Toasted

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I've been noticing a giddy air of silliness sweeping around the blog sphere like a virus. It seems especially prevalent among NaBloPoMo-ers. I speculate that it is correlated with the "hump day" of NaBloPoMo. Everyone has been posting for days and weeks, and we are getting a little punchy from the effort. Can't sustain perfectly serious-thoughtful-well-written-humorous output every day.

When I went to a special seminar/ week-long camp a couple years ago, my coach there warned us early on that most people would get "a little toasted" mid way through the week. It was inevitable that everyone would stay up too late, try to do everything, engage in all sorts of concentrated work and silliness... and then get emotional, irritable, wacky, go a little nuts and/or retreat.

And that's exactly what happened. Everyone had their signature breakdown moment, some more noisily, some more quietly. It was just human nature to react to the extended push, especially as we were pushing ourself away from our usual familiar environment.

And we had been forewarned to give ourselves and others a little slack for just such an occasion. But, whew! That was a little stressful. Because our usual trajectory was what? a long weekend? We are not used to running on creative adrenaline for long stretches, unless we have worked up to it and have learned strategies to pace ourselves.

Notice anything this week? Yes, some of us are getting a leeetle bit punchy. It's funny, this mostly cheerful wailing. Fortunately, we've been forewarned to give ourselves and others a little slack. haha. Bullet points do not offend me! The synapses are firing madly, trying to keep up with demand. New synapses are being built all the time. It's physically tiring work, I always tell my students. And yet we keep on, even when we falter. Keep on keeping on!

A toast! To all NaBloPoMo-ers heaving themselves over the hump! There. You've been officially toasted.

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