Another Great Epiphany

I cleaned the kitchen today. I don't believe I have done so since the last time I blogged about it, which tells you two things: 1) I don't clean the kitchen very often, and 2) When I do clean the kitchen, it is apparently an extremely blog-worthy event. The thing is, after working on work-work for another 2-3 hours today, cleaning the kitchen was a welcome break. And I do a lot of blog-thinking while scrubbing the countertops, so it has helped me break through my blog-block.

Maybe I should clean the kitchen more often.

One thing that happens while cleaning the kitchen, for me at least, is that you learn a thing or two about yourself. Today, for example, I realized that despite having two college degrees and being married and holding a professional job for many years and supporting myself for almost 20 years now, I still do not know how to clean my oven. Please understand, this is a self-cleaning oven we're talking about. The thing is, we got the oven (barely, gently) used, and it came with no instruction manual. Not a big deal. Usually I do not require a manual to use the oven, or the stove either, for that matter. Basically, you turn it on to the required setting and cook. However, this is one of those new-fangled digital thingies where you have to program in the cleaning mode. Without the manual, I am lost. Granted, there is a button on the menu board of the oven clearly marked "Auto Self-Clean." But what do I do with this button? Do I simply close the oven door, press the button, wait until the timer goes off, and then presto, pristine oven? Or do I have to pour some cleaning fluid into a secret chamber, like they have on dishwashers (so I hear--I do not have a dishwasher)? Do I need to spray it down first with some self-cleaning oven cleaning solution? I truly have no idea. Of course, this is one of those things about which I could easily ask somebody (almost anybody, I suspect), or I could look it up on the Internet. The problem is, this is not an issue I think about at any other time other than when I'm cleaning the kitchen, which, as we've already established, is not often. Therefore, it is not An Important Issue In My Life. As a result, I have never cleaned the oven (any oven, actually), and I probably never will. And I'm O.K. with that. Things could be worse. Besides, I don't really trust a completely clean oven anyway--it's like a skinny chef.

The first casualty of stress . . .

. . . apparently, is blogging. For a variety of reasons, I have been pretty stressed out lately. I can't really get into details--it might upset certain people, and there's always the possibility of getting dooced. (To get dooced: to lose one's job after bitching and/or saying "inappropriate" things about said job on one's blog.) Let's just say that I don't exactly love my job these days. In fact, it's Saturday morning and I'm getting ready to work right now, which makes me love my job even less. It helps a bit to read articles like this one and smile and nod a lot, but the stress remains nonetheless.

Which is why I haven't been blogging much. Many times I have pulled up the blog screen and stared at the white space (the writer's modern-day equivalent of the blank sheet of paper in the typewriter), harboring great intentions. Then I start thinking about everything I'm stressed about. Then I go into the tank. (This is a poker term for deep thinking.) Then 20 minutes somehow go by, and I realize I have completely lost all grasp of whatever it was I was going to write about. (All the writers out there are smiling and nodding. Aren't you?) The sad truth is, I have blogger's block.

The strange thing is that when I was younger, I wrote more when I was stressed out. In fact, the more stressed I was, the more I wrote. All that young angst, you know, just pouring out, in journal after journal. I guess that part's not so strange. But I don't keep a journal anymore--I have not done so since the incident. And of course, although we often refer to blogs as online journals, they are so not. The difference between the private versus public nature of each medium is vast. Unless you have a secret blog (which some people apparently do), your blog is definitely not a journal. Granted, some people have fewer qualms than others about airing their personal shit in public, and people have various degrees of sensitivity about hurting other people's feelings. Do I know where I'm going with this? Not really.

See, even now, I'm thinking about the work I should be doing and not concentrating on the blog. I really need to snap out of this.