The Martian Has Landed: A Post About Nothing & Everything

...earth to Jane, earth to Jane....

I must confess that I have been a less than constant blogpal lately. I went away and then I came back and somehow I just couldn't work up that much interest. And looking at my stats, the feeling must be mutual. Is it me? Is it thee? I dunno. My SOM* is OK, better 'n OK I'd say--and certainly my alliterative, not to mention rhyming powers are intact. So what gives?

For one, there seems to be an awful lot of babble on the net these days. Blog babble is one thing, but Twitter babble--that's just plumb ugly annoying. You know, we have monkey minds, as the Buddhists say. Thoughts, large and small, important and inane, are forever to-ing and fro-ing through the jungle in our heads, leaping and swinging and making incessant noise. Those who practice Mindfulness (hear monks chanting; smell incense burning) work to quiet that Monkey Mind. So what's with the Twitterers who are gleefully sharing each and every leap and swing, burble and belch with those of us who for whatever reason are their Followers (you asked me; you like me; you really like me). They must be practicing Unmindfulness.

I could work myself into a whole rant about this, but then I'd probably insult people, and, jeeze, that's not something I ever want to do. At least not on purpose. Unless one (the ubiquitous One) has pissed me off. Nah, not even then. I have a sharp tongue, but a soft heart. So, I've turned my Twitter phone messages off. That's what we call "taking care of oneself."

It is also called "taking care of oneself" to only read people and posts that interest me. This is a new tack: formerly I read just about everybody I had ever met or wanted to or thought I should. But it was taking me ages every day to work my way through this one and that one's whatever. In fact, some days it became the One Thing I Did: read every blog on my Google Reader. Good girl. Well done. Go fetch. What I'm finding with my new discernment (is there such a word? there is now) is that the blogs I am really attracted to are those where the writing (a) is really really good, and (b) the writer lets me in to their life. Right now these are the blogs I don't like to miss: Thursday Drive, Mad Marriage, A Walkabout's Weblog. Is it any coincidence that they're all writers? Hmmmmmmmmm? I think not.

*state of mind