Built up, broke down

I have this mental image in my mind that blog posts have to be visual, of a certain length, maintain a certain level of intersetingness, be intrinsically cohesive, include lots of links, and hit the other top 10 blogging points that the successful ones outline.

Eff that.

I've posted for years without caring too much about hitting those marks, or having superfantastic readership. Why can't I resume the bloggityness and take up that easy-going manner again?

BY THE WAY, besides doing more writing lately, I'm also doing more editing-type-stuff, so the contrarian in me does a dance of glee at every word in this post my spell-checker doesn't recognize.

Today I'm super exhausted from very little sleep last night, then spending all day riding trains and walking around DC with Reagan and my mom (who is visiting for 3 days). I use the term "all day" loosely; we might not have gotten on our first train until after 11 (which, in my family, is a late start).

We hit up the Freer Gallery where I indulged my love of Whistler paintings (including discovering the downstairs collection!), had lunch at the Austin Grill (I ordered a salad, then mostly ate the meat that came on it. Delicious, delicious meat), walked back to explore the Hirshhorn, and finally had high tea in Arlington, where "high tea" was defined as beer and splitting a burger three ways. Mom had cranberry juice, not beer.

A Wednesday without a pint at RiRa just isn't a real Wednesday. :)

As obnoxious as most of the Color exhibit is to me, it inspired some of the highlights of the day: Reagan taking photos of me in the room of flickering lights and sound, and sitting in the low light room with my mom, observing the artwork and talking about William Herschel. Mom's reading a book about him, so she had tidbits about how he would observe the stars through his telescope for hours on end, shouting dictations to his sister.

I wish I could paint another highlight of the day from outside myself. I felt such a surge of joy in discovering the secondary collection of Whistler's Nocturnes, that I skipped down the hallway to look at the a Nocturne set at Cremorne Gardens.

A lot of the way I live is restrained and calculated. Even though I feel real happiness and express it, I don't think I often exhibit delight in a natural, uninhibited way. I also get caught up in my head, questioning what I like, or what I say I relate to/identify with.

Do I *really* like Whistler, or is it just lip service? Or a facade that I put up because I think I should be someone who likes his work, or want to be someone who does?

Ah, bloggity-blog. You double edged sword.

This is not a post of completed ideas, but i am rip-roarin' exhausted and need to go lie down and read some comfort food (Emerald Storm!). But if I don't post it now, it will sit in drafts FOREVAR.