The Premature Death of a Blog?

I really enjoyed writing my first blog post for this blog yesterday, and I was excited all day that I had actually written something! I was following through on my final resolution (see yesterday's post...Also, I have fingernails now. My mom recently told me that this is the first time since I was an infant that she had known me with fingernails.). Yesterday's blog was my first piece of writing since the dog attack, and it felt great to get some thoughts on "paper" and to remember, in many ways, why I wanted to teach writing in the first place. Yesterday was also, oddly, the first time I was looking forward to that awkward time before bed where I thought about a bunch of random things. I couldn't wait to see what i would think of so I could have something interesting to blog about today.

I started thinking about my teaching. I thought about the way I've approached this semester after the dog attack. I thought about my friends who are going through some difficult situations recently. I thought about my kids and the ways that they play together, wondering if it's healthy or not. I relished the fact that I ignored Monday Night Football for the first time in many years (see yesterday's post). I thought about my experience being around a dog earlier in the day. I didn't freak out, but I also wasn't comfortable. However, no matter what I thought about, I started trying to write the blog in my head rather than truly thinking about the issues.

"It's been a really hard year teaching, but I think I've finally gotten my feet under me, literally and figuratively..."

"Wallowing in self-pity won't help me or my friends, especially since my dog attack was a temporary setback, while my friends are dealing with incredibly emotional, long-term issues..."

"Justin and I fought a lot more than my two kids, but am I doing everything I can to make sure that they have the best relationship possible?..."

"In light of this morning's blog post, I decided to watch a documentary called 'A Band Called Death' instead of watching Monday Night Football. I can't say that I actually felt like I was making a difference by boycotting a corrupt institution, but the first half of the documentary (the amount I could watch before needing to go to sleep) was really good..."

"Before I knew it, my three-year-old and I had converged on our Neighbor and her dog, Zoe. I wanted to turn around, but I knew my son's desire to go to the park was greater than my fear..."

Instead of thinking these things through in my normal manner, I started composing. Typing mentally. This is a normal procedure for me when thinking about a piece of writing. However, it also seemed to me that I was bastardizing some sort of "realness" involved in my usual nightly thinking. I ended up not really processing anything from the day and not really thinking deeply about anything that I found pressing. I was just thinking about which topic I wanted to write a blog about. This reeked of inauthentic thinking and I fell asleep before I could resolve my feelings of inadequate authenticity. But maybe this could give me some insight into my writing process itself. Maybe. But I'll need to think about it more. Maybe tonight?

I'm the type of person who always lies awake in bed at night and thinks about a lot of crap before I can go to sleep. Last night I was thinking about a lot of things including that I should write more.

I actually decided to write more a few weeks ago after I got viciously attacked by dogs. It was severe. Two Akita/heeler mixes chased after me, unprovoked, got me to the ground and started eating my legs. The dog on the right leg had a pretty blue scarf around his neck as he ripped flesh off of my shin. Down to the bone. The other dog, on my left leg, was slowly working his way up my leg, and he had just about eschewed my leg for more vital organs in my intestinal region when a good Samaritan jumped out of his car, barreled toward me, kicked the dogs off of me, and called 911. If he hadn't shown up, I believe I would be dead. And near death experiences have a way of making one ruminate about his life. I made 4 "resolutions"

1. Stop biting fingernails and the skin around my fingernails. Dogs chew on David. David doesn't chew on David.
2. Compliment and thank Rebekah (my wife) every day. Notice the little things. She is amazing and I need to do a better job of reminding her of this and helping her.
3. Play with the boys more. Go outside and run and roll around (when I'm healthy enough to do it). It's easy to say no to them and sit an read. But it's harder to be forced to sit like I have been recently. When I'm better, unless I'm going something actually important, don't say "no" to playing.
4. Write more.

Well, this blog is an attempt to write more. But I wanted a hook to the blog. So I have decided on Last Night This Morning. I'm going to write every morning about the things I was thinking about the previous night before I fell asleep. Not only will this help me write, it will help me be more introspective and codify my thoughts on some issues that get me thinking.

For example, last night I was thinking about whether or not I should watch football anymore. I am a parent to two small boys, 6 and 3, and they already know they're not allowed to play football. The research about football's dangers is pretty conclusive, to say the least. And as a professor, I find my kids' brains incredibly important, so I've banned my children from playing football (hurray unilateral decisions!).

The problem with this decision is that I actually like watching football quite a bit. And last night I was watching the 49ers play the Bears. My three year old giggled at the 49ers uniforms saying, "Why are their pants gold? They have goldie pants. They should have red, like their shirts!" Both of my kids have interesting (sometimes funny) observations about football games, making me think about things I've never noticed. And I enjoy spending time with them. But I also sense the hypocrisy of watching a sport with them that they aren't allowed to play.

I've tried to stop caring about college football because a brain damaging sport at an institution of higher learning seems a bit oxymoronic. But I still root for TCU (where I got my PhD) and Morningside (where I teach) because people I know and I have emotional investments in the teams. I have tried to stop caring about the NFL because I've never cared about a specific team very much and recently the controversy surrounding Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson and the NFL's handling of such issues, not to mention the terrible way the NFL handled concussion issues for years, has me thinking that I shouldn't support the NFL. But I have two fantasy football teams with two different groups of friends. I like bonding with my friends.

The actions of the NFL and the NCAA should make my decision easy. They are both morally corrupt institutions, and they both support a game that actively destroys its participants' brains. And yet, instead of ceasing and desisting putting my eyeballs on the TV set, I'm stuck lying awake at night thinking about it after watching football on Saturday and Sunday.