Good God

Only four days into the school year and already "go brush your teeth, wash your face and comb your hair" translates as "go play Lego's and pick on your brothers." It's gonna be a loooong year.

In other news, I just joined Facebook after avoiding it for as long as possible. I caught up with a friend I haven't seen in years and years while I was in Colo and decided to join to stay in touch w/ her and others like her whom I email once a year. Now I have all of these people I haven't seen, heard from or thought about in 15-20 years flying at me as possible friends. Even people whose blogs I read, but don't know at all. How does Facebook know what blogs I read? It's kind of freaking me out. Yes I realize I share all manner of personal information about my various breakdowns and crises (see below for the latest), but somehow having people thrown at me and information extracted from me seems much more...I don't know...icky. I feel violated. Here I feel more in control (an illusion, no doubt). Besides, I only have like four faithful readers, while in just two days of being on Facebook, I have over 20 "friends." It's weird.

Crisis of the week (day? I'm losing track...is this just what being in your mid-30's is about or am I a basket case?). Yesterday I picked up a map of Kennebec Trails at a local coffee shop (for the price of $7.95). I have been toiling for years (at the pace of a land snail, yes, but toiling just the same) on my Capital Walks blog (and really I was working on it well before I started the blog) with the unstated goal of creating a book of hikes in Kennebec County (or possibly just the southern part of the county), and now here is this lovely, well-put-together map, beautifully illustrated with close to a dozen of my hikes out there and suddenly I feel obsolete. Slow. Lazy. A total loser.

And yes, I understand that I book can be much more than a map, that there are many more areas out there that the map did not cover (and a few areas on the map that I hadn't yet considered), and that there should be room for more than one resource on this topic...but still...just so frustrating that I can't seem to get out of my own way to see a project through (yes I do have lots of excuses ranging from bugs to weather to twin babies...but those excuses aren't going to get my book written before someone else beats me to it).

Grrrr....Anyway I have to figure out a way to get out there and get this done before competing interests and priorities, frustration, self-doubt and old-fashioned laziness take over. Any suggestions?