Kvetch Kvetch Kvetch

Wow. Would you look at that .. the last time I wrote on my blog was a month ago. Tch. Right? Or how about: tsk. I feel like a loser for not writing every day like Marc Harshbarger at http://marcharshbarger.blogspot.com/?zx=4cea80a58473411e

or for not writing well thought out and researched stories of celebration like Richard Skipper at
http://richardskipper.blogspot.com/

I mean, everyone has a blog these days. There are blogs about show business, politics, marriage, knitting ... and I look at all of them (that I know about, that my friends write, that interest me) .. my friend Josh writes a special blog in tribute to Pitbulls

http://thattouchofpit.wordpress.com/

that is just lovely. So there they are, all of them, out there, waiting to be read. Blogs, blogs, blogs.

So who gives a shit if I don't keep up with my blog the way I think I should?

Besides, my blog doesn't really have any real focus. Some days it's about health and fitness, some - show business. Then there are the occasional extremely personal confessions about my alcoholism, manorexia, battles with depression and low self-esteem ... absolutely none of which are meant to solicit sympathy -- only to share experiences that might help light the way for other people dealing with similar issues. So. Why does it matter that I took a month off from writing?

Why did I take a month off from writing, anyway?

Well - I have a job. I have a family to support and I work. A lot. I also run our household (with a fair amount of help from my husband, I admit) and run an internet auction business in my spare time. And then there is the rather large family I have that, frequently, requires my attention and help. Finding time to write can be complicated. And all these reasons were factors in my non-blogging. But I am going to confess the real reasons I took a week off.

I read one of my stories.

God, it was SO boring!

Oh, yeah, that's it. I started a series of entries about my dangnab eating disorder and I was fucking blogging my workouts and daily eating!

How. Boring.

THAT had to GO.

A few years ago, a friend asked me "why don't you ever talk to me about your problems?" She went on to say that she noticed how often she came to me to talk about the woes of her life but that I NEVER told her about the woes in my life. I didn't have the heart to tell her: the reason I didn't talk about my problems was because I never wanted to be, to anyone, what she was to me. I believe we all know Moaning Myrtle. Or her cousin, Debbie Downer. For some of us, it's that Lillipution from the Gulliver cartoons of the 70's: "ooooh, noooo, we'll never make it... ooooh, how aaaaaawful...." Do you know that person? When you are with them, it's all doom and gloom. You ask how are you and they unload 10 minutes of medical, financial, personal, romantic, sexual, social and workplace woes on you ... and the next time you see them, you great them with a simple "You're looking well!" before scampering away.

No lie, I was that person. I was a teenage drama queen, sulking in the corner at parties; I was a college drama queen, coming to class drunk. I was a drama queen in my 20s - but a drama queen without focus, so instead of just being a gossip or a ho-bag or kvetch or a bitch, I did a sort of all-encompassing kind of drama queen-ship. Then, in my 30s, with the gorgeous situation of being a fat failure, I was the drama queen known as The Blob. Happily, though, by the time I turned 40, I had come to recognize and appreciate the beauty of stability, of peace and of quiet,and the strength of not boring people with your shit.

I know a woman who went through a divorce a few years ago. In the years since she left her husband, each and every (and I mean EACH and EVERY) time I have seen her the question 'how are you' has been met with a steady stream of oversharing that seemed to start with her bowel movements and conclude with the misery of her marriage. Conversely, each and every time I have seen her ex husband, the question 'how are you' has been answered with something along the lines of "fine!".

Discretion is the better part of valour is a phrase that comes to mind.

I read that boring entry about what I ate and the damage it did to my waistline and I went to the bathroom mirror and said to the man in the mirror " why, Stephen Sadsack, how awful to see you" and I flushed that motherfucker down the toilet.

Look, I thought I could help people by talking about my issues. Recently, though, I came to a kind of realization: people cannot be helped. They have to help themselves. Just like I had to help myself away from the buffet and back to the gym; just like I had to help myself away from the whiskey and to a glass of water; just like I had to help myself away from being a drama queen and make myself a productive member of society.

So I'ma try (TRY) to not use my blog to whine and piss and moan (the way those people on our Facebook friendlists use their status updates to heap their boring ass, overshared, miserable, malcontent grievances on an unsuspecting Facebook community) and I'ma try (TRY) to use my blog to entertain. Maybe I will write the stories of my family's associations with Mae West and Edith Head. Maybe I will write about how I almost went into the porn industry. Maybe I will write stories about the movies and theater I love. Maybe I will write about the relief I feel about dodging an addiction to crystal meth; or maybe I will write about the all male group grope I went to in the Empire State Building. Who knows?

But the one thing I do know is this:

I can't bring myself to write boring shit anymore. Nobody wants it and nobody needs it; and I can't be the guy responsible for bringing it.

Not anymore.