Why bother? (When it dries up)

That's your job; you're supposed to think of something to say, right? And I can't deny it. I asked for a first sentence, and in the spirit of taking what I am given here you have it. It is my job, true, but I find inspiration lacking often these evenings when I sit to write. It is not even easier during the day, when Ethan is gone, as I had expected it would be. Instead I find my spare moments not filled with ideas for this space but thoughts of what to make for dinner, meditations on our relationship, luxurious moments curled up on the couch buried in a piece of good, or at least decent, fiction. Too much television, perhaps, rotting my brain. I forgot the siren-like call of weekend evenings on FX, TBS, TNT, Comedy Central. Tonight I have the choice of basketball, SWAT, The Fugitive, Bad Santa. It never ends. It is always so easy to lose your consciousness in that bright, shining oblivion right up to the moment where your brain explodes and you hit the cliffs, drown on the unforeseen rocks. It is harder, day by day, to have a first sentence that I can springboard from into