"Great! Now I have guilt!"

One day in and I've already disappointed the masses. I told you to lower your expectations, but did you listen to me? No, you did not. I'd apologize for not being as, shall we say, verbose as others who do this, but I'm not really that sorry. Quantity doesn't always mean better.

Not long ago while reading over some old journal entries (back when I used to do this in the privacy of my own Word document), I realized I used to write a lot more than I currently do. After some thought, I came to this conclusion - I don't find myself that interesting anymore. I mean really, to go on and on like I used to, for pages and pages - what was I thinking? If I'm bored writing about it, I can't imagine anyone else surviving to the end.

However, I will do my best to use my 30 minutes wisely and not get distracted by other things. No more checking email or Facebook while I'm typing. Just writing.

Some observations from my first "no music" commute:

• You don't have to scream quite so loudly at the other drivers when there's no music to shout over; however...
• What you do shout sounds painfully loud and clear without music to muddy it up. Which makes me cringe a bit more. Which hopefully will encourage me not to shout so much.
• Staying focused will be the trick - with nothing to occupy my mind, it tends to wander about quite a bit. Some centering prayer will help.
• The drive home is much worse than the drive to work, mostly because the persistent rush of the pavement under my tires is quite soothing and after a long day at school I...find...myself...dozing...off...

Looking forward to seeing how it goes for the rest of the time. Doesn't quite feel like a sacrifice at this point, but then this is more about my discipline than sacrifice. At least in my head it is.

I hope you got a chance to see the moon tonight. A sharp, crisp crescent poised to slice open the night sky and let it bleed. Quite beautiful hanging over the snow.

Final dress for Beyond Therapy went OK. Only one blogger showed so not quite the "audience" we'd hoped for, but it's all come together well. And I got some grading done (it's a Lenten miracle!) Per usual, I'm totally wired afterwards, which means sleep, which should be my companion in about 30 minutes, will probably be much farther away. I have a friend who believes my insomnia is tied to my being in plays. And I admit, my sleep patterns do tend to get jacked up during shows. But not sure it's much different than when I'm not in a show - a little more pronounced, perhaps. Couldn't fall asleep until nearly 1AM last night and then was up at 4:45AM, waiting for my alarm to go off. And then I couldn't get out of bed once my alarm did go off and I hit snooze for, well, ever. Someday I'll find a normal sleep pattern. Probably when I retire. Or die, whichever comes first.

OK, so that last little bit was a bit dark. Sorry.

It's usually at this point in my blog that I begin to write about the process of writing and how frustrating it can be (in fact, I wrote quite a few sentences about just that before deleting them and starting over). (And I just deleted some more - really, if I don't want to read them...). This is mostly why I stopped blogging in the first place - I don't have anything of importance to share. Yes, I know, the Buechner quote about talking about our lives and all that. But most of the time I feel I'm pissing into the ocean, hoping to raise the water temperature enough to take a swim (ponder that wonderful metaphor for a while. On second thought, don't). In this day and age of blogs and tweets and status updates and rants, what's one more voice in the din?

Rabbit trail much?

Tomorrow, in accordance with school policy, I will be administering the latest attempt to prove schools (and more specifically, teachers) are actually teaching (or not teaching, as the case may be) our students something. Forget the Ohio Graduation Test - that's so last decade. Here come the "end of course exams," designed to standardize learning and measure not simply how much a student knows, but also how much they have learned from year to year. Because as we all know (because we're told over and over and over and over and over again), all of the problems in the United States - the bad economy, the crime and violence, the crumbling social networks, dogs and cats sleeping together - can be traced back to our students not taking enough standardized tests. If only we could objectify...er, I mean...objectively prove students are learning, then we could live in the glorious utopia pastors, politicians and ETS wonks promise lies just beyond the the horizon. So grab your scantron and your number two pencil and join me as we lead...

Bleah. I can't even get up the energy to continue to be snarky.

See, half an hour has already passed and I'm not sure this is any longer than the last one. And I'm sure it's no more meaningful. Maybe someone should have made reading my blog their Lenten practice - it may be more of a sacrifice to do that than it is for me to write it. Time to go put on my nightly charade of pretending I'm going to fall asleep any time in the next 60 minutes. Or maybe I'll try and start watching my latest DVD from Netflix: Anvil: The Story of Anvil. Nothing like some hair metal to send you off to sleep.

Sorry for the lack of deep thoughts. Maybe this weekend. If you're lucky...

Æ