In the final hours of my 28th year, i contemplate my paltry blog and feel vaguely obligated to make a new post. The long pauses between postings speak volumes about unresolved conflicts:
As i divide my time between the banal interrogation of falsely modest personal demons, my "careers" (paid work plus largely unpaid creative and intellectual work), the ongoing recalculation of viable & sustainable degrees of involvement in activist/solidarity work and attending to my individual and relational well-being, it seems the same kinds of questions come up in all spheres:
What am i doing? (What is the nature of the projects i'm engaged in?)
Why am i doing it? (What is the purpose: for whom and/or what parts of myself am i doing it?)
What is this blog for/about?
Its inconsistencies, the shifts in style and content are a surprisingly accurate reflection of the tensions in my mind between different needs, desires, goals, visions, whatever. Between different ideas of who i am (and/or who i wish to become / again).
Thinking of Bridget Jones' Diary (to me, a film - though i'm sure the usual caveats about transmediation apply; maybe if i finish all these, i'll get around to reading the original) as well as having seen it done by friends in their admirable blogs, it occurred to me to infuse this entry with some data that might serve as a representative sample of my year:
Bachelor's Degrees earned: 1
Grad school applications rejected: 1
Concerts attended: lots
Concerts performed: 0
Songs included in compilations: 1
Poems published: 1
Visits with my Grandad in Florida: 1
Old friends rediscovered: several
Funerals attended: 1
Weddings attended: 2
Car accidents: 1
Collage parties thrown: 2
Lobsters eaten: 2.5
Brief bilingual speeches at protests outside the Mexican consulate: 1
Tattoos: 1
New languages studied: 1
Episodes of Star Trek TNG watched: all
Happy Birthday to me!
And to all of the blogosphere: yeehaw!
