One of several resolutions I have made this year is to write more frequently -- here or on paper, it doesn't matter as long as it's done. I hate that I let myself become so complacent about writing, as if it meant nothing to me. As if it were something small and cheap I could afford to squander, not the one thing that defined me. But maybe that is telling of my life lately, and certainly more than I care to contemplate today.

In any case, the weather is perfect for writing this afternoon, the sky one gigantic swirl of gray cloud. Little raindrops glide down the branches of the trees, and leaves spin in puddles, and the faint wind carries a distant rumbling of thunder. Add patches of daffodils and it would be a very Welsh landscape, something to gaze upon while scratching out poetry. Yes, I think that is what I will do, regardless. And if anything worth posting appears, I will add it later.

"Once tagged by this entry, the assignment is to write a blog entry of some kind with six random facts about yourself. Then pick six of your friends and tag them; no tag backs. This explanation should be included."*

1. In a little less than a week, I'll have taken the final exam for my master's program. This both thrills and terrifies me.

2. I still don't know what I want to do with my degree. I've applied for random jobs here and there – a research department assistant with the U.S. Supreme Court, a writer/editor for the F.B.I. – but I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm in the wrong field. I guess only time will tell.

3. Yesterday I realized I haven't written a short story or poem for close to three years. I'm surprisingly OK with that.

4. I'd like to move to some chilly metropolis; I'd like to rent an apartment overlooking a landscape of steel and lights.

5. Happiness these days does not last nearly long enough.

6. I'm lying through my teeth about what it really means to me – but I'm so afraid of losing it that it doesn’t matter one way or the other. If this is all it'll ever be, it'll have to be enough.


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*Anyone who'd like to participate is welcome to do so.

I go so long between postings now that every new one necessitates an explanation. I wish I could lie and say I've been journaling elsewhere, hoarding stories on scraps of loose-leaf under my bed. But the truth is that when I write these days, I do it for things too mundane to even warrant mention. I write because I am told, or because my paycheck depends upon it. I never dreamed it would come to that, but it has. What I once loved more than anything else has suddenly become this small, neglected habit. I can't even speak about it with resorting to the past tense. And if I've strayed from here lately, perhaps that's why.

Life is so odd. One year you're certain you'll be doing one thing or living in one place or loving one person forever, and the next you're on to something new. I don't know how I feel about that. Unsettled, I suppose, but perhaps a little encouraged, too. If this dry spell is only a phase, it can't last much longer.