~shrug~

Jesus. Am I having trouble writing every day. And it sure shows in my lack of traffic and comments. Ouch. I don't remember it being this hard last year. Was it this hard? I know last year I was able to read blogs and write during the day which I can't do now so it's making it very difficult and me sad. It's becoming agonizing sitting here late at night trying to come up with something that isn't painfully lame.

I've been increasingly worn out this week and I'm not sure what it is. Left-over fire evacuation shit? Hormones? I don't know but I'm finding myself unable to hold back tears at the littlest things. I've fucking cried during every episode of Oprah and Ellen I've seen this week. I've misted up in the car listening to the radio, I've bawled at a country music song and blubbered over a puppy in a commercial. I'm exhausted and now a little depressed and I can't stop thinking about a lot of stuff. My brain is tired.

Tonight as I sat down I started 3 different times to post. First I typed up a stupid staccato-type entry trying to be clever. Things like; I have to post. I have nothing to post. But I have to. It was bad. Next I tried writing a pithy little list of what I did today - total snore. Then I erased that crap and said, no, you can't do that to the one person still reading this shit, try something else. So I began writing a poem. A fucking poem. Which I quickly realized was so lame I wouldn't blame people for taking me off their blogroll and I laid on the backspace key like I was trying to squish a bug.

I started again and the words were all blah blah stupid stupid blah and I got rid of those too. So now I'm just going to talk a little bit because I seriously don't have the energy to try and find some humorous or interesting voice to say anything humorous or interesting.

Speaking of which, I've been thinking about my voice for awhile now. Not my actual voice, which sounds awesome inside my own head but like Minnie Mouse in real life. At least I think so. I'm talking about the written voice or an author's personality that translates to a reader and how that relates to the most successful blogs, books, etc., but in this context I'll talk blogs.

It seems that those blogs that get the most attention, and deservedly so, are written by people who are themselves, not trying too hard, just writing what they'd say to a good friend and not someone acting like they're on stage with an audience of strangers who paid to be entertained. A lot of times I feel like an actor trying to project my shtick to someone a thousand miles away. Over-laughing like Tom Cruise and hamming it up like Jim Carey. Those people are good for a few laughs but ultimately become boring. God, how many times can we see that silly face?

I'm trying to figure out my voice. What I should say and how should I say it. I've spent a good portion of my life trying to get a working balance between trying too hard and not trying hard enough and as is my challenge whenever I don't fall into a nice, steady in between it doesn't work and I fail. Or at least I'm not being successful like I want to be and this goes for anything in my life.

I think I was born a little entertainer. I was never a shy kid and didn't have a problem getting up in front of a group of people to talk or sing or do whatever. I got the taste for attention at a very early age and have craved it like crack my entire life. And when I really want it, when I send messages out to the universe that I need it, she answers back loud and clear and teaches me a lesson. Which has taken me a long time to learn to read and is usually painful.

When I want something too much I'm not going to get it. When I need attention too much I might get the opposite of what I'm hoping for, either none at all or the wrong kind. When I'm screaming into a microphone thinking that I'm just using my voice people plug their ears and run away.

So what to do when you've got a lot to say but don't know how to say it? Or you think you know how to say it and it still doesn't work? Or having it work for a few is better than none so just be satisfied with that. Is commonality that important? Because I'm not getting pregnant to join the mommy bloggers. I might want this but I'm not going that far.

But this is exactly what happens to me when I desperately want something. To be an artist, to make someone laugh, to share, to teach, to belong. I know there's another lesson here. I just need to figure out what it is. As for tonight, I'm going to bed.