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21 March 2012

We Go to Kindergarten ...


... because the editorial we reached five years old. Let's have cake .. pass the Caramel Crunch. That's right, chocolate addicts, none of your brown goo. I am of the tiny minority who regard chocolate as a repellent, mind-altering substance. For once, it's not about you. Not to my credit or anything; we all have addictions. Take whipped cream, for example.
Red hair in Red Shoes

At this stage, many of my colleagues reflect on their growth and goals. I'd rather not because I still don't know if I'm writing for them or for a nebulous family posterity or just for obsessive moi. The blog is a hodge podge—something like my mind—of all three. Cruising the Suez Canal and riding camels apparently induces severe writer's block so I'm thankful we are over that hump for the time being. I'm also grateful for my readers who stick around.

Despite often living in the eighteenth century, I do prefer looking forward than reviewing the recent past where one can only sing always look on the bright side of life. It's just as well my family history books are not being bought up by the carload because all you cousins are contacting me now. If I weren't answering 9,000 emails I could be organizing all that new information. Luckily the incoming contains plenty of fodder for my favourite pastime of analysis and problem-solving.

By some minor miracle my board-certified status was renewed yet again; for the next five years it's a solid island in a turbulent shipwrecked world. Uh no; why that image? An oasis of sanity in my desert. pphhtttt ... you get it.

Like all well-rounded family historians, I have a life outside genealogical circles and don't always eat at my computer admiring other people's blogs. I strictly regulate my time on Facebrick (learning new slang, but actually using it has been problematic) and Google+ (more mature discussions, we say) but it's always a case where time expands alarmingly. I've been known to speak in person to my offspring and made a visit to my hometown this past summer.

I have a garden; a tiny urban garden where I valiantly battle for soil rights with a stupid unreasonable tree that some misguided landscaper plopped in years ago. My volunteerism lurches between a couple of secretary positions and regular deposits to the clothing bank. My political activism went into a coma in 1978 but revives periodically, mainly in defence of my performing artists home against berserk fire department officials and similar outrageous conspiracies for which the resident creative souls require patient exposition.

Furthermore, to prove I have a life, every few weeks I panic to see if my scattered friends remember me so we can talk of books, movies, climate change, health-related crap, that fabulous Jane Fonda, and celebrity chefs. I spatchcock posts into my other blog for occasional relief from all this tension.

If I weren't answering 9,000 emails some of this would make sense and I could spend more time writing.

© Brenda Dougall Merriman, 2012


2 comments:

Kathryn Lake Hogan said...

Greetings Brenda,
Happy 5th Blogiversary!
As for the whipped cream, I understand.
I enjoy reading your blog, and look forward to more posts in the coming year.
~ Kathryn

Jim (Hidden Genealogy Nuggets Blog) said...

Happy blogiversary.

Regards, Jim