This is not my beautiful wife!

Well, that is just pathetic.

"Hi, it's July, and I'm going to turn over a new leaf and get back to blogging and..."

"Hi, it's February, and, uh....."

I really enjoy reading blogs, and I enjoy commenting on blogs, I imagine that I enjoy writing a blog myself, but the reality, apparently, is that I enjoy the idea of writing a blog much more than actually doing it. I'm not sure how else to explain it. I have all these grand plans for my own website and my very own domain name and a spiffy, chic design and... for what, again? Talk about the cart before the horse. So, okay, I'm not going to make any predictions. It is what it is, etc.

Part of the problem is that the only time I'm really in front of my computer for any significant stretch is at work. And, frankly, I don't have time to do this while I'm at work (nor should I, says the Work Ethics Angel perched over my left shoulder). And, if I'm really honest with myself, I think I'm afraid. See, in my head (which is not, despite overwhelming evidence indicating otherwise, entirely made of wood), I am funny. Not just funny, I am witty and trenchant and amusingly sarcastic. I am erudite! What comes out of my head, I am afraid, is not so much. And I'm not worried about being bad. Being spectacularly bad at it would be almost as good as actually being all those things I think I am. No, Reader, I am afraid of being average. I am afraid of being boring.

I think a large part of this trepidation is due to the fabulous, funny, brilliant blogs I read every day. I marvel at and appreciate the structure and wit that seems to flow so effortlessly (though I realize many of these people know a whole hell of a lot more that I do about how to actually write -- they even have degrees in it, and whatnot). How can I hope to come up with anything as original and entertaining as these incredibly talented men and women? I'm just ol' Jenny, over here in a corner... And I don't even do anything that exciting! How on earth could I expect to contribute anything new to the teeming, cacophonous wilderness of what's already out there?
So, I realize that's probably looking at the whole blog thing the wrong way (or is it?). I don't have to make a difference. I don't have to be sparklingly fabulous; I don't have to generate a thronging readership of devoted admirers. I don't even have to put anything out there at all, except for me, when I feel like it. I have made my choice, and I choose me!

Besides, I turn 30 this year, y'all. Thirty. Three decades. It's just a number, really, and most of my friends are already beyond that point. My husband is beyond that point. And that number has never really freaked me out in the abstract sense. It doesn't seem old, taken in context. What it does, though, in truth, is make me bewildered. I'm going to be 30. I have had 30 whole years to do something with myself. And, I have, I guess. I'm a lawyer, I do good work (or so they tell me). I have a wonderful family and wonderful friends and a nice house, etc., etc. What baffles me is how I got here. And what did I think I was going to be doing with myself at this point? Is this it? I have no idea! Where's my Nobel Prize and where are my published scholarly works and honorary knighthood, and most importantly, where are my piles of gold bricks and my private Caribbean island paradise? What the hell have I been doing with myself?

Well, I haven't been blogging, that's for damn sure.