Ordinarily, resignation letters start off saying something to the effect that “it is with a heavy heart”, or, “this has been the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make”.

Not this one.

After 6,053 posts over the past six years — and that’s not even counting the entries at my other three blogs or at Pajamas Media — I’ve reached a point where I no longer feel the least bit interested in spending my days online.

Truth is, lately I’ve found myself wondering why I felt compelled to blog in the first place. To change minds? Hah. I’m not so naive as to believe that one blog entry, or even a slew of them, has any meaningful influence on someone’s political persuasion. To communicate with others? Well, sure. That was the fun part… until “social media” like Twitter, Facebook, et al., turned interaction into a nonstop slew of mental diarrhea streaming live 24/7.

Looking back, I realize that dissatisfaction with my own life was the greatest impetus behind my blogging. Because, let’s face it, my adventures with Venomous Hubby provide an endless source of snark-filled fodder.

Or so I thought.

In the past two months, as I’ve spent increasingly less time online, I’ve discovered something profound: it’s not that I was dissatisfied with the life I was living, it’s that I was living too much of that life online.

Staying away from the computer on a regular basis has given me the time and mental energy to appreciate my loved ones, to accomplish projects I previously believed I didn’t have time for, and to simply take pleasure in being without feeling the compulsion to share every detail of my existence with the online community. (It’s also helped me shed 17 of the far-too-many-to-admit-in-public pounds that I’ve put on in the past 6 years as my life dwindled to the space between my bed, fridge and laptop.)

So, dear blogosphere, it is actually with a very light and happy heart that I am writing this to tell you of the easiest decision I’ve made in quite some time. I’d wondered how to quit you, and now I know: it’s just a matter of turning off the computer and seeing that the world, indeed, keeps going.

To all of my Venomites, I want to thank you for your loyal readership and witty comments over the years. Were it not for how much I know I’ll miss you, I’d probably have reached this decision quite some time ago. As it is, I appreciate your support and understanding, and please know that I’ll miss you, too.

I may be back. I may not. When I sit here thinking of my future it doesn’t involve blogging. It does, however, involve a whole lot of time unplugged from the online world and tuned in, instead, to my own life.

So, until we meet again:

Vaya con Venom,
VK

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With VH still overseas — and my mother arriving in 14 days — I’ve been absolutely swamped with that annoying thing called “life offline”. So, yes, I realize I haven’t been posting here much. Guess what? I’m not going to be posting here much for a little while longer.

It’s either take time off from blogging, or resent the hell out of blogging for feeling like an “obligation” instead of the fun distraction it’s supposed to be. So, I’m taking a break for a few days.

How long? Well, let me put it to you this way: ElectricVenom.com turns 6 on March 10. My son turns 9 on the same day. I’m pretty sure I’ll be clamoring to get back online shortly after the excitement and the sugar high from his birthday cake wears off, leaving my son asleep early and me, completely and totally bored… which is pretty much what led me to start EV in the first place.

See you then.

I will not watch scary movies when my husband is out of town.
I will not watch scary movies when my husband is out of town.
I will not watch scary movies when my husband is out of town.
I will not watch scary movies when my husband is out of town.
I will not watch scary movies when my husband is out of town.
I will not watch scary movies when my husband is out of town.
I will not watch scary movies when my husband is out of town.
I will not watch scary movies when my husband is out of town.

Damn you, Alfred Hitchcock. Thanks to you, I’ll be showering with one eye open for the rest of my life.

Fine, so Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, thus predicting 6 more weeks of winter. (As Kim reminds us, we were going to have six more weeks of it, anyway.)

But not all groundhogs agree.

Take the one that lives in my yard, for instance. Yes, the very same groundhog (woodchuck) I’ve been battling for years now. He didn’t see his shadow this morning. According to the myth, means we’re going to have an early Spring.

Of course, I wouldn’t put too much stock in that. The groundhog died last night after a neighborhood dog got a hold of him.

The UPS dude just drove down the next street over. In the back of his truck is my Wii which, as you know, I’ve been wanting for a couple of years now.

As luck would have it, this is one of those mornings when I deferred the whole bathing/ blow-drying / putting-on-makeup-so-I-don’t-scare-strangers thing. And I hate being seen in that condition, even by the UPS guy.

