Hello, invisible friends who read my words on occasion. I know it’s been very quiet in here after I made a big and bloviate fuss about relaunching my redesigned website. Visit! Follow! Like! Subscribe! Lurk! Even despise and detest, if you must. You do you, boo.

Just know, I see all the traffic, but not the license plates.

You might think I’ve been struck by laziness and maybe even given up, my aging brain slowly losing the ability to wrangle words into a sparkly thread worth glancing. That might well be true. Maybe I’m randomly distracted by the zombie-making lull of TikTok – the zippy recipe creators, effortless fashion gurus and makeup pros for mature eyelids, taking me hostage as I scream behind duct tape. Falling face first into the dead scroll offerings is always enticing. I’ll admit it, I too am very guilty of this sick addiction and I hate it.

It’s hard to do hard stuff for no particular reason and no pay. It’s like going to Erewhon when you’re achingly famished and then dropping everything you bought in the nearest dumpster. Hopefully someone who needs it, will somehow find it.

I have been writing a lot. More than I have in many years. When I’m not writing, I’m reading books written by highly gifted and acclaimed writers and also books by schlocky, mediocre, but very popular authors – the latter only to see why the masses enjoy their books. Also, the more I read, the more I want to write. It’s a quiet cheerleader that makes you think you could either do much better, or at least hold their train as their talents waft behind them.

I am not posting what I have have been writing because I am stuck in a deep and echoing ravine of self-censoring and doubt. I am achingly bored by what comes out of me. I have been abandoning my clumps of words children at their sitter’s unfurnished one-room studio because its geographically desirable and at no cost to me. It sits at the end of a boring, flowerless cul de sac called Drafts. I will pick up my “kids” from the sitter at some point, but for now they are safe and they know where the dumpster is if they get hungry.

Maybe I should stop reading schlock. It’s not good for me.