Channeling my inner stalker

Now before you get out the restraining orders, I must explain. Let me explain. I don't stalk people. I stalk blogs, so it's not as criminal as you may first think. I confess I haven't updated my blog lately (100 lashings with a spaghetti noodle, I know) because I've been too engrossed in what others have to write.

I spent the last two days stalking a sandwich, an Earwig Sandwich, or more specifically a blog entitled Earwig Sandwich that I stumbled upon from another one of my victims. It sounds so forbidding. Victims. Yet, that's how I feel when I sign into Blogger and notice one of my favourites has a new entry. I am overcome with giddiness. Giddy-up.

I've been channelling my inner stalker with Earwig Sandwich over the last two days. I've forbidden myself to read the latest entries before I update myself on the blog from its inception. The author, a chef-cum-filmmaker, has a unique take on blogging. She entertains her followers, her fans, with tales of her one project in particular, making a film on the lives of insects. It's not something I'm usually interested in. I spend a lot of time trying to keep insects out of my house and my hair. Wasps in particular as they have run (or flown) rampantly through my garden oasis over the summer. My boxer Kao has tried to eat a few and I've tried to hit them and maim them, anything to get them away from me and my tasty skin.

Earwig Sandwich attracted me by its name alone. Who in the hell would eat an earwig sandwich, let alone write about it. Two entries in and I was hooked. The blog does not soley talk about the intricacies of filming insects in their natural habitat. Of course, there are entries like that, but mixed in are little glimpses into the life that her and her director-husband have established in a small town in France. I don't know where the town is, but I feel like I know all of its inhabitants. I learned about their search for a house, a location in which to shoot, write and edit the film. I read in earnest the pains they took to tuck themselves into the small town and the lives of its inhabitants. And, I realized that this lifestyle, the interwoven patchwork is what enthralls me. It's a life that holds my interest and perhaps it's what I was meant to do. I like people. I find them fascinating. And, if a blog could hold my interest for days on days, it's how I would like others to find Scribing Life. Now I have to find my angle.

Earwig Sandwich has its angle already - the lives of insects and in that, the lives of the townsfolk, and I can't even describe the effect it's had on me. Besides the fact that I have succumbed to stalking even more, it's made me question what I'm doing here and where I'd like to be. I've been asking that question a lot lately. I guess it's sole-searching in a way. What do I want? Where do I want to be? All the age-old questions. As my old, dear friend Bono sings "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" and I'm not sure if I ever will. As humans we're always in a state of self-discovery and learning and that is something that will never change. It's just channelling that self-discovery and creating a list of the things that hold our interest for more than five minutes.

My list is long and varied, like the jack-of-all-trades that I have sprouted into. In my long and varied life, I've been smitten more than a few times: writer (that's been on my list since I could hold a pencil), boxer (and not the canine kind), dragon-boater, singer, dancer, squash and tennis player, painter. There will be more, but as of late, I've been at a standstill. I haven't had that epiphany that says "Eureka, that's my next project, my next love."

Earwig lady had hers, and it probably won't be her last. She moved house from the UK to France and exchanged her culinary career for the life of a filmmaker. She mastered the life exchange too - trading a more urban lifestyle for one more relaxed, and that's appealing. At least it is to me. An afternoon of cards at the pub with the locals? Deal me a hand. Organizing dinner parties underneath the canopy of the lime trees on her rented Lovely House? Oh hell yes. Making new friends and connections in a town that doesn't take outsiders very easily? It sounds divine.

And that my friends is why I'm a little introspective this evening. Coming away from reading seven months of entries and I was relaxed, rejuvenated and realizing that maybe a change like that is what I need. I don't know where, why or how yet. Or even what. But I know that if reading about new interests like that left me in a state of serenity, then that is what I need.

Now to find my own serenity base and stop reading and salivating over others. Wish me luck and much speed.