harder than it looks

so many things in life turn out to be harder than they seem to be--or harder that one expects them to be. being an adult for instance. or writing. or maintaining a blog. all tough stuff at times. easy to slip out of the habit with such things.
like this blog. weeks pass and i don't have much to say here because i'm busy saying it in other places. teaching, doing service work, it all takes something out of you.
as does the turn to darker, colder, less green weather. lately i've been listening to rilo kiley a lot. there is a great lyric in one song about the "slow fade of love," which goes something like--
"He said the slow fade of love
And its mist might choke you
It's my gradual descent
Into a life I never meant
It's the slow fade of love"
sometimes i think that is what adulthood is all about--a gradual descent into a life i never meant. usually i like being a grown up. but every so often i miss being, oh, say, 27. when i was 27 i had wild hair and loud clothes and fewer responsibilities. and i lived by the ocean and drove my podcar. i was much more interesting then. now i live in the midwest, walk dogs, drive a different car and wear clothes in neutral shades to go with my neutral hair. how i miss my old world sometimes...with all its pain and imperfection.

yet, what else goes on these days? i am in TV-love with Veronica Mars--what an amazing show. wedding planning proceeds at a steady pace. i'm sure we'll figure out the key details eventually. i've been buried in grading for weeks now--not fun. students should learn how to use commas one of these days.

and still...the book. i had a good writing day yesterday. hopefully will have another one today. am getting ready to send stuff to publishers (very intimidating).

what it takes to blog

Lately I've been wondering about what is required to produce a good blog. There is a certain labor--a willingness to spend time in the trenches reading and responding and writing. Javi clearly does this and his blog has launched a fan base. Colin's blog is intricate and clearly in conversation with other bloggers--academic computing types, photography people, arbor-bloggers.
And yet, I wonder where I might find the time to develop good blog habits. It reminds me a bit of when I used to read Usenet some time (was that really 11 years ago?) ago. If one read a group regularly then it was easy to keep up and follow the conversations there. But if one even let a day slip by it would take much, much longer to find the way back.
So is there such a way to be a casual blogger? A reader and writer who sneaks in and out of the blog slipstream at will?