The Thoughts of a Frumpy Professor

............................................ ............................................ A blog devoted to the ramblings of a small town, middle aged college professor as he experiences life and all its strange variances.

Wednesday, September 05, 2018

Sorry

I am going to start off by apologizing on three accounts:

1.  I apologize for being away for quite a while.  I have been in a rough emotional place and because of the difficult emotions I had a complete loss of energy or resolve to write.

2.  I apologize for what is likely to be a still sour mood when I get to the body of my text below.  I am forcing myself to push through my emotions and lethargy in an effort to try to change my mood.  This is the only way I know to try to get back to the place I would rather be... feeling calm, comfortable,  positive, hopeful, and hell... maybe even jovial.  But in forcing myself back into the saddle, working to pull myself up by my bootstraps, I will also have to work through my feelings.  This blog helps me go get those feelings out in a way that is tangible to me, and I have found it helps me to somewhat "leg go" of some of these feelings.

3.  I apologize to commenters for a *big* error on my part....  I realized a couple of days ago that I had MANY comments to some of my writings here that had not shown up in the comments.  I stumbled upon them looking around my Blogger work-site and I realize (and now recall) that a year or two ago, I made some sort of setting change that changed comments to allow free commenting for the first week after a blog entry was posted, but after that point, the comments became moderated.  I did this way back when because I was having some difficulty with some spam/ad commenters posting and posting and posting on my older entries (you know the kind of comments.... "Buy viagra cheap!" and "Great prices on (insert nonsense here)!!!!"   When I first set this moderation up, it would notify me by e-mail when I had a comment that needed moderating.  But, apparently with some changes at Blogger, this stopped because I had not received any notices for quite a while.  And, so, here is the real issue.... I *missed* seeing some of YOUR comments... ones that I REALLY DO APPRECIATE and WANT TO READ!  I am sorry.  I have worked to get them to publish now.  And, now that the spam comments seem to have gone away... I am going to work to figure out how to get rid of the moderation setting again (it takes me a while to figure this stuff out). 

*     *     *     *     *

I have been feeling really low emotionally for the last few weeks.  I have felt sadness in the loss of time and I feel the emotions of loss of time with family and with friends.  I am feeling the loss of Summer, even though it is technically the Summer season still, for a lot of us, there is a palpable transition that occurs near and around Labor Day... and I am feeling that change rather acutely this year.  I am also feeling emotional about some documents that got wet in my house due to a damn, leaking waterline.  Nothing was fully destroyed, but some photos and other momento documents did sustain some damage and it was emotionally hard for me.  I have always felt a strong need to protect these photos and documents, and I feel like a failure for not doing so.  I also feel a sense of sadness about my not doing *enough* to try to keep friendships and relationships strong.  I have this nagging feeling almost every day lately about not working hard enough or long enough to make sure that the people who I love and who are my friends (including you readers) *know* of my appreciation and care for them.  I feel intensely thoughts of my being lazy, weak, unfocused, and not diligent enough in what I should do.  And, I have been thinking about my pipes a lot as well.  Sometimes I will sit and stare at them for quite a while, thinking.  Also, my TMJ Disorder has been acting up like hell and I need to work at trying to alleviate that. I miss the bite splint the dog chewed up, very much. 

I believe starting writing again is a first step I can take to get out of this hell hole of being locked inside my mind with all the harsh, sad thoughts that have been swirling around inside. 

PipeTobacco

3 Comments:

Blogger Liz Hinds said...

Good, I'm glad you've started writing again. And solved the puzzle of the missing comments!

I do understand your feelings of not doing enough, not necessarily for the same reasons, but generally not being good enough, in whatever it is I try to do. I regularly read posts on FaceBook about how we must tell these feelings to go away and to close our ears and eyes and minds to them, but it's not that easy. 'Be good to yourself' - such a lovely idea but so hard to do - especially if you're already in the place where you feel inadequate, which is when you should be nice to yourself of course. A vicious circle devilishly hard to break away from.

Wednesday, 05 September, 2018  
Blogger Anvilcloud said...

Some people have had success in getting Blogger to start emailing comments etc again, by going into settings, wiping their emails,saving, the re-entering their emails. This didn't work for me, however.

As far as comment moderation, I have never seen the need. Rather than have to approve many comments, it seems easier to me to delete the infrequent spams. But I know that many like to approve every single comment.

Wednesday, 05 September, 2018  
Blogger billy pilgrim said...

you've worked hard for decades and held up your end of the deal on the planet so it's time to sit back and enjoy the ride.

i would recommend watching one flew over the cuckoo's nest followed by the big lebowski the following night. if you don't find yourself laughing out loud, seek medical help.

Thursday, 06 September, 2018  

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