Absence

You'd almost think that I made some kind of New Year's resolution to cut down on my blogging or something given my posting frequency lately. No such thing, though. I don't actually subscribe to the New Year's resolution thing at all, really. But I haven't felt like there's been anything worth writing about recently.

Sure, there's plenty going on in the world, but I continue to find most newsworthy items that I hear about (despite not reading much news, watching TV or listening to the radio) exceedingly depressing. (e.g. the second inauguration, the new Attorney General candidate) And, of course, all that no-news-reading, no-TV-watching, no-radio-listening does generally limit what I'm exposed to.

[As an aside, mentioning my limited exposure to information does make me think about the general importance of having access to information, which leads to the larger thought process about the access to, and the quantity and quality of the information that we get. But that, too, leads to a very long discussion about how the access to and control of information (be it newspapers, books, television, the internet, word-of-mouth, or whatever) shapes perception, knowledge, "the facts." And that, or course, leads inevitably back to politics. And it makes me tired just thinking about thinking about it.

[ As an aside to the aside, the idea that your perception of reality can be shaped by the limited information you have available to you first hit home for me back in high school when I read Robert Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice. It's a point well-taken when the liberal and conservative sides of the Blogosphere are talking about some topic and it seems like they're actually talking about different issues that exist on completely different planets. I think I need to reread it. Especially after reading this synopsis, it seems (sadly) more relevant to current events these days. ] ]

But I think things have also been shadowed by the trip to China. And yet, I haven't been able to get myself to write much about China either. I think part of it is because the trip was so overwhelming that it's hard to know where to start. But it may also have had something to do with catching a cold on the second to last day in Beijing, and then trying to recover from that and the massive jetlag during four straight grey and rainy days (and nights) in Los Angeles. I think I heard something about it being the most rain they've received in recorded history. The camping trip was a bust -- we never made it out because we figured the roads and trails were going to be flooded. I have to admit that I would have liked to have seen Afton Canyon raging with water, but it was probably best to have an excuse to just stay home and rest.

But that break has made it hard to get back into writing. I expect I'll get to it eventually, but right now it's just not flowing.

So I guess this post is just going to be about how I haven't been able to write about anything. Boy, that's pretty embarrassing.