the absurdities of dating, life, and other forms of torture

A friend learned I was writing a blog. She wanted to know what it was about.

Sheepishly, I text back, oh, it’s just silly, light and fluffy stuff, you know, about the absurdities of dating, life, and other forms of torture.

And I stopped short – Huh, I like that! I need to remember that for … The Blog!

So does this mean the blogging bug has bit? Cuz I’m like writing down stuff that I am afraid to forget – and not the grocery list or the “fold clothes” or “take shower” notes I write down for myself because I will forget – but little nuggets like that one, sudden thought bubbles about the oddities of experience, that I don’t want to forget – not for myself, but to share?

…Huh. Interesting….

Toto, are we not in Kansas anymore? Has my decade-long writer’s block been broken by giving myself permission to just write about stupid sh!t? Stupid sh!t in an age of deadly serious political savagery and vast and deepening social injustices when I should be too ashamed to laugh at such trivialities? All I needed was TOTAL DISSOCIATION FROM MY SELF? All I needed to write a pseudonym? Polyyanna Savage, you are my hero. You, my pseudonym, make me untouchable. Just as untouchable as that dude over there in his car at a red light picking his nose and looking at it. Behind the car glass – it is GLASS, Dude! – he feels emboldened by the illusion of anonymity to be just who he is! Oh man, he’s going back in for more. Well, you do you, Dude. You do you.

So is this how it’s gonna be? Me finally taking after my father who always had index cards and pen in his shirt pocket (Dad, your pen leaked again!) just so he wouldn’t ever have to forget a good idea for a future academic paper?

Well, cool. I’m okay with that. For Dad, it was writing about Science!, and the Great Tragedies of the Human Condition. For me, it’s writing about Silly Sh!t and the Great Nonsense of the Human Condition.

AKA The Absurdities of Dating, Life, and Other Forms of Torture.

Yeah, OK, the bug has bit.

Amen.