NaBloPoMo ... No Mo!

Seedless grapes were my favorite. I not only enjoyed the refreshing burst of flavor released when I chomped down, but being able to crush the little orbs with abandon – never risking an encounter with a bitter-tasting seed added greatly to the experience.

In those days, I knew only about purple and green grapes – the purple all had seeds and the green were seedless. The purple also had a tougher skin.

I remember watching my mother laboriously peel the skin off of grapes before cutting them in half and removing the seeds. Green grapes had a more tender skin and there was no need to search for those pesky seeds.

Once, in celebration of the fact that I could, I jammed as many green grapes into my mouth as I could fit and then crunched down. I nearly gagged on the effluent of cool, sweet grape juice. It was wonderful excess.

I suppose our tendency toward excess can be traced to the caveman days…

Grabbing as much as we can hold may be instinctive – a survival skill that came in handy back in the day when only the strong survived. Eating all we can hold would pay off when the next meal wasn’t for a few days, and stockpiling anything with a shelf life is no more than prudent.

As I contemplated this, my 30th consecutive November blog entry it occurred to me that our fascination with setting records may actually be counter productive. I’ve needed to settle for topics that haven’t seemed particularly topical and, on deadline, have created a quality of product that hasn’t been up to even my standards.

No, more definitely isn’t better when it comes to blogs – and I’m not sure even the “enforces discipline” benefit outweighs the negatives.

After a dozen or so in a row, I felt rather trapped by circumstances. Achieving the one goal didn’t seem to be helpful in achieving others.

Well, it’s water under the bridge. This final, unillustrated, blog is the last in the series of 30 – and I think I’ll take the weekend off (unless I feel truly compelled to share something unexpected…

I recall another example of excess, also from my youth. I wanted to be a mountain-climber or backpacker and had only access to a rather unwieldy rucksack. I nonetheless filled that container with rocks – perhaps 30 pounds or more – and took off up a mountain with my family.

I made a few discoveries that day, but the most mysterious and still unexplainable one is that rocks from a lower altitude gain weight as they are transported up a mountain. Strange, but absolutely true – based on my experience. Anyway, somewhere in the mountains of the West there are a dozen stones that reside a couple of thousand feet higher up the slope than they should – my contribution to the fight against erosion.

I can think of several more examples of excess – or compulsion or some force that made me repeat an action beyond reason. I get involved in making Christmas tree decorations – origami stars – and several years during my youth I must have made hundreds of the things – I did earn some cash for Christmas presents, so it wasn’t as unexplainable as other examples.

I braided thin strips of plastic (commercially known as Pyrolace™) into key chains, whistle lanyards and dozens of doo-dads. Though there was no market for these, I stretched and looped those strips until my hands were raw.

Another time it was macramé. Who knew that knotting a few miles of jute could be so hard on the fingers?

Technology has driven several new obsessions in my later life. Video games got the best of me for a while and I’ve been entranced – for hour after hour – by new Internet channels and tools such as Google™, and YouTube™.

I’m actually trying to reactivate one early obsession: reading. I still love to read, but information in print hasn’t been able to capture my undivided attention like it used to – not with instant access to in-depth material online. I find myself putting down a book to check something related out online and getting lost in cyberspace.

But I intend to continue having at least on book in the category of “I am currently reading…” and to try to default to books more often and to television less.

I do not intend to get back into the blog-on-demand mode. I’m also fairly convinced that I wouldn’t like writing a daily column for newspapers (though being paid could well change my level of commitment – shame on me!).

And as for the NaBloPoMo movement – move on without me. I’d rather drag another bag of rocks up a mountain than write when I’m not ready just because it’s been 24 hours since the last time.

TGI December.