Of course, if I jump in the shower now I might miss the delivery, and with my luck he’ll be needing a signature.

I sure hope this sweatshirt and headband that I threw on convinces him that I’ve been working out this morning, and not obsessively sitting here at the computer hitting “refresh” on the UPS tracking page.

What a tale my thoughts would tell… oh, wait. You don’t have to wonder. Now you can read the new incarnation of Queen of Snark (me, uncensored… unfiltered… unkind) where I tell ALL as well as tell off every idiot who’s ever annoyed me.

But be warned: you just might think that blog entry’s about you, and, chances are you’d be right.

*Apologies to my beloved Gordon Lightfoot.

My tattoo-artist friend is coming to town next week. For my Christmas present, she wants to give me a tattoo since she’s been trying to talk me into getting inked for years. For her Christmas present I’m going to let her give me one.

A small one, most likely on my shoulder where I’ve been told it will hurt the least.

So, what should I get?

It’s almost Christmas, and here in Kansas that means it’s also really freaking cold. With snow expected tomorrow and an overnight low in the mid-teens, just going outside for the morning paper now requires bundling up in multiple layers.

So naturally, being a bit of a clothes freak who insists on having the right shoes for every outfit, I’ve been asking myself, “Self, what shoes does one wear with all of these bulky and heavy layers?” And, obviously, the answer is: something warm.

So lately I’ve been thinking about buying myself a pair of ugg boots. Oh, I know: thanks to celebs like Pam Anderson, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears pairing their Uggs with sloppy sweatpants, the Australian-born boots have, to many, become a bad fashion choice.

But with the premium merino sheepskin and thick inner fleece providing all that warmth and comfort, I’m willing to take that style risk. (I do the same thing in the summer with Crocs, although I hear that the Ugg boots’ fleece, which keeps feet warm in the winter, helps keep them cool in the summer, too.)

The only question is whether wearing them will make me look like Pam Anderson, Paris Hilton or Britney Spears? Yeah, I know: that’s asking a lot out of a pair of boots, isn’t it?

For several months now, I’ve made it a point to stay offline on weekends. During the work week I’m rather tolerant of the way the internet plays with time: how the 55 seconds it takes for a poorly-coded page to load can seem like an hour; how the time between when I sit down at the keyboard in the morning and when my son gets out of school can pass in the blink of an eye.

On the weekends, though, my time is just that: my time, and I want to be in charge of it. The older I get, the more protective I am of that, too. Come Friday evening, I turn off the laptop and swear — every single weekend — that I won’t sit down in front of it again until Monday morning. I like to think my computer’s glad for the time apart, too.

Ever since I began doing this, my weekends have grown exponentially productive in a non-productive sort of way. What I mean is that, rather than losing the weekend to researching and drafting outlines for future columns, answering email and reading the news — all things pertinent to my income during the week — I take an old-fashioned approach to Saturday and Sunday, the way pre-internet generations did. I don’t work, nor do I do anything that resembles my regular work week. (Evidently, this weekend Luddite thing is catching on.)

Instead, I read. (This weekend it was both New Moon and Eclipse, the second and third books in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyers.) I watch movies. I lounge on the sofa with my iPhone headset jammed into my ears while listening to music. I veg.

Oh, sometimes that’s easier said than done, particularly if I’m behind on a writing deadline or have a client with a rush job who just can’t stand the thought of waiting 48 hours.

Or my mother, who seems to think that weekends are best spent forwarding the umpteen gazillion email jokes she received throughout the week from her senior citizen friends, the very same people who’ve been circulating the same damn email jokes for the past 3 years since they discovered the internet but, because they are senior citizens, they don’t remember having read and forwarded the damn things before.

And these, of course, are followed by the emails from my mother asking if I got all of the other emails she’d sent, and why aren’t I responding, and am I okay or am I sick? Because, being a senior citizen, she apparently can’t remember that I’ve told her every single Monday for months now that I do not read email over the weekend (and that even during the week I pretty much ignore all of those chain emails, too).

