Now that the stat counter has plummeted back to normal, the decidedly mixed feelings I have been having about blogging have returned. I like the exercise and the discipline of it, but I can’t shake the feeling that I am little more than entertaining peep show for all but a handful. I am interested in other things besides blogging about my own life exclusively. Politics. Well, not so much but I am incensed about the fact that sexism is sticking me yet again with a self-entitled and smug male. It’s feeling like the Reagan era all over again when I had to listen to people telling me how wrong I was about trickle down economics and deficit spending and that Reagan really wasn’t a doddering old front man for the evil wing of the Republican party. Charisma is the only thing that matters to Americans anymore. It’s why Bill won and Hillary won’t, and the sad thing about that is that she would have left a better legacy than he did. I am also thinking a lot about my writing and what excites me about it and what I am struggling with. I love just sitting and writing. Seeing the words appear on the screen. Watching characters come to life and their stories unfold. Lately I have developed a habit of taking people I see when I am out and turning them into characters for a story I am working on. There was the no-necked cafeteria worker at the Royal Albert Museum and the double chinned woman at the imaging place yesterday. I wrote about them practically on the spot because I always have a little notebook and pen in my purse these days to jot ideas down as soon as I can. And pens. I am writing with pens now when it used to be I could write with nothing but pencils. How odd is that? I remember Will teasing me about my aversion to writing with ink and he wondered why I couldn’t seem to put anything down that I couldn’t erase. I wonder now too and wonder what has changed more – me or my life. Some might argue that it is my life but I am not so sure.