Is an apology in order?

I read two blogs religiously: the Yarn Harlot’s blog about knitting and Heather Armstrong’s blog dooce.com. I check in on several others, but not with the same frequency. It is these two writers upon whom I depend for my inspirational “fix”. If a day goes by without a post, I find myself feeling a little, well, irritated. I wouldn’t go so far as to compare these blogs to my need for coffee, but I will say that when there’s nothing new to read, I feel a corresponding dissatisfaction and disappointment.

To compare my own blog to either of these two blogs would be ludicrous, and I understand that completely. However, I have been wondering if there’s a person or two out there who has visited my blog lately and been disappointed that I haven’t posted for a (long) while. Ever since my friend Kell linked me to her own blog, I’ve been feeling guilty about my utter lack of output in the blog department.

There are several reasons for this lack (had a conference paper to write, recent struggle with “writer’s block” leaves me a little insecure about posting, Ch. 2 of my dissertation is due in two weeks) but I think one reason in particular has been especially prohibitive: my self-imposed range of topics.

I originally chose the limits of knitting and writing to avoid the kind of emo-blogging that serves no purpose to the reader. I mean, yeah, some of my posts about writing are a little personal and introspective, but I want to believe that someone out there might have the same hurdles and, in reading my post, would think, “So, I’m not the only one who can’t write because I’ve been reading too much. How refreshing!” I thought having a couple of fairly “light” topics would give me some boundaries.

What I hadn’t considered was the problem of timeliness; that is, lately, my knitting seems redundant (more freakin’ baby hats!) and my writing feels equally dull. The topics that do enter my mind might be considered outside the lines, so to speak. Couple that with a recent discovery that “googling” my own name brings my blog up first, and I’m now feeling like I can only allude to issues of writing that might be worth thinking/writing through. (A recent job search meeting prompted me to determine what might be “out there” in cyberspace—what might be public to potential employers—and how that might reflect on me as a job candidate. I mean, sure, I’m vain enough to google myself for no reason at all, but this time it had a purpose.) As a result, posts like my most recent that allude to issues of jealousy and writing and competition and “how far along are you on your dissertation?” and other graduate student insecurities can only exist in the margins. Right?

Maybe not. I’m not sure. I tell myself that any university hiring team who would read my blog and not hire me because of something I wrote would not be the sort of people I’d want to work with anyway. But don’t we all tell ourselves that? Even as I wrote that line, I felt that I might be lying a little. If, say, the University of Cool Midwestern City cut me from their list for this blog, I’d cry. And then I’d hate myself. And then I’d cry some more.

So, still working through those issues, I guess… But in the meantime, I’ll try to post with more regularity and I’ll continue to (try to) be up front about the personal and political of blogging as I encounter it.