Getting The Funk Out

I'm in a blogging funk.

I keep posting because I need to keep writing, keep talking, but I'm finding it difficult. And I'm finding it even more difficult to venture beyond the confines of my virtual quarters and be neighbourly and friendly and chatty. I wander out into the neighbourhood and hear the chatter and the camaraderie and the friendly debate and am torn between wanting to jump in and wanting to run inside and draw the curtains. I run inside and draw the curtains. I haven't the energy to chat or discuss or pat shoulders. I run back inside and draw curtains and feel guilty.

It's not like there's anything seriously wrong. I've had the flu, sure, and that gets one down. But I've not been facing any real trials, any life-changing challenges. My challenges and trials have been more or less mundane. The thing of it is, I can't write about them.

That conflict with my mom - that I have not been able to write about - was never fully addressed. We called a truce, because my sister is struggling with some terrible challenges - a heartbreaking struggle that I cannot write about - but it remains only a truce. My husband and I are trying to make a decision about a big change in our lives, but we are at loggerheads about how to proceed - and I cannot write about it. Our struggle to negotiate our disagreements on this issue (that I cannot write about) is frustrating me, and I cannot write about that frustration. (Why do we not know how to disagree? Why do we not know how to fight? Does anyone know?)

Blah, blah, blah.

I cannot write about those things, so I write about other things. Britney, physics, the potty (which, for the record, has seen no more action. Wonderbaby insists upon visiting it and sitting on it, bare-assed, with sunglasses, but has not repeated the tinkle of the other day); a review here and there, a lot of mindless gossip - these are easy things to write about. But those posts are just me, talking to myself, chattering away so that I won't feel the weight of heavier things bearing upon my heart. And I can only sustain that chatter on my own, alone, here in my corner. I can't bring it out into the community, because I simply can't just chatter in this community. You all make me talk. Which is good, but. Right now, I don't want to talk.

Does that make sense?

Anyway.

There are a couple of things that I can't and don't want to avoid talking about right now. Breastfeeding, for one. I haven't weighed in on the discussions about Facebook and Bill Maher because - in addition to everything I've said above - the whole thing just makes me mad. There's nothing to argue about. Breastfeeding is natural. Boobs aren't dirty. Anyone who thinks otherwise should be shunned. It's like arguing over whether the Taliban maybe had a point about oppressing women - it's stupid and backward and I thought that we were, as a culture, better than that, or at least, getting better. I was wrong.

So I haven't wanted to discuss it. All I want to say is this: fuck you, Facebook. You too, Bill Maher.

These friends - among many others that I cannot list here, not least because I haven't read them all yet, for reasons noted above - are discussing it more civilly. This friend went so far as to chat with a representative of Facebook. (Facebook, not surprisingly, doesn't really have a satisfactory response. But at least he tried, and was civil. I would have just yelled at them.)

Behold the boob. It is good. If you don't like it, fuck off.

The other thing that I want and need to say is this: even through the fog of all this funk, you are all, always, bright shining lights. The amount of support you have shown for my nephew, and for my efforts to do something, anything, to make a difference in his short life, fills my heart to bursting. Whether you've pledged my walk, or signed up to walk with me, or have staked a duck and a vibrator on raising money for the cause - you've all done so much to sustain my faith that, despite Facebook and Bill Maher and all the many, many other tards out there, the world is full of good.

I'll find some way to thank you all. I really will. Until then: thank you. THANK YOU.

You touch our hearts.

You can still pledge Tanner's Walk, and you are more than welcome to join in if you live in or around Toronto (e-mail me or leave your e-mail for more info). And if you play Kristen's dirty duck auction, you can support the cause and get titillated, all at once. And Facebook need never know.