a squirell is looking in at me - i wonder if it's horny

I wonder how many of us write and read blogs to procrastinate.

Finally, you think, some sex on SSAS. No, you're thinking of masterbate, and there ain't nothin' on blogs that turns me on that much. Good luck with that, though. Did no one in Blogland get laid this weekend? Horniness abounds...

No, I'm talking about puttin' shit off that I need to do. Like finishing this book that is supposed to end sometime in the next 100 pages if I'm lucky. Of course, that's what I thought a hundred pages ago, and they're still sittin' there chatting each other up, gaining insights that only means hours and hours of editing for me... however Kaelin just weaponed-up so that looks promising. But, of course, as usual, I digress. For me this procrastination takes its purest form in "Nextblogging", in which I hit "next blog" for a half hour, take notes on all the painful poetry and teenage angst I read, and then blow another half-hour writing a scathing only semi-humorous post about it.

Another, perhaps even more pathetic form of internet procrastination comes to mind, especially with all the horniness I witnessed in Blogland last night, which would be viewing internet porn while entertaining no chance of fullfilling the sexual frustration resulting from said porn. Of course, I've only heard about this, you understand. I'm married. I got no problems with the after-porn part.

So why do we do it? Why do we blog? Some people like to use the verb form of this totally made-up word --I'll be damned, it is on dictionary.com, in all it's happy little forms of usage. From now one I am going to abstain from using verb forms of "blog." It just sounds a little too much like "crop" or "cropping" which describes what lily-white, sexually frustrated housewives do with their abundant free time. My pictures are in a box in my bedroom, all 6096 of them, and that's where they're stayin'. When the kids want to see what they looked like when they were two they can go through it themselves.

But back to the question at hand, and I promise to try to stick it this time. This is a problem I puzzle over often, even on my blog (I'd link you up to the post(s), but Goddamn if it's only my second cup of tea and I'm too listless to try). I've noticed that many bloggers are single. Are they so empty and lonely that they've resorted to relying upon the meaningless appreciation of strangers? Does anyone really think they'll meet their soulmate on a blog? Maybe they are in it just for the sex-blogs. Or maybe they just don't like to drink alone.

But more importantly, since this blog revolves around me, why do I do it?? I'm not lonely. I found my soul mate at nineteen. And I could really give a rat's ass what others think of me. (Of course that's not true...my emotional well being is completely dependant upon what appears in my commentbox.) I sure as hell don't have to do the whole internet porn thing. I mean, I got satellite tv for crissake. And I have no compunction about drinking alone.

I guess the answer is that I have an obnoxious compulsion on which my entire sense of well-being is hinged. I must write. I write and write and write and write, all day long, most days, much of it fiction, some email, some on this blog, some comments on others.

I read a good piece of advice from someone (his fiction was crap, but his note-to-fans was awesome.) He said, "There is no such thing as an 'aspiring writer.' You're a writer. Period." And guess what? If you blog, no matter how crappy it is, and no matter if you want to someday get paid for putting words down, you are too. You aren't a blogger. You're a writer.

So it all comes down to "Why do we write?" You answer that question, and you've solved one of the great mysteries of the universe. I sure as hell don't know.

And to the squirrel I say, "I know a little mouse who's lookin' to get warm."