Obsessive Thinking

I have an issue with obsessive thinking.  Sometimes, when I get an idea in my head, I just have trouble getting it out of my head.  It could be a problem that I'm trying to solve or an issue that I am wrestling with.  Or it could just be the lyrics to a song that I'm puzzling over their meaning or what they mean to me.  Whatever the subject, it tends to stick around and monopolize my mental energy.

On a couple of recent occasions, the thoughts/issues that I was wrestling with lent themselves to sending an email to someone to express my thoughts on a subject.  In each case, I felt that the person I was emailing wanted to know, or needed to know, or would benefit from knowing my thoughts.  In those cases, I felt better after sending the email.  It's not that I completely stopped thinking about the issue, but I felt that my mind could rest from the subject at that point.  The obsessive nature of the thinking subsided.

My catharsis in writing down my thoughts made me think of the lines to a song - Breathe by Anna Nalick:

Two AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, its no longer
Inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to

Now I'm no poet or lyricist, but I do feel that getting my ideas carefully thought out and arranged in writing is helpful.  In many cases, however, there isn't necessarily an individual that I can, or want to, email about the topic on my mind, so I'm thinking that I will try do that here on this blog.  I haven't blogged regularly in long time, and I still may not do it regularly, but I think it's worth giving it a try.  I could just write my thoughts in a journal or diary, but I think there is also value in the knowledge that I am sharing my thoughts with someone else.  Even if no one actually comes across them and reads them, they are out there.  Maybe that matters somehow. 

I have to be aware also of what Anna Nalick goes on share in the next few lines of the song:

And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
'Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

I know that sometimes people will come along and take offense at the things that are said on the internet, but I suppose that is the risk that I'm taking.   And, it's my blog, so if the comments get annoying, I can always disable them for an individual post (as has only happened once).

2017 Book List

I just realized that it is the last day of January, and I still haven't written up my book list from last year.  So, here it goes, the books I read last year:

Exhume - Danielle Girard
Paws and Effect - Sofie Kelly
Telling Tails - Sofie Ryan
We Have Lost the President - Paul Mathews
Murder on the House - Juliet Blackwell
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands - Jorge Amado
Home for the Haunting - Juliet Blackwell
Last to Die - Tess Gerritsen
Die Again - Tess Gerritsen
Call After Midnight - Tess Gerritsen
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
I Know A Secret - Tess Gerritsen
We Have Lost the Pelicans - Paul Mathews
When the Bough Breaks - Jonathan Kellerman
The Color of Magic - Terry Pratchett
Fool's Puzzle - Earlene Fowler

That makes 16 books.  A marked improvement over last year's 10 books.  There are still a lot of mystery series books in there.  The one Terry Pratchett novel, the first in the DiscWorld series, was  the one scifi/fantasy novel.  And the Amado and Hawthorne novels were my forays into serious literature this year. 

I find that I am getting a bit tired of the formulaic mystery novels.  I feel like I'm reading basically the same thing over and over.  When I read more serious things, I feel like I get more out of it, but it takes my longer to get through them, as a general rule.