Blog Drift
For lots of blogs, the events of this past Tuesday have become their sole reason for being. Partisanship, a deep passion for misreprenting the positions of the other side and maybe just the tiniest bit of unrequited and unquenchable sexual hunger for CNN's Jeff Greenfield were the fuel that drove many a blog over the past 6, 12, 18 months.

And now that the electoral climax has come and gone, it's reasonable to suppose the alot of the blogging impetus has faded and all many political bloggers will want to do is roll over and get some sleep before the glow fades and the Republican Party decides they want to cuddle.

Faced with the prospect of the blogosphere going quiet, some blogs drying up and blowing away altogether, I can't help feeling anything but... hopeful. Thank God, I say. Leave blogging to people who know what they're doing so we can get back to the serious business of cataloguing what we eat for breakfast, the local weather, the strange things our dogs eat and then subsequently vomit up and the boogers of our children (what up, SJ!).

Some order is returning to the universe of the terminally inward. It's high time we stopped thinking and worrying about the thoughts and proclivities of others and again focus exclusively, obsessively on ourselves. That's what we all got into this blogging business for in the first place, isn't it?

I know I did. Well, that and the groupies.

The shift from electioneering to personal trivia doesn't have to be traumatic, either. It can be subtle and slowly. After all, why quit cold turkey when there's lots of perfectly good methadone available?

For instance, take me. As I wallowed in the sewer-iffic depths of disappointment and self-pity following the election, where others turned to Johnny Walker Red or dusted off their old hash pipes, I threw myself with some gusto toward the comfort food.

Lots of really fantastic stuff like Frosted Flakes with banana slices, carne asada tacos with tomato, onion and cilantro, sloppy joes, McDonald's fries... lots of other stuff.

Most helpful has been the ready availability of my kids' Halloween candy. I'll put away 6, 7, 8 pieces at a sitting, a couple of sittings per day. It's a very horse-and-feedbag type of experience. I worry somewhat about setting an example for my kids as they watch Daddy lick the inside of a used Reese's Peanut Butter Cup wrapper, but I comfort myself knowing that when I'm into it, there's no way in hell the little grubbers are going to touch my candy bag and they are therefore protected from the perils of gluttony.

As my martial arts class has been in limbo for the last month (it starts again Monday), the combination of lots of quality Ass Sitting time with my new hobby of chewing and swallowing anything and everything within arm's reach, Pops is starting to get a little paunchy. By "a little paunchy" I mean I'm sitting here typing this in my wife's maternity clothes. Not the girly stuff, but just a plain black cotton/lycra blend top and elasti-pants (with stretchy gut-panel!) to comfortably accomodate my improving girth. Not really sure why she complained about wearing it when she was pregnant. It's very forgiving and the black is slimming.

If I were still being civic minded, I would worry more about this. It seems that great big fat Americans are costing airlines millions in extra fuel expenditures. It turns out we're so grotesquely obese as a people, we're actually weighing down the airplanes we fly on and driving up costs.

But forced to choose between making the world a better place or eating seven snack-sized Snickers bars because the mood has moved me to do so, I choose the latter. Because I am an American, the (and I mean this in terms of literal mass) greatest people in the world.

See, it started election-related, but it ended up being all about me. If I can do it, you can do it too. Probably not as well, but don't beat yourself up about that. I'm special.

Wow, it's like riding a bike.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.9


Pops

- posted by Pops @ 9:42 AM