I'm Gonna Have to Face It...

I've said it many times before: I am a creature of habit. From my morning routine to my shopping rituals, I refuse to believe all the hype of how variety is the spice of life. I enjoy my routines. The careful carrying-out of my morning ritual can make or break my day. And I happen to think that routines make the barely-tolerable things life mundane enough to make the other stuff spicier. I don't ritualize sex or drinking or partying or dancing; Just the boring stuff gets squished into little molds. Makeup application, the sequence of my showering, when I smoke my cigarettes on the drive into and home from work. Things like that. Also, I think I'm OCD.

Anyway, another thing I do that, for whatever reason, is always the same has to do with blogs. It's the same thing every day: I get into work, I wiggle my mouse so that the screen comes to life. I get on the internet. I go to my blog. I check my comments. Then I check out the links of the people who commented. When that's done, I go about The Reading of Other People's Blogs. If any of you out there keep religious track of your sitemeters, I'm sure you'd see ME checking your site at roughly the same time every day. Because it's always the SAME. First, the gossip blogs. Because I have to know all of the juicy stuff that happens in the world of celebrities. Starting with Go Fug Yourself, and working my way down that list, I get my fill of photos and quotes and info regarding all things famous. Depending on my mood (and whether or not I'm alone in the office), I write after I've read the gossip. Once I've written and published my post for the day, that's when the real reading begins: The Blogs. I go down that list to the right there, in alphabetical order. I read every new post that I come across. I actually get disappointed when I see that someone hasn't been updating (I'm looking at YOU, Dale's Big Fat Blog. You had that Guns'n'Roses thing up for, like, a week. I know you have a new one up now, but don't let that shit happen again.). So I read the new stuff. I peruse archives. I follow the trails of links within posts. And once I've made it all the way from A to Z, usually, I start all over. Multiple times. When, clearly, there is nothing new being posted, I start reading the blogs that other blogs recommend. This process can, if necessary, last me all day long.

There is a problem, though. I get very involved with blog reading. Like, too involved. So involved, in fact, that I begin to resent customers. And telephone calls. And the actual work I'm supposed to be doing. So things get sort of, how shall I say, neglected in lieu of reading more blogs. Or writing a new one. Or checking my email. Or anything involving the internet.

I think I'm addicted.

Is there a support group for this?