The Ruins of Sodor

We’re getting rid of the train table. Their favorite toys were those trains, and now they just don’t play with them anymore, and they sit in my office unused. We had all those trains memorized too, from Thomas to Culdee; I wish I kept as many names of acquaintances in my head :-). So take care, Sir Topham Hatt, my fine capitalist friend; I’ll miss you, or, more accurately, playing your part.

But now it’s all about Star Wars. They became obsessed at the first Jedi and space ship, at mere casual contact with the mythology, long before their limited viewing of severely edited segments of the films. I can’t blame them :-); so was I, but it just feels like they're growing too fast. At least I get to re-experience the fascination--I find myself in perilous light saber duels daily, often accosted as I enter the home--but, the films... My adult mind can’t keep off noticing the dialogue and Mark Hamill’s acting; at least he surpasses Hayden Christensen... :-)

I suppose I’ve a hard time letting go of anything they’ve cared about, even when they’ve stopped, and will certainly stash a bunch of trains in the memorabilia drawers, along with that insanity-inducing Barney trumpet, the favorite pacifiers, and so on. They may want them again some day.

On top of that, we just sold R’s car today. That was the car in which we brought our boys home. It’s taken us on many family trips, and endured twins well. I don't much get into cars and know it's silly, but it was near as tough as selling their first home, where they took their first steps.

I got a good laugh out of it, though. Just as the people were about to drive away, I was feeling kind of somber, explaining to A that we had sold them our car. He obviously remembered what R and I had talked about regarding selling the car, and out of the mouth of the babe, so the buyers could hear, came:

“But, Papa, why do they want to buy so much gas?”

I'd told them the mileage exactly, but, still, thank goodness the deal was sealed… :-)

Anyway that’s done, and, in short, I’m feeling kind of sappy, again.

Black Swan (may as well stick with it...)

And maybe it’s under the influence of sappy that I'm typing here.

I made the mistake of going into my archives :-) and looking at my old site today, reading my page explaining why I’d not be putting myself out there anymore. Now I feel like a fool for starting up any home online again, after those words.

Now, I’m not seeing this blog as exactly the same thing; my traffic here is orders of magnitude smaller, it’s less demanding, and I’ve avoided some of my old mistakes (and maybe made new ones :-)). But it was pretty clear from the beginning I've been having second thoughts, and why.

To be clear, though, I’m not saying I’m out-of-here, what a tired internet cliché that is. I do go through these phases, though. I’ll be thinking I’ll just let it be and not allow a worry, forget about any of these issues, as we have in the past. Stop hunting ;-). But then I start to feel guilty, or like I’ll find us in large political jeopardy one day and wonder why I didn’t do something.

I’ve got all these posts waiting anyway, about 15 of them, on topics ranging from the political tragedy surrounding the Knights Templar to the scandalous sex lives of voles. It just seems like some sort of natural order and timing is there for blog postings, and, for some reason, I just don't feel like proofing or posting them some days. On top of that I’ve got loads of pdfs from many journals on relevant research that I’d hope to go over.

Though I enjoy it, I find I feel indulgent when I just go on about what I would if not for the politics (yep, like the loss of a silly bunch of trains from my office), when the politics are there. There's all this stuff I feel I should post on about the politics, science, religion, and so on (it’s still indulgent to think it anything new or effective :-)). If you haven’t noticed, I’ve got this unreasonable and, sure, bigheaded habit of thinking I can save long lost people too. Seems the thing I've to work out in blogging is why blog? :-).

I'm thinking now, it’d be best to simply start a site again and put this all out at once in one place, and get it done with (yeah right… and "simply"?). I could leave a blog for the going over the everyday life, without the elephant. But then I fear I’d find myself back where I was grateful to have left.

That damnable impulse to fix it… It’s tough to let things go, or to even know if you should.

I just want to be a really useful engine. :-)