Overdue

     The New Orleans Public Library emailed me today.  "The Girl In The Show" by Kate Fleming is three days overdue and fines are being added to my account.  My email account is full of such notices lately.  This book looked so good.  I've been doing more stand-up comedy as of late, and there is a very supportive group of female comedians down here, so I felt this book calling to me with its kitschy font the second I saw it on the shelves.  But in the month or so I've had it, I've only just gotten past the introduction part.  I renewed it just now, but I'm not that hopeful I'll get much further into it.  As I've said, I had been taking books onto the stationary bike at the local rec center, but I haven't been there but once or twice lately, and I just signed up for a post-Mardi Gras exercise intensive to try to get a little bit back into shape, so that's going to be my exercise time.

     Honestly, in the past six months, finding the time to read has been a tremendous challenge.  Last summer my life was thrown into complete and utter chaos due to circumstances related to my divorce and child custody.  I continued to post while not able to reside in my own home in August, continued to post while my personal life fell apart, continued to post while the legal nightmare stretched on and on.  Creative outlets are so important to me when my life is in a disarray.  When my marriage first broke irreparably three years ago, it was improv shows that gave me a reason and way to pull myself together, because the show must go on.  Last summer, this blog was one of the things that helped me continue to move forward.  But as the chaos lessens but branches out and mutates, I find it very difficult to make the time investment required to be a resident reader, and I feel that I owe it to the readers of this blog and myself to either do better or take a break.  It's not that I'm in a threat level red crisis anymore, because I'm not.  Most days I'm very happy and life is functioning fine.  It's just that I have so many things going on, so many other responsibilities involved in making my life and my four children's lives the best they can be, that I can't really devote the time to doing the required reading and writing to make this blog the best it can be.  I will likely revisit this, if you all will still have me, once my post-baccalaureate program is done later in the spring.  Thank you for the space to write here, and hope to see you all again soon.

Abby