Blogging As a Stress Reducer - Confessions of a Conservative

Okay, so as I told fellow AR bloggers Ted Baker, Cheryl Gilliam and Angelia Garcia last night that I dropped out of the blogging world for a month as I sort of got myself into the weeds and turned a par four with a dog leg into a double bogey.  Golfers will understand exactly what I mean by that statement.

Golf is a great game, but golf as a stress reducer? I am not too sure about that.  I know far too many people who have wrapped their clubs around a tree, thrown a perfectly good wood into the water hazard, and literally kicked the stitching out of their golf bags.  I have even had the unfortunate experience to be the second person on a golf cart driven by an errant golfer who was trying to run over another member of our foursome.

I really don't like playing with people that are wrapped as tight as that, but invariably it is bound to happen that you get paired up with someone that is just a tad too competitive.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm as competitive as the next over-achiever and like to win just as much as the next guy or gal, I just don't want to have a heart attack doing it. I had someone not speak to me for a couple of weeks because I won a really awesome prize for the longest drive during a tournament.  Seriously. (Hey, it was a lucky shot on the right hole at the right time.  Go figure.)

Instead of golf, I have turned to blogging as a stress releaser.  I am a creative type, and I can do it from the comfort of my home or office regardless of whether it is 101' outside or a balmy 72'.  Now with a mobile card I can even blog from I-95.  Rain, snow, sleet or hail will not deter me from my goal to read blogs, comment and dash off a thought or two of my own. 

Yeah, yeah, I know that there is no exercise or physical fitness involved with blogging, but how much physical fitness is there in throwing back a couple of cold ones and riding around on a golf cart with a mad man for three hours followed by more adult beverages and a "heart stopper" meal of cholesterol and saturated fats at the 19th hole?  On the whole, golfers are clearly not the thinnest athletes, you know. 

Course, I don't know what the heck I was thinking when I took up blogging as a hobby.  Blogging may be just slightly more dangerous than standing behind a Tiger Woods wannabe in the tee box who has double-bogeyed the last nine holes. 

Last month, for the fun of it, I blogged about Oprah and NOW being a big disappointment to women.  Thank heavens I didn't mention those knuckleheads on The View.  If you don't know who I am talking about, consider yourself lucky. Let me just say this: the View is a panel of women on morning tv who are so out of touch with reality and so far to the left that God bless 'em they couldn't think their way out of parking lot.  Yeah, yeah, I know, Barbara Wah-Wah is on the panel, but she is another big disappointment. Just read her book.  Thank heavens I have a day job and am only subjected to their inane and insipid drivel only on the rarest of occasions. 

So why did I blog about Okra and Sarah Palin?  Well, I love politics, I love analyzing people and things, and I really love a good debate.  And I wanted to point out that two female icons that women look to have screwed up.

What was I thinking? Good Lord, I nearly started a firestorm and at first thought I was going to have to hire a few of our country's finest to guard me.  (Luckily enough I am following Hilary Clinton on Twitter and I was able to secure her overflow of Secret Service for the duration.)

Fortunately the negative comments I received drew equally as fevered positive ones and although some women are clearly not going to vote for Palin they understood what I was trying to say. 

The comments were coming in so fast and furious and I was spending all of my time trying to answer each and every one.  I was literally getting just a couple of hours of sleep the first few days as I tried to answer everyone's comments in a timely fashion. 

Where I got sucked in was debating comments from people who, in my opinion and clearly in the opinion of a few others, did not understand the point that I was making.  I will fall short of saying that they were clearly in the wrong and leaning to the left a tad too far although others may do so.  A few of the comments I received led me to debate their comments point by point.  I could have blogged another five or six complete posts from my lengthy responses.  At one point, I even had a couple of people (thank you Simon Conway, Chris Brown and Mike Saunders!) jumping in to help draw the fire while I ducked for cover and a few winks.

I am not certain how much stress was relieved by the whole debate, but I think that all of us really had a great time debating the point from both sides of the issue. Clearly there were more than few of us who had a surge in blood pressure, and I for one enjoyed using my brain and, in the words of Hercule Poirot, I enjoyed giving the little grey cells a work out.

Still, blogging as a stress reducer?  I guess if you stick to safe topics you are okay, but where's the fun in that?  Life is not a spectator sport.  You have to participate. Blogging and commenting on AR is a great way to participate both professionally and recreationally. 

Did I ever tell you about the time I did a par four in two? The ball looked like it was going into the water but hit a turtle's back, took an awesome bounce and hopped up onto the green.  Seriously.