Night Shift Lullaby

On days like today, I just don't know if I have anything left for cyber space.

Back in the day, aka, before I lived in Chicago, I liked to blog as much as possible. I liked skimming through news wires and scouring websites for things to read and ruminate on and write about. I liked to imagine that these things I jotted down would somehow start revolutions in small towns like Lewistown and Lake Geneva. I liked communicating, even if it was only to a few friends. I liked to write for the sake of writing, all else be damned.

Now, I can't decide. I've been reading so much about so many things lately that the actual thinking takes place so fast that I move on in minutes. Not nearly enough time to sit down and write about them. But mostly, I just want to talk about things with real people. Like my roommate, or neighbor friends, or people I work with. I'm tired of these endless internet conversations. Idle chatter. Vague witless posturing. Blah blah bitty blah. I'm doing it again. Right now. As I type.

I was reading an article in a magazine recently about how voice software and podcasts could be the deathknell of the printed, written word. As if Gutenberg's little project was only a blip on that great big radar of fads. And mostly, it made me want to stand up and tell the magazine to fuck off. So I did. (Well, not the standing up part, that would have been a bit too dramatic, I think.)

Thing is, I don't want there to be an end to the written word. Especially the printed word. I want to be true to books, thick with worn paper and familiar smells, for as long as we both shall live. I want words of mine, to find themselves onto those pages someday. Pages with bindings, and engraved title pages, and fonts not seen 1874.

And there I go again. On so many different levels.

No big truths here. No lessons to live by. No advice for future newlyweds. No parting shots or words of wisdom. Just these things.

Besides, lessons are overrated. And points do more to hide the truth than they can ever hope to reveal.

As for you and me, let's talk again. Or at the very least, write letters.