This week, however, she truly topped herself. Not only did she send 23 email forwards (down by half from last weekend, perhaps because I told her that I’m in the midst of a couple of very hectic weeks), but then she called to ask if I’d seen any of them. And when she got my voice mail since I also don’t answer the phone much over the weekend, either? Why, she sent me yet another email asking if I got the voice mail she’d left.

All of which makes me realize that my goal of unplugging over the weekend in order to protect my leisure time a bit more, and thereby make my work week more efficient, might actually be counterproductive since it means that I have to spend all day Monday reading and responding to the very crap I’d been seeking refuge from in the first place.

For several months now, my 8-year-old son has been addicted to Guitar Hero. Ordinarily, I’m one of those parents who doesn’t approve of kids spending their free time playing video games. But I make an exception for this one because GH1, 2 and 3 have finally — finally — turned my son off the Wiggles and on to decent music.

Little did I know that my son would soon become a musicholic. Not that I’m complaining: it’s great having a kid who loves the same music that I do. Still, I couldn’t help feeling strange when he asked if I’d take him to a Smashing Pumpkins concert. At first, I wondered if the band’s name made him think they were somehow Halloween-related.

Turns out he knows (and loves) them thanks to Guitar Hero 3, although he’s only familiar with their one song, “Cherub Rock”. Naturally, I insisted on playing a couple of their CDs for him, which made him even more insistent on seeing the band live.

So I finally logged in to my favorite source for concert tickets, certain I’d be able to tell him that the band isn’t playing anywhere nearby. Once again, I was wrong: a quick site search shows they’re in KCMO for two concerts next month, and the price was perfect.

Who’d have thought that my son’s date to his first rock concert would be his own mom?

Despite the wind and cool temps yesterday, I couldn’t pass by the chance to hit the weekend garage sales around town. Ordinarily, I’m not a big fan of such things since it seems most peoples junk is, well, junk. Now and then while I’m driving around, however, I’ll spot what looks like an interesting piece of furniture and pull over only to find that it’s either outrageously over-priced (and the owner’s not willing to haggle) or it’s a piece of crap when viewed up close.

During yesterday’s outing, I couldn’t help noticing there were far more garage sales than usual, perhaps because so many people are having money trouble in this economy. That, at least, is what the NY Times says is behind the boom in yard sales:

The sales are part of the once-underground “thrift economy,” as a team of Brigham Young University sociologists have called it, which includes thrift stores, pawn shops and so-called recessionistas name-brand shopping at Goodwill.

“This is the perfect storm for garage sales,” said Gregg Kettles, a visiting professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who studies outdoor commerce. “We’re coming off a 20-year boom in which consumers filled ever-bigger houses. Now people need cash because of the bust.”

One thing I did notice, as I went from sale to sale, is how easy it is to tell which houses are experiencing money troubles and which are not simply by looking at what they’re trying to get rid of. Folks strapped for cash aren’t just selling their crap: board games with missing pieces, old paperbacks no one wants to read, broken furniture, etc. They’re selling their good stuff, too.

At one home I found myself lingering over a walnut and brass bar set, complete with four gorgeous bar stools and a full set of glassware, at a price I know was one-eighth of its original cost. I wanted it. I really did, and I was pretty sure I could justify the expense to VH1 by explaining that if we had a bar at home I wouldn’t need to go out to bars. Or something like that.

Ultimately, however, I decided against the purchase. For one thing, I felt strange thinking about profiting so handsomely by someone else’s misfortune. For another, we just don’t have the room in our basement for a full-sized bar like that. Not, at least, until we have our own garage sale, which I’m not about to have since it might lead others to think we’re having financial problems. We’re not (yet) but the way this economy’s going, it might just be a matter of time. And if I sell off our crap today, what will I have to sell if calamity strikes?

Who’d have thought that one day, instead of bitching about how cluttered my house is getting to be, I’d be viewing that crap as an investment?

Note to the old man who lives behind my mother’s house:

You’re welcome to stand there as long as you like in your button-up short sleeve shirt, Bermuda shorts and black ankle socks, glaring at me with your hands on your hips for daring to smoke on the patio.

You can even keep up with the feigned coughing and waving your gnarly, liver-spotted hand in front of your face, muttering to yourself about how bad smoking is for people.

