I haven’t been as active blogging lately. There are several reasons for this absence.

1. I have been spending most of my free time organizing the basement.  When I completed this project I moved on to the upstairs.  I am on the verge of being quite downsized.  Hopefully this project will be completed next Wednesday.  Or at least, I hope that the only room that I will have left to organize and downsize will be the office after next Wednesday.  There is always a fair chance that I will just give up on the office and declare it a permanent disaster area.  We’ll see how the other two rooms go.
2. When I haven’t been organizing, eliminating and donating I have been moving furniture around. True this doesn’t take much physical time, but it is emotionally draining.
3. I have been working on a personal facial hair project.  For one 36 hour period, I wasn’t intelligent enough to put a noun against a verb in a meaningful way.
4. The last couple of Friday Night Supper Clubs have been emotionally draining.  The night we viewed Free Walking at Jay’s apartment was a visceral experience.  What a great movie!  Then the Jucy Lucy replication Friday Night Supper Club was an overt failure that ended with My Great Shame.  It took me several days to recover from that shame.  At least Dawn got to become an auxiliary member of FNSC.  She allegedly doesn’t even mind that it is a “Boys Club”.  I will believe her when she makes a return appearance. Plus Trivia Night.  Well, I can’t even begin to discuss how emotionally draining Trivia Night ended up being.  Plus Trivia Night fell in that 36 hour period where I was a moron. However, Team Stache (Geri D., Willy, Jay, Jesse, Shannon, Papa Smurf and his wife) was an undeniable powerhouse.  I only wish I had pictures to share so that you could relive the experience.
5. The cleaning crew (Jill) for my Oscars Watch had to work at her “real job” and got stuck in Minnesota.  Therefore I had to do my own cleaning.  The bed maker (Sara) also got stuck working her “real job” so I had to make my own bed.  I tried to get that out with a straight face.  Sara had to work, so I just shut my bedroom door and pretended that the room was how it was supposed to be.  My kitchen crew (Jen and Derrick, well mostly Derrick) came through with flying colors though.  Still, I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I should add that my neighbor joined the Watch and listening to his plan to get his life back together by finding a girlfriend so that he can have some self-esteem.  Well, that was psychologically draining.
6. Perhaps the most important reason why I haven’t taken keyboard in hand and banged out some words is because during the move from one blogging entity to a different blogging entity, I decided to completely recategorize my blog. I started this process with well over 770 journal entries to review. Through this process I eliminated several journal entries.  Things that I didn’t need any longer. Like videos that no longer existed or calls to donate to a “charity” that would lie and claim that your donation was tax deductible.  I even broke down categories by people and I left the number of blog entries by the category.  A quick glance down the left side of this blog will tell you who I seem to write about the most.  Are you surprised that Jay is number 1?

A surprising side effect of my reading is that I think I might have regressed as a writer.  I fear that I might have peaked and it is all downhill from here on out.  Some of my writings in the not so distant past were clever, witty and dare I say it – brilliant.  I fear if I was ever going to write a play for ACTORS that was going to revolutionize costumed (believe me I have tried – Geri D. will not let me put an all-nude play on her stage) drama in a meaningful way, I have missed my chance.  Rather than eloquently crafting phrases, I now rely on cheap tricks (like my over reliance on parenthetical statements that makes me want to punch myself in the face almost as surely as if I had moustache) and broad allusions.  I have surely descended into hack-hood.  See, that isn’t even a real word.  It isn’t like the old days when I used to invent words that are sure to be the next surefire hits in our lexicon.  I can’t come up with a word so I throw out a dash and postfix and then I merrily go on my way.

It didn’t used to be like this.  (I just don’t mean that I used to not end sentences with prepositions.)  I used to be growing as a writer.  For example, when I was in the 4th Grade I wrote the worst creative writing stories ever!! They were based loosely on a pet rabbit that most likely died due to my neglect.  Only I stole some ideas from a few cartoons and movies that I enjoyed and out of my pencil and on to some poor dead tree came writing that was so dizzingly bad that it makes me want to vomit when I read just a few short passages:

When Fluffy found him he took him to Leo the Lion. Leo took care of him. Pucky told Leo his life story. Then he told Fluffy what Jack, Jill and Joan said. Fluffy said “I better get going” then he left. He hid in Raspberry Forest and said “By the power of Carrot Castle! I HAVE THE POWER!” Then he said, “Up, up and away and he flew off to find Joan, Jack and Jill. When he found them he landed and said, “Pucky sent me.” Superfluff said.  “Let’s get that wimpy rabbit!” Superfluff picked them up and twirled them until they gave up and promised to stop picking on Pucky. Then he went after Swampfrog. When he was fighting Swampfrog he said a few words he shouldn’t of. When he returned he taught Pucky karate. When he stepped into the pond, Jack, Jill, Joan and Swampfrog were waiting for him but Pucky beat them up in 15 fish winks. Now everybody calls him The Karate Duck.

Fortunately I can still say that I’m a better writer than I was when I put that horrible drivel to paper. But I did slightly improve by high school:

Eric reached deep into his soul, past the candy wrappers and half-eaten bagels, to the insult department. Through the corridor with doors marked with signs that read “whites”, “blondes”, “Scott Kendall” and “dogs”.  He opened the door that read: “The Mother of All Insults”.

The glowing light almost blinded him. The brilliant shiny box in the room was his destination. He opened the box and was greeted with a cloud of rolling smoke. He reached into the box and grabbed a piece of paper. Eric read the paper and he knew he had his death blow!

Back in reality Eric stared at the landing party and said… and I quote… “Huh, freaks of nature!”

He was puzzled when this didn’t break their morale. They were laughing at him. This was the Mother-of-All-Insults and they were laughing at HIM!

Chris looked at Eric and broke into another 5 minutes of laughter. Chris controlled himself and said, “You sir are our inferior. You call us freaks in an attempt to manipulate reality. We have evolved into a place of superiority over you!”

“Liar! I’m not listening to you!” Eric screamed.

“Scott. Who-o-o-o-o-o is this m-m-m-an?” Captain Punjab whimpered.

As you can tell, I have clearly progressed from the terrible wretch that wrote those words. I just hope that I am not regressing to that level again!