Excuses? Excuses!

Hey Blog! Don't you look a little rusty and ignored like a pop can collection stored in a flooded basement?

Why the temporary abandonment? Well, a variety of reasons, readers. (All two of you. I love you both!)

• Christmas holidays - Although they arguably provided me with more time, people were home visiting and I preferred to completely overdose myself on holiday cheer in hopes of 'needing a social break' in January. It has never worked in previous years. Nor did it work this year. Instead, I have come to expect to be busy/eating all the time and get confused and unhappy when I have a free hour or twelve.
• Lost - You know that popular television show that aired for six seasons? During it's first season I was living in Scotland (aye) and although they started airing it in January 2005 (aye!) I didn't watch it (sad, aye) as I got in the habit of not watching television there because, well, it kinda sucked (super aye!!). I didn't watch season two as I was living in Florida and watched television even less there than in Scotland. The only channel I knew was the "What's on tv" channel (a good one to know, if one knows only one). I didn't watch season three because I just didn't, and by that point I felt too far behind and was busy having a lot of "Ugggggggggggh, I just moved home from Florida and I miss fireworks and cheapness and my friends and feeling warm" pity parties for myself. Finally, I saw the last Lost episode as a friend was having a viewing party. I did some homework before I went so I could at least enjoy it and know a bit about the key characters, and determined it was probably a show I would had enjoyed. A little over a year later I see the DVDs for Lost, season one, sitting quietly at the library. Of course, they have to sit quietly at the library for if they were loud, they would be asked to leave. I finished season one right before leaving on holiday in October and spent some of Christmas break battling a cold (battling = an excessively dramatic verb for something so minor) and watching season two. Now I have season three from the library (yes, it was also sitting quietly) and, well, am kind of getting sick of tv and Jack (aka Matthew Fox aka Party of Five character all grown up). However, given that I have the season rental for only a week, it's a lot of television commitment that has greatly reduced internet time over Christmas break and early January. Also, because I couldn't remember Matthew Fox's last name, I googled it and found this link quite quickly and had a nice chuckle. More also, I never watched Party of Five.
• Laptop - It's aging, takes a long time to turn on, has temporary freezes (I like to call them rest breaks) when doing complex things like opening a new tab, and stays a few words behind when typing something. So less laptop usage as less (laptop working well) = more (waste of time watching the hourglass cursor mock my efforts at productivity).
• Dating someone - Lately, I mostly just make him watch Lost with me. I'm sure he's thrilled with how our relationship is developing and how special our time is together, particularly as he has already seen the whole series. Only 2.5 more seasons to go! (=approx 60 hours of television as some extras must be watched, and if I recall correctly, the series finale was 13 hours long.)
• Work - Work was really, really busy right before Christmas. Intensely staring at a laptop screen all day makes me less likely to wish to intensely stare at it all evening.
• Trying to go to bed earlier - I tried three times. Didn't work.
• Twilight - For one week I read the first Twilight book. I haven't finished it yet because.... well, because I lost interest. The book is inefficiently written and things drag ooooout foreeeeever. Also, I couldn't help but laugh every instance 'beautiful' was written because it made me think of this by the Oatmeal. (Go read it, it will bring you laughter and possibly closure to lingering problems and issues from your childhood.)
• Lack of Bike Love - Although I don't write much in the peak of summer (all four days of it) because I don't understand the concept of indoor activity during that time, I (safely) daydream when I bike, increasing the probability that I'll think of something decent to send to the Internet.

That's all. This chunk of writing is all about not writing. Next time I will write about New Year's resolutions. Last year I wrote about giving up chocolate for a year (I was a little drunk post-levee and apparently full of terrible ideas). Of course, I meant a year as observed by a small village in Papau New Guinea that lasts for only a few weeks. Based on their calendar, I was very successful and am now a hero. This year I will not give up anything because it's a leap year. That one extra day without insert unhealthy thing could cause a dramatic, irreversible ripple in the sensitive space-time-water-earth-wind-fire-heart continuum. I don't want to put us all through that. Destroying your soul makes me sad.