Not actually dead

Anonymous asked me a little while ago (April!) Whether I'd stopped blogging... and the answer is yes and no. I've been meaning to blog for the longest time and isn't it the thought that counts? no? okay then well here I am in the fleshy flesh. At the time of Anon's question I had a really good post and damned if I can find it now. Damn you real life for getting in the way. It's almost 6 months since my last post and to be honest I haven't been faithful to my paper diary either so it's sulking just as much as you. I had too much real life emotional stuff going on that I couldn't commit it to paper or this electronic paper so I hope you forgive me for both indiscretions. My paper diary did so, so should you because I do intend to blog here a little more often than 6 monthly intervals. I mean I'm living out my own pet peeve - interesting blogs that have these sporadic boring ass updates (and yeah I'm tootin my own horn with the "interesting" toot toot!)

And wouldn't you know it I just found the inspiring bit I wanted to post:



dammit how did that get in there... that's not what I meant - what I really meant was this speech:

> SPEECH BY ANNA QUINDLEN
>
> This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen
> at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was
> awarded an Honorary PhD.
>
> "I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't
> ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here
> this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be
> hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be
> thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will
> be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your
> particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk or your
> life on a bus or in a car or at the computer. Not just the life of your
> mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also
> your soul.
>
> People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier
> to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort
> on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when
> you've received your test results and they're not so good.
>
> Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried
> never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no
> longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen.
> I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make
> marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and
> them to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today,
> because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and
> I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre, at my job if
> those other things were not true.
>
> You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you
> are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life,
> not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the
> larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if
> you blew an aneurysm one afternoon or found a lump in your breast?
>
> Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on
> a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a
> red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with
> concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first
> finger.
>
> Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who
> love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the
> phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are
> generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you
> have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its
> goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have
> spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big
> brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good
> too, then doing well will never be enough.
>
> It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes.
> It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids' eyes, the way
> the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again.
> It is so easy to exist instead of to live.
>
> I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the
> destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today
> is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the
> world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it,
> completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling
> others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of
> the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with
> the sun on your face.
>
> Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if
> you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived".

So I hope you're all okay out there in blogland and I do honestly mean to post more often than every 6 months.... stay tuned mkay?