On Why..???

Reader, you may have noticed a few things that are different or strange about my blog here. First off, you've likely noticed that this is not a new blog, but is at a new address and is hosted by a new platform. You might also have noticed that after a great time at the BookMarks Book Festival in early September I just seemed to disappear completely from the blogosphere. You may have noticed that I was gung-freakin'-ho about participating in the Readers Imbibing Peril Halloween Reading Event and then it was never discussed again. If you noticed any of these things, please allow me to take this first post on the new site to tell you a little bit about what's happened and what has been going on and why I am back and why I am back with a whole new look at a whole new home on the 'net.

So, after my last post at BookJackets I got swept up in work. This school year has been the most ass-kicking year of my life. As you know if you read BookJackets religiously like I know that you ALL did, you know that I moved over the summer. This move was the BEST thing I could have done and I'm so thankful for it. Just look at the amazing view I am treated to on a daily basis (and yes, that is a lake that you see in the first picture and a stream in the second):

However, the place I moved to is about 30 minutes from the school I work at, so that adds an hour each day in the car commuting, and that is assuming that getting home in the evenings takes 30 minutes, and if you did assume that then you just made a huge ass out of you and me. I live about 20 miles north of Charlotte, NC and the traffic heading into Charlotte any time of any day looks like this picture that shows that yes, the jerks are even backed up on the shoulder, so it usually ends up taking me around 1 hour to get home. This year is crazy at work because we are all working our ASSES OFF trying to turn the school I work at around. My school is the lowest performing and has a slew of other problems. Many many afternoons and evenings (and Saturdays) have been and will be spent at school by myself and by every person who works there improving it. This takes a shitload of time, people, and it's not something we can half-ass because these kids deserve a good education, like these guys are obviously getting. 

                                           

My other excuse for my absence is that I wasn't reading. Oh quit judging me. I didn't have any damn time to read! Did you not just read about my hero-ness improving a failing school with my bare hands?! But seriously, since school started on August 8 I have only read 6.5 books. Read that carefully now, that's not 65, but 6.5 as in six and a half, as in four more books than there are characters in Two and a Half Men. As in less than there are days in a week. As in I was too beat to pick up a book and read words and comprehend sentences. I did not complete the RIP reading event. I got halfway through House of Leaves and I was feeling like a horses patoot because I was just NOT getting it so I had to give it up. That's as far as I got in the event. There's always next year (unless the Mayans were right).

Also, I  hate Wordpress. Like, hate it. With a passion. It was hard enough for me to get home, get dinner made, clean up from dinner, shower, then write a blog post. Add to that fighting tooth and nail with Wordpress to even get the damn post published and I became a frustrated mess; so, I gave up.

I spent the last two months contemplating if I wanted to try again, maybe with a different platform? I'd heard good things about Blogger, and most of the blogs I follow are hosted by Blogger. Would I have time? Would I have the energy? Would I have the sanity? I decided 'no, I would not.' and that was the end of my blogging days. Until last weekend. 

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Last weekend I went to Goodwill looking for a new shirt to do yoga in (because it's all about how you look and not about achieving inner peace or any of that crap) and I took a look at the bookshelves expecting to see the usual Joel Osteen pap that people buy and then come to their sense and feel so embarrassed that they don't even want to attempt to sale it on Amazon so they donate it anonymously under the cover of darkness in the nearest Goodwill dump site. And that's exactly what I saw. With one beacon shining out from the collection of pap. The Handmaid's Tale. $1. It's on my reading list. It's in good condition. It doesn't want to spend another day next to Olsteen (and who can blame it?!), so I bought it and devoured it and had an hour or so of panic over it because I became convinced that it was real and that it was happening (Mitt Romney and Todd Aiken and that disgusting Mourdoch guy were all on television that night talking about magical vaginas and taking away women's rights) and I loved it and I cried over it and I didn't want to leave it alone so I secretly shucked it around with me all the time. I loved this book so much I found myself unconsciously marking passages in it that I wanted to blog about, and then I remembered that I no longer had a blog to blog on. I decided then to start making time to read more and to blog again beause these are things I enjoy doing. These are the things I like to do for myself. These are the things I need to be doing so that this school year won't be able to kick my ass so hard anymore. So, I decided to blog again, but not with Wordpress and not with BookJackets, and not with the same format I used to use. So, here we are. Reader, rejoice, because like Jesus will be saying soon: I am back!