Planning Ahead

Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few

I try to write my posts at least one day ahead so I can give them time to ferment.  I proofread them before final posting in an attempt to insure (or ensure or assure) I don't sound too much like an idiot, haven't made some atrocious grammatical error or totally misspelled everything in the blog.  All of that is for naught, because no sooner than I click "publish post" and I find 14 errors and realize that nothing I have written actually makes any sense.  I will go back and correct spelling or truly gross grammatical faults, but once it's published I don't try to change the content of my post.  That would pretty much defeat the purpose of writing this fool thing, if there actually is any purpose.


I would like to get several posts ahead, particularly for days like today.  It's raining again.  We still haven't gotten the roof replaced.  My head is splitting and my brains feel like mush that is slowly seeping out my ears.   And, I am being serenaded by the steady and incredibly annoying plink, plonk, plunk as the drips from the ceiling hit the bowls I set under the leaks to keep from drowning the carpet.  It's a very radical decorating scheme for those of you with avant-garde leanings.  If it continues to rain as often as it has lately, I don't have a clue when we will be able to get the roof replaced.   I don't look forward to that time anyway.  I mean seriously.  Would you like to be trapped in a house with a flock of humanity walking overhead, banging with hammers and such, and three dogs barking constantly because they want to play with the roofers?


But, try as I might, I don't get ahead.  I will publish this post tomorrow, but there won't be another on standby.  I'll have to create another tomorrow to post for the next day, so why don't I just write them and post them all on the same day.  Because, I don't have faith in my ability to communicate.  When I started writing this blog, I said to myself, "Okay, just write what you are feeling.  No one's gonna read it anyway, so it doesn't matter what you write.  Get it outta your system and make yourself feel better."   But now, I care whether anyone reads it.  I care whether it is sensible and well written.  And it does make me feel better, but I think I've gotten a bit of an addiction to it.  I'm having fun writing it, but I shouldn't try to be philosophical on days when it is raining.  What a stupid life, having to mold my existence around the weather.


At some point I am gonna have to pick a direction and go with it.  I don't know if that will work though.  Sure I published those Navy stories sequentially, but nothing else is in any kind of order.  And I haven't finished with the Navy; I've merely set it aside until ... until ... well, I don't know until when.  Some bloggers have an editor.  Do I need an editor?  If so, what does the editor do?  Do I have to pay this person?  If so, then it isn't likely there will be an editor because disability benefits don't go very far.  Should I try to be funny?  I think I'm more than a little weird and view the world differently than most people, but I don't think I'm a comedian.  I would like to write like Erma Bombeck, or Dave Barry or Andy Rooney, but to me it seems they are all so much more clever.  I'm not a curmudgeon but often I am more than a little bit cynical.  I really don't think I should "try" to be anything other than who or what I am, but sometimes that person is really boring.


Ah well.  The weekend is coming.  The Breeder's Cup races are being telecast this weekend.  We enjoy horse racing and have attended the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore almost every year since 1977.  Tim and his father used to own horses and kept them stabled in a barn that has recently been transmogrified into Tim's back yard.  The barn, the horses and unfortunately Tim's dad are gone.  But, Bud and I will go over to Tim and Ann's tomorrow to watch some of the races, cook (not me or Ann, but you already knew that), eat, drink, and all the other things we do on a typical weekend.  That means I probably won't write anything tomorrow after all, and maybe not Sunday either.  There's no law that says I have to post something every day.


Maybe I'll wait until some day I feel particularly prolific and just spend a whole day writing.  Then I'll have a few stuck away in the nooks and I can pull them out on rainy days.