TGIF?

For the past two years, I have hated Friday afternoons. I like Friday morning and Friday night, and I like the weekend, but I never feel like doing anything on Friday afternoon.

People are coming for dinner and the house is dirty. I have three new library books to read. I have several projects I want to start, but I don't want to do any of them. I didn't really want to post this either, but now that I've gotten my computer to work I am glad to be here in blog land.

Here's the first question for today: do all you bloggers or readers of blogs see the blogging as more of an escape from the rest of life and society, or as a way to take part in "life" and "society"? Explain. (Can you tell I'm a teacher? What an essay question. Feel free to ignore this or any other question.)

Question 2: Define "blog."

I like my new blog, even though I can't figure out how to put pictures on it OR put google ads on it. But I am trying to figure out what it-- the blog-- is. I feel like it's secret from everyone in my "real" life, even though it's not full of secrets. Maybe I'll send out an email about it to everyone I know so I don't feel like I am starting a second life no one knows about.

I feel like I need a third question.

But I don't have one, so again, only two.

Thursday afternoon...

It's the slow time between afternoon and evening, a time I never know how to fill. No one I want to talk to can talk on the phone yet-- everyone else is still at work or decompressing from work or eating dinner or something else.

Today I went to the library and spent the afternoon reading Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. I worry about death a lot so I though I should make myself read it. I actually enjoyed it. I feel like I know Joan Didion now, although I think she would scoff if she knew that I thought that. I also found myself wishing I could live the life she led-- sort of ironic. Not the part where her husband dies unexpectedly and her daughter battles illness, but all the travel and eating in restaurants.

The whole thing makes me wonder what tragedy will eventually befall me...

So my day inspires three questions:

1. What's the emptiest hour of your day? How do you fill it?

2. What's the last memorable book you've read?

3. Hmmm. I don't know the third question. To be continued. Only two questions.

I have a blog.

According to Newsweek, there will be 100 million bloggers by the end of 2007. I'm doing my part to help the world reach that number.

I have named my blog "Question Air." I thought of it and it made me laugh.

My blog name is "Question." What a cool name. One could name a child Question. It can be a male or a female name! It can also be a command, or an alert that you are about to ask a question, like Dwight on The Office.


I do not know a lot about blogging. I am partly creating this blog because I started reading a friend's blog and I like it. Apparently I want Internet friends.


I don't have any particular slant or purpose for the blog yet. I am a teacher/writer/gardener/wife/catowner/sister/???. Mostly I thought it would be fun to use my blog to ask questions, offer an answer, and see what answers other people add.



Questions are very important in my life lately. I have been pausing to ask myself what I want. I started making a list.


Here's what was on it:


1. a radio in the bathroom


2. a thesaurus


3. to carry around granola bars for the homeless people who ask me for money



4. to make a mix CD for yoga



5. to think about my food before I eat it (kind of like praying, but not. Like thinking, "okay, the people involved in this veggie burger were: the farmers who grew the ingredients, the Morningstar factory workers, the truck driver who took it to the store, the store clerk, my husband who cooked it...)



6. to keep making the list






So far I have the radio in the bathroom and the thesaurus. I sometimes remember to carry the granola bars, but I have yet to give them away. I sometimes remember to think about my food.


I am still making the list, but lots of times I don't write things down. It's a list in my head, or a guide to the day.





So here's my first question for the blog world:

What do you want?