entertaining anecdote, or some sort of interesting observation on life, you wind up with something like the following:

"I got up today and had a bowl of cereal. I really like cereal. Then I went to work. That girl I don't like got on my nerves. I had lunch around noon, and the rest of the day was pretty good, because I didn't see that annoying girl again. Then I came home, made dinner, and watched TV."

Some people can take that basic outline, sprinkle it with a few observations, metaphors, non sequiturs, and side-stories, and turn it into something really interesting/entertaining/insightful. I have a huge amount of admiration for people who can do that, and those are the kinds of blogs that I really love. I, however, am not one of those people. Especially when I'm in a bit of a funk.

The other problem with blogging in/about a bad mood is that it sticks around. A few days or weeks down the line, when whatever was bothering you is over and done with, you'll go back and re-read the drama. Either it leaves you feeling ridiculous for being so over the top with it, or it winds up sending you back into the funk. Neither possibility is particularly appealing.

So it may be a while before I have something amusing and/or insightful to say here. I don't think very many people read this anyway. But I figured that I'd explain. You know, in case someone stumbles on it and wonders why there are only about 8 entries (one of which consisted of a photograph and one paragraph, another of which consisted of iPod fandom).

And there you have it. A shitty couple of weeks, not enough energy to find amusing anecdotes from my life that are worth sharing, and a desire to spare random strangers from the rather tangled web of drama that I've become caught up in. I promise, as soon as I've untangled it all and gotten my head on straight, I'll have plenty of brisk witticisms suitable for the masses. Until then, this page will be a bit sparse.