Maybe it is because I turn 30 in 21 days. Maybe it is because I find myself wanting to buy a home and fill it with some children but know that we are not yet ready for that. Maybe it is because I have been reading "Eat, Pray, Love" and "Julie and Julia" (thanks, Lindsey and Wilcox) and they have been inspiring me to try something new. Maybe it is because I mentioned to Pete and Ben last night at dinner that I would like to try to write a book, which was more than just an attempt to start conversation, and a definite improvement of my recent comment that I was "looking forward to the changing of the seasons." Maybe it is because I wanted to spend this summer at a lighthouse in Croatia, learning to cook with seafood, but needed to stay in Kansas instead. Maybe it is because I alternate most days between feeling overwhelmed by the work that needs doing, then bored, and then guilty for not living with the constant recognition that I/we are incredibly fortunate. Maybe it is because this blog thing is free. Maybe it is because many of the people I love most in the world are beyond my arms reach now. Maybe it is because I promised myself I was going to write a book with this title when I was seventeen, in the library at Wichita Northwest High School.

Whatever it is, I am feeling compelled to challenge myself to write something everyday. In my mind, it's going to be really funny, when in truth, most days it probably won't be. I can count on one hand the number of jokes I've made in the last five years that were actually funny, so you may be holding out for awhile.

This one was funny, though: Ben and I got rid of television about two years ago now, because I have impulse control problems, because we are too poor for cable, and because I needed to write my dissertation. I've found myself in those two years telling people that we don't have a TV, mostly because I feel out of the loop on what happened on The Office the night before, but occasionally because it makes me feel a bit intellectual and like the professor I had in college who hadn't seen television in 20 years. I'm not sure why I thought that was cool at the time. Anyway, when I am not the embodiment of very person that this is making fun of, I like to tell people that "I don't watch television, I read" in a snotty tone. Then, when they ask what I'm reading, I tell them that I'm reading TV Guide.