Gingerbread Men, A Thousand Words, and Private Thoughts

Last night my sister and I were walking when we came upon this scene of holiday terror. Observe the gingerbread man face down in the grass. Observe how his side of the of the house has gone dark. And observe, the bright and jolly jubilance of his wife shining brightly over him.

Speaking of tragedies some of you may have noticed that I did not report how many words I wrote in November. I know you all wait in breathless anticipation of such reports, so I apologize profusely for my oversight. Partly it was due to not having time for anything, but partly it was so sad as to only increase my depression by reporting it. But as I'm feeling quite a bit better now after a hefty dose of blissful vacation nothingness, I will finally fess up to the hateful number: 1,158 words. That was my yield for all of November. I wrote more words than that yesterday in less than two hours. The frustrating thing is that I know there was time in November. There just wasn't the mental energy to use it properly. But a large part of me doesn't really accept that as an excuse and has concluded that I'm just lamentably weak. I worry that this will become my life--being too tired to write. But I try to remind myself that my sister now has much more time and energy ever since she graduated from grad school. I will just have to hope that grad school is the culprit and not work in general. In any event, I have gotten quite a lot written over break, though it cannot make up for what I could not write any other time, and while my yield for December will be a lot less depressing than October and November, it probably will not even surpass that of September which is when things all started going downhill in the first place.

Now that I do have a little extra time, though, I find that I am lacking something else. A diary. I did not so much forget to bring my diary as omit it from the packing list because I haven't written in it in quite some time. The whole point of starting this blog was because I'd mostly run out of the sort of private thoughts that I would not wish to share with everyone. But for the first time in a long time I wish I had my diary to confide in. Nothing wrong with all of you, but I suppose every human being gets a little bit of existential angst every few years that is best not shouted merrily across the void of cyberspace. They're the sort of thoughts that you may read over and still be moved by later, or could just as easily be glad that no one else knew they occurred to you at all. It may also simply be a case of missing what I don't have. True, I could write on anything, but there is quite a bit less security on writing one's innermost thoughts on spare bits of paper or even on a computer. I considered writing them in French since very few people I know could read it, and those who could aren't likely to see it if I keep it to myself. But that's slightly more effort than I'd like to put into random mental rambling. I could also buy another notebook but the economical side of me rebels against this since I've already got two unfinished diaries. Also the thought of writing in just any notebook doesn't really appeal to me. Oh well, perhaps I'm just spoiled. One way or another I'll either write them or I won't.

Anyway, I can't exactly make up for the recent lack of blog posts. But I hope this is something for those of you who've missed me. I miss all of you as well.

To all my dear Gilpatricians, it was wonderful to see you all again. It was good to see you too, Eric, if you're reading this. I am sorry to the rest of my Denison friends that I wasn't able to visit. Chalk it up to very limited time and poor planning on my part. But I hope I can come back again sometime. And to any of my friends that I wasn't able to see at all recently, I hope I can see you all again sometime. I hope you all are well and have all had a great holiday and will have a very good New Year.

Friends of the Week: Becky (I think the cat is cute too) and Anonymous (you guys really need to remember to put your names down)

Mom is Mom of the Week.