The first installment of this was posted on September 14, 2012.

Sometimes I wonder what the heck I’m doing on this blog.

I used to be a writer.

Somewhere inside I may still be.

I used to process the world by writing.

I now process the world by stuffing.

Which is to say I don’t process the world at all.

Instead, I take ulcer medication.

And get referred by a doctor for counseling.

Only who got time for that? Ain’t nobody I know of.

And so I post the easy.

Because it’s easy to answer the “How are you doing?” question with “Fine,” and run away as fast as you can when really you want to say, “Um. I don’t think you really want to know and I’m not sure I want to tell you anyway.”

And being sad all the time about things I can’t control anyway just seems so self-serving. And believe it or not, I do occasionally stop and consider that the things I’m the most sad about are really not all that horrid when you compare it to, say, 200 missing school girls. Because THAT is really a horrible thing and the only thing I know to do about that is be sad. So I add it to my sad list.

And then I drive my 4 school girls around town to choir and drama and art class.

And I don’t really think too much about the missing school girls anymore.

Instead I post the easy.

Thoughts about things that don’t matter? I’ve got them.

Thoughts about things that do? I’ve got some of those too.

But they are buried in some obscure unscheduled counseling session and woe to whomever opens that notebook and starts writing.

The picture above of the driveway dancer by my then-10yo daughter Katie, used to make me sad too. Because chalk on pavement doesn’t last unless…you take a picture of it and frame it and hang it in your living room as a living testament to a desperate plea by a fictional hobbit who says, “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue?”

Because much of the time I feel dead, but then I catch a glimpse of undead and I hope for the same.

When everything sad will come untrue.

Until then, I post the easy.