Thing is, I wouldn’t be sitting out here working on my laptop if you were smart enough to secure your home wi-fi.

So I guess, really, we both have you to thank.

Sincerely,
VK

Hard to believe it’s only been six weeks since my last visit to my mom’s, what with everything that’s been going on with my husband’s side of the family. This time I’m here due to another health problem: Mom had hernia surgery this morning.

Unfortunately, it turned out she had not just one, not just two, but three — count ‘em, 3! — hernias. The poor woman is in serious pain, although not as much as she was before surgical correction. It’s bad enough, though, that they’re keeping her overnight so despite my many offers she’s sent me back to her place.

Honestly, it’s almost as good as being at a hotel. Had I known this was coming I wouldn’t have bothered with that mini-vacay last week since that (for reasons I won’t go into) turned out to be more stressful than it was worth.

Thanks to an unwitting neighbor who’s letting me piggyback on his home wi-fi, I finally have internet access while visiting my mom. That’s a good thing, since it looks like I might be here longer than I’d planned.

Ah, well. At least Smitty’s is less than an hour away.

Years ago, the grandfather of a long-forgotten boyfriend gave me the single best piece of advice I’ve ever received:

Keep one leg to each side and your mind in the middle.

At the time, he was one of a long string of elderly gentlemen who’d been trying to teach me how to play golf. At the time, I was avidly practicing law and knew that golf could only have helped my career. At the time, neither he nor I knew just how many ways his advice would come back to haunt — as well as instruct — me.

Flash forward a bit to the first day I ever held a gun in my hands. That was a dozen or so years ago, before I’d met VH1, and as my shooting instructor bent down to move my feet into the appropriate position that bit of advice floated through my brain. Turns out, it’s apt advice when it comes to shooting, too, and to this day I can’t pick up a gun without remembering it.

But it’s not only applicable in sporting events. Whether I’m vacuuming — one leg on each side, mind in the middle — or cooking, styling my hair or trying to make a strike on the bowling lanes, it’s a damned fine piece of advice. Luckily, it’s also good instruction for maintaining a marriage, drinking with friends or strangers, and driving a tank.

Good advice for writing, too.

Don’t believe me? Check how you’re sitting next time you try to write a piece into which you’re sinking your heart, soul and mind. Chances are you’ll find, as I have, that one foot is planted to each side as you lean forward toward your computer screen. It’s there where I’ve floundered lately: the part about putting my mind in the middle. I haven’t been here, nor anywhere else on my other blogs.

Oh, I know the reason… and I’m about to take care of that. I’m going back to following the best piece of advice I ever received and chances are you’ll appreciate it.

So, what’s the best piece of advice you ever received?

So, I got to the hotel without a hitch only to discover the bar doesn’t open until 5 p.m. What the heck, I figured, I’ll get settled in my room. Unpacked my stuff, got the laptop online and looked around for an ashtray so I could have a smoke. Turns out, there aren’t any: in the year since I last stayed here the place has gone non-smoking…even in the bar. Bastards.

Still needing to kill time until Happy Hour, I decided to step outside for a cigarette. Not surprisingly, there was quite a little crowd standing around the ashtray, all of them shivering because it’s freakishly cold today. Around the time I stuck a ciggie in my mouth and started rummaging around in my purse for a light the crowd went back inside, leaving only me and this tall, rather good-looking guy who kindly lit my cigarette for me.

Then he said:

“Yes, you know I’ve never met anyone like you. But I have to say, as attracted as I am to you, I just don’t think it’s going to work out. I’ve got too much going on in my life right now, okay?”

Torn between feeling flattered and freaked out, I shook my head and replied: “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Then I took a couple of steps away. I just got rid of my last stalker a couple of months ago and I don’t think I’m up for that kind of drama again.

“No, I mean it,” he said. “But, hey, we can have a few drinks together, right?”

Sobriety was looking surprisingly good to me at that point. I stubbed my cigarette out and made a beeline for the hotel door.

That’s when he continued, “Listen, I’ve got another call. We’ll talk soon, okay? Bye.”

Fucking hands free cell phone headsets.