I’ve decided that I’m going to try harder with this blog.  Why?  Because it’s easier than cleaning the house, which is the other thing I do poorly.  My problem of late has been that I just don’t know what to write about.  Current events are either a) depressing or b) need no further comment or c) both a and b.  Seriously, what can you say about Ft. Hood?  It’s tragic, and how, exactly, was it not prevented?  It’s not like the guy didn’t give folks plenty of warning that he was psychotic and/or evil.  I don’t get it.  Okay, you see what I mean.  That’s not very interesting, is it?  If you want to read about stuff like that, you’ll read the news, won’t you?

So what do you want to read about?  Answer:  Wait, what do I care?  I started this blog so I could write about whatever I felt like writing about, and if I don’t feel like writing about anything, maybe I should just stop writing.  But wait!  If I did that, I’d have to start cleaning the house and paying attention to the children.  Now you see why the blog must go on.  And yet, I still have nothing to write about.  So what do I do?  I decide to look up some ice breaker questions on the interwebs–because, you know, I’ve been here for five and a half years, but I still feel like you all don’t really know me that well.  Ha ha, that was a joke.  But seriously, this is all I’ve got, so I’m just going to go with it.

The ice breaker question of the day is this:  “If you were a comic strip character, who would you be and why?”

At first I read this as “If you could be a comic strip character, who would you be and why?” and I thought, “That’s easy.  I’d be Snoopy because he’s cool and he does whatever he wants.”  But the question isn’t about which comic strip character you’d like to be, but which comic strip character you are (metaphorically speaking).  That is a bit harder for me to answer because I like to think I’m a bit more complicated than a comic strip character.  Ha ha, that was another joke.  No, the reason it’s a harder question, of course, is that I don’t think I’m going to like the answer.  I mean, one thing’s for sure:  I’m NOT Snoopy.  Number one, I’m not cool.  Number two, I only try to do what I want sometimes and usually fail, and most of the time I don’t even try because I think I’m probably going to fail.  Say what you will about Snoopy’s moral deficits, but he is not plagued by similar concerns.

You probably think you know where I’m going with this.  You think I’m going to say I’m Charlie Brown, because Charlie Brown is a loser.  But Charlie Brown is an optimistic loser.  You’ve got to hand it to him.  He doesn’t have much in the way of self-confidence, but he still goes out there and does stuff.  He doesn’t give up hope, even though he knows he’s a loser.  Part of him, deep down inside, thinks that someday things are going to be different, that someday he’ll win.  He never learns, that Charlie Brown.  He’s kind of like me that way.  Crap. I really don’t want to be Charlie Brown.

You know who I wish I was?  Linus.  Linus is my favorite (of the human Peanuts characters).  Yeah, he walks around with a blanket and sucks his thumb, which I’m not saying I want to do, particularly (although it has a certain appeal, some days), but he’s really the moral anchor of the strip.  He’s the only one who knows what Christmas is all about, if you dig my meaning.  I admire Linus.  Even his faith in the Great Pumpkin is admirable, from my perspective.  Faith saves the intellectual from nihilism.  Yeah, it’s delusional, but it’s not dangerous-delusional.  (Aside from cheating Sally out of tricks or treats, which, if you think about it, was really her own fault.  You want to sit in the pumpkin patch with your boyfriend all night, at least be woman enough to own that choice.  I’d like to think I’m not like Sally.)

All this reminds me that I took a Facebook quiz that told me what Peanuts character I was, and you know what the result was?  Woodstock.  Which is really the best possible result because who is Woodstock?  What does he stand for?  Nobody knows.  He only speaks bird language.  And he looks exactly like all the other birds in the strip.  Which one is the real Woodstock?  Are they all Woodstock?  Was Woodstock cloned at some point?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that Woodstock is whatever you want him to be.  That’s what I’d like to be, too.

No, wait, it’s not.  But apparently it’s what I am because the Facebook quiz said so, and you know those quizzes are SCARILY ACCURATE.

And now it’s your turn, gentle readers.  Which comic strip character are you?  Which would you like to be?