So Many Obsessions, so Little Time

 

I’ve been tagged by Interstellar Lass to do a post about obsessions. Now this is intriguing because I’m not sure I have any obsessions. I can hear laughing out there…but seriously, I’m really not sure I do.

Well, maybe a couple.

I think we can all agree I’m obsessed with blogging. Who’d a thunk it? Last summer when my buddy, Michael asked me to fill in on  his blog while he was on vacation, I thought, Jeez, blogging? Plus the whole thing made me nervous because it seemed so cliquey. As though it was his private club and I’d be crashing. I didn’t think his fellow club members would be interested in anything I had to say or wanted to write about it.

But he was so persuasive and is a good friend, so I decided I’d give it a try. It was only for a week after all and you can pretty much do anything for a week without gagging. Right? So, off I went. My first post was entitled Cream Boogers. To say I was surprised by the response puts it mildly. Like Sally I thought they like me, they really like me! Then I was hooked.

The week ended quickly and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Within a week I had my own blog. And so it began. I learned about hits and stats and stat counters, and links and photobucket and blogrolls and the whole enchilada. I was a blogger from that day forward. And though I bellyache about it sometimes, I doubt I could ever stop blogging.

I’m also obsessed with chocolate. So much so that I will not be able to get the image of a snickers out of my mind (I’m talking days) until I actually get one. Or whatever chocolate obsession is popular with me that week. I can always find a reason to have chocolate. Always.

Books, love books. Not because I’m a writer, though that doesn’t hurt – but because I love climbing into other worlds and leaving my world behind. I love fiction more than nonfiction, but I’m also nutso about the self-help books, the starting your own business books, marketing books and books about art and artists. I always have at least 30 books in the cue that I simply must read. As well as favorite books I want to reread and try to force on others (can you say, Atlas Shrugged?). My local library has a fantastic second hand book store and sell 5 paperbacks for a dollar and hardbacks for 50 cents to 2 bucks. I’ve even found some rare books there. Who needs Barnes and Noble’s?

Talking. Now, I’m not sure talking really classifies as an obsession since we all have to talk. But I don’t mean chit-chat kind of talking. I mean those deep, philosophical, swift exchanging of ideas that matter. The kind of talking that keeps you at Starbuck’s or on the phone til all hours because you just can’t stop, because really it’s the most fun you can have without taking your clothes off kind of talking. Oh yeah, I can talk until my vocal chords shrivel up.

And last but not least, writing. I have written in one form or another since I could write. As far back as I can remember I have written stories. I have been fascinated with the human condition and putting that fascination into the form of stories or poems. Writing to me has been my mother confessor, my friend, my touchstone, my comfort, my refuge, my joy and my heartbreak. It has always been the way I have processed anything. It is the conduit that has connected or disconnected me from the world. I honestly think that if I ever stopped writing I would die. The body might stick around for a bit but my soul would be as dead as a doornail. It is what and who I am, for better or for worse.

Alrighty then, I think that is more than enough obsessions for one post, probably for the decade. And now, you probably know way more about me than you care to know.

How about you? What are your obsessions? Anybody out there who wants to be tagged, consider yourself tagged. Or just share your obsessions here. You know me, love the chatty comments. Go crazy.

WC

PS: How’s that, Lass?