Oh Irony.

Question: What is the appropriate punishment for a slacker-blogger who has simply abandoned her blog for no good reason?

Answer: Send her to a Blogging Conference where she will have to explain to everyone that she used to have a blog once, but that she is monumentally lazy and preoccupied and her blog fell into radio silence.

This is how my life works: three weeks before I am given the chance to attend a conference about blogging--I stop blogging. When I think of the fact that I'll spend two days being the only person at the conference who doesn't actually have an active blog, I get a little twisty, anxious feeling in my stomach that can only be quelled by wine, or bowls of sugar cereal, or bowls of sugar cereal doused in wine (not really that last bit--or not yet, anyway).

But today I am biting the bullet, re-entering the fray, grabbing the bull by the proverbial horns (can you tell I've been reading Lonesome Dove and having cowboy dreams?). I'm going to SLOG ALL OVER THIS THING. Watch your shoes. You might get slog on them...

Last night, some friends and I played Life, the board game. It had been at least fifteen years since any of us had played, but oh, did we remember it. Libby used to cheat to ensure she got to live in the Tudor house. I used to stare at the board, wishing hard that I might land on every "Baby Girl" or "Baby Boy" square, thus filling my little minivan with adorable babies. Times change. Now, Libby wants the Modern Victorian house and I am happy with my one quiet, well-behaved child.

For the first twenty minutes, we mostly lamented the new, cartoony images on the much-busier game board. Why, we wondered, does everything have to change? Why? Then, we got down to playing. It was way more complicated than any of us remembered. Clearly, as children, we'd only adhered to the rules that interested us. Now there are "Share the Wealth" and "Long Term Investment" opportunities. Now there is the "Spin to Win" gambling feature. And, because we are older, and understand the extended rules, we feel compelled to follow them.

See how much Life is actually like life?

As we played, we tried to understand what Life is meant to teach the young children who play it. There are obvious lessons: you will buy a house; you will have a family; you will have a career; you'll make money and you'll pay money. In the end, you'll retire to a big mansion and count your money, and if you made enough of it, you are the winner. Twisted.

But there are other lessons, too. Lessons that resonated especially powerfully to people in their late twenties. Namely, that Life is Random and Absurd. For instance, of the six of us, only Andrew ever had to pay taxes. Two people found buried treasure and collected 500,000 dollars. Kelsey landed on every tile that said she'd won a television dance/singing/game show contest, and raked in the dough. Jacob lost his job as a veterinarian and became a hair stylist. He made the least money but lived in a mansion. He also had to do the only real work of the game, as our banker, which is--of course--a job he didn't get paid for at all. Libby made the most money but lived in a double-wide. Poor Paul, just because he had the highest salary, got sued by anyone and everyone who landed on a Lawsuit square.

And with each spin of the wheel, we waited helplessly to see what sort of hand fate would deal us next. Half way through, Kelsey suggested we double whatever number we spun, just to move across the board faster. So we did, and soon we were tearing along, jumping all sorts of milestones without looking twice. Babies, car accidents, Nobel prizes. We spun and spun again. We raced one another to retirement. And when we got there, we had piles of money and we were all exhausted.

Life seems to reduce the whole experience of a person in the world to a series of purchases, payments, and required milestones. The game offers a few choices, but eliminates most. It forces your hand. Across the board there are stop signs that demand you to stop, to marry, to pick a house or a career out of a pile of limited options. So, the lesson is that life is random, and absurd, and it is sometimes about choice but it is mostly about chance. But if you think too much about that stuff, it will leave you feeling tired, tired, tired.

Luckily, there are good friends, and there is champagne, and there is plenty to laugh about when--in make believe--your friends discover buried treasure, win Nobel prizes, buy homes they can't afford, become veterinarian-hairstylists, get sued again and again, win game shows, or fall way, way behind because they are physically incapable of spinning anything other than a two.

I've missed you,

Kendall