More reader comments…

A reader not favorably inclined toward blogs wrote the following email yesterday:
“your blog (appears to) overshadow(s) too much else…” I take that to suggest a certain amount of excessiveness.

I feel compelled to respond: true, yesterday’s post cost me several hours of frustration. So that I was blog-occupied for the better part of the late afternoon (rather than training for a marathon like a friend was, or cutting the lawn like my neighbor).

I have always imagined that some would be inclined to scribble two words on my tombstone should necessity force that circumstance: “too much.” Then, on the less visible, external side some would prefer to write “too little.” When the time came, a line of mourners would form (presumptuous of me to think that perhaps) and walk by the “too much” side and nod their heads in agreement – “yes, she traveled too much” (recalling especially my graduate school years and perhaps more recent times), “..emailed too much” (no comment needed here), “frolicked with the children too much” and “..blogged too much” (a new 2004 addition), etc. On the other side, another (smaller?) line would form -- a trail of mourners who would recognize the other two words. Nodding their heads they would say “yes, she slept too little” and “worried too little” and “followed the straight and narrow too little.”

Wherein lies the truth? It depends on the mourners as much as on the mourned, doesn’t it? Their “too much” may well be my “not enough.”