I love it when I login to WordPress and people have been coming to my blog even though I haven’t written anything in what seems like ages. It makes me feel just a teensy bit less unfamous.
Oh, wait. I hath violated the code. One shall never apologize for not posting, nor shall one explain or make any mention of any lack of posting. I know this because the one blog conference I’ve been to (which makes me A Real Live Official Professional Blogger Whom You Should Unequivocally Trust kind of like playing a doctor on TV makes Neil Patrick Harris The Dude I Would Go To For an Appendectomy) told me so immediately upon the start of the very first session.
Obviously, they failed to tell me that Angry Kissy Face is flattering to no one over the age of six months old or that bra straps will kill the look of your tank straps under your off-the-shoulder shirt, because that would have been helpful advice. Not this “never explain your absence” crap.
Anyhoo. I haven’t been around. Wanna know why? No? Tough.
I’m back in school. I know, I know, I know. I am already horribly over-educated and underpaid and still hold the title, so far as I know, as the only Emmy Award Winning Massage Therapist in The Carolinas which means, of course, that I’m going back for my Bachelors in Mobile App Development. For Pete’s sake don’t tell my father because his eye-roll will be violent enough to tilt the earth off of its axis and his bellow loud enough and strong enough to extinguish the sun. So, you know, not just for Pete, but for ALL of our sakes, it’s a DL kind of thing, this going back to school. Unless, of course, he somehow reads this in which case, HI DAD! I’m good! I promise! You’re not paying for it this time! Wahoo! And, yes, I’m blogging about you, but I love you and I adore you and…and…and…
December 21, 2012 passed, what, two and a half months ago? And, let me tell you, I was CERTAIN the world was ending. POSITIVE. Why?
Exhibit A: My father was pleased when I told him I was now selling Mary Kay. Truthfully, though, that shouldn’t be that huge of a shock. (The him being pleased thing, not the me selling Mary Kay. That should be a ginormous shock.) The man has been trying to get me to wear lipstick once in a while for the past 20 years.
Exhibit B: My 19-year-old niece got engaged and my father did not flip out. He was, actually, almost, dare I say it, pleased? Sure, we all love the fiancé, but she’s 19 and he’s 20. My nephew got a rather infamous lecture while trapped in a car with my father when he got engaged, and the kid was 26. My sister’s husband wasn’t sure if my dad liked him for the first 5 years of their marriage. Needless to say, that alone just about sealed the deal that THE APOCALYPSE WAS NIGH.
Exhibit C: I spent most of the day embroidering. On a sewing machine. To handmake a Christmas gift. Is that not enough?
Exhibit D was the kicker, though: My father wondered, out loud, in front of witnesses, why I wasn’t writing. I honestly thought that was the moment the skies would open up and the aliens would take us all away because, surely, he had already been abducted. He was stunned that I had never pursued it as a career. “You’ve always loved it, and you’ve always been so good at it,” he said. As I sat there stunned. And immediately (well, the next day because I was Simply That Stunned that I had to take time to digest it, tweeted that stunnedness.
Of course, there’s a little bit of a sticking point there as, when I tweeted my amazement, TPO threatened to call him and tell him I was writing a blog all about HIM and asked for his number to which I flippantly replied, “1-888-BUTT-OUT,” which apparently wasn’t nearly as funny to her as it was to me, and I still feel guilty about it. But this isn’t about me. Or TPO. It’s about my father. (No, it’s not, Dad. I’m not talking about you. I promise! {bats eyes innocently} Here. Go take a gander at DEVONThink for all your data organization needs! Nothing else to see here.)
Actually, it’s not even about my father. It was that he was the fourth person in three days to tell me I should be writing. And each time I would think, “Well, you know, that’s all well and good, but I picked the Mobile App Development over the Masters in Creative Writing because, dude, so not smart enough for a MASTERS in CREATIVE WRITING.” Honestly. You see all my best ideas here on this blog, the three of you who read (and apparently check up on me religiously). And, also, as Masters in Creative Writing sounds about as useful as a major in Broadcast Communications which never remotely helped me get a job, and certainly not a job as a massage therapist.
Last month, though, in my extended absence here and my absolute absorption into the jolly old time that was learning JavaScript in four weeks, I learned more about time management. Which is why I’m completely neglecting my current, due tomorrow, assignment to come here and write. Because four people said I should do it three months ago. And because, dammit, I miss it.
And because I need content because I’ve signed up for another blog conference where the first thing they’ll tell me, I’m sure, is to never acknowledge long, awkward silences on your blog.
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