I haven’t been writing much in this blog lately. At first, I thought it was because I had nothing interesting to say, that I was not thinking about interesting things. I realized, though, that I am thinking about interesting things, but these are not things I want to share on this blog.

I never embraced the share-everything model of blogging. I’m rather private, and I enjoy blogging about issues more than about myself. So, I guess I’m at a stage in my life where personal issues are very pressing, and they have pushed away some of the musing about other things.

I also have done a better job tuning out a lot of the news and when I do hear the news, I’m not in a rush to form opinions about things I know nothing about. It doesn’t make me a better blogger, but I think it makes me a better human being. In some contexts, certainty is very dangerous.

I’m in no rush to blog up a storm. I would like to write more, but I tire of staring into screens. Maybe, like the comic, I need a sabbatical from blogging. This is a decision I can make another time.

I discovered that I have an odd hangup about going to bed early: I’m afraid of being old. If I go to bed too early, I’ll make jokes about eating oat bran and watching Matlock.

Let me briefly consider this from another perspective: Noted bad-ass Benjamin Franklin thought it was good to be early to bed and early to rise. Kant isn’t as much of a bad-ass, but he was a famous early riser too.

I do like the idea of being an early-riser. In college, instead of working on essays until the dead of night, I’d wake up really early and work up until class. I found it much more productive. Even now, I’d like to wake up early and do things before work. I find that I’m way too tired after work. (I recently had an epiphany that even though I wake up really early for work, it is still possible to wake up even earlier than that.)

So, the other side of being an early-riser is also being an… early-bedder? Er, anyway, I guess I must ask myself what will I miss out on by sleeping so early? On weekdays, I am not missing any great activities because most of my friends have to go to work in the morning. I’m also not making any late night phone calls. I guess there are the Matlock jokes, but I am the only one making those jokes.

After considering these factors, it seems that my fear is unfounded and I would be better off waking up earlier even if it means going to bed earlier.

And now I will go to bed once I finish this episode of Matlock.

Finance
*Start contributing to 401(k)
*Open Roth IRA
*Get my credit score

Programming/Web Design
*Do a project in Ruby on Rails
*Write Modemizer extension for a browser
*Design a website for a nonprofit
*Make a custom theme for my blog
*Get a job programming that I can get to via public transportation

Chalkboard Manifesto
*Redesign CM website
*Sell 1 thing
*Get 1000 fans on facebook

Health
*Eat one fruit a day
*Go on 12 hikes
*Be able to do 50 push ups
*Be able to do 50 sit ups

Miscellaneous
*Finish 1 more episode of Larry Whitman
*Get a comfortable mattress
*Finish 30 books