take two. or eleventy bajillion.

Let's try this again, shall we?

Okay. After all this time of not writing anything in this space, it's really been on my mind for quite a while. It's easier than a paper notebook/journal, seeing as how I can go back and edit whatever I said and there'll be no record of what I wrote earlier. Although it IS kind of neat to go back and re-read journal entries that you scribbled down days or months or years before. (Personally, I always examine my handwriting when I do that, trying to tell if I was in a hurry or if I took the time to form my letters carefully because I consider myself to be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my own script.)

Although-TANGENT-one time, a few years ago, I found one of my old journals from 7th grade and cracked it open to an entry I had written about some crush I had on some boy and I nearly rolled my eyes clear out of my head from the ridiculousness of it all. I vowed then and there to never-NEVER-read any of my previous entries in any of my journals. I have mostly kept this vow.

A few days ago I volunteered to help my boyfriend do some research for an English paper. The paper is supposed to be an ethnography about a subculture-any subculture. (Side note: Why do English professors love to be so vague with the instructions for their assignments? I want an A, you want me to get an A [I hope], so just tell me what you want already, dammit.) So off I went to the local college library at 10:30 on a Saturday morning to look up articles regarding-wait for it-Appalachia.

Oh. Yes. (Side note: SARCASM.)

When I realized that I loved finding obscure articles for an obscure topic, I became a little depressed. Yes, the best part of college is the freedom and the friendships, but for me, one of the best parts was the learning.

That's right. LEARNING. I said it.

I miss feeling the gears of my brain turn, reading for comprehension and details, analyzing texts, figuring out how an article fits into a thesis. When I started finding those articles, it was like putting on my new glasses for the first time: I felt a little woozy at first, but I noticed the trees had individual leaves! On the branches! Not just big blobs of green! What?! That's crazy! Who knew?

Same thing with the articles: I remembered words I hadn't used or read in months, things were making sense, and I kept having one [brilliant] idea after another. It was fricking excellent.

I want to go to there. Again.

Writer's Blockade

Would it be possible to start every entry with "So..."? I think I'd be able to do it. I think it'd be pretty easy--I start out a lot of my sentences with that.

Blogging, for me, has turned out to be a lot like journaling, in that I do it in spurts. Today, while looking around a bookstore at S.O.'s (Significant Other) college, I found the section that housed blank journals. Now, I love blank journals. I love the clean, blank pages that seem to practically beg for my handwriting. I love the fact that I would be the first to write in them. I love that the bindings aren't cracked yet, that the journal is untouched and intact. Most people collect figurines, artwork, or other knick-knacks (like napkin rings--true story); today I decided that I collect journals.

Because of my professed love for new notebooks, it would make sense to believe that I fill up journals as fast as I can, scribbling furiously every day, recording all my thoughts and experiences. FALSE. [Ha!] In literally all of my journals-and I have quite a few-most only have the first 10 to 20 pages filled. I am Absolutely Definitely Distracted (ADD) when it comes to journaling. Distracted by just about everything in life, from the weather outside my windows to phone calls from friends to my runaway thoughts. It's frustrating, because my memory is not that great to begin with, so I'd like to write everything down before I forget it, but I often become preoccupied in the middle of an entry, going off to start or finish a task/activity. Recently I've gotten better at finishing an entry, so that's progress, I guess...but I have still NEVER filled a journal. Ever.

So that's something else I'll work on this year, in addition to becoming a better person. I won't call it a resolution, because I'm afraid I'll feel too much pressure and become bitter and depressed if I don't succeed. Then again, all the better to fill a journal with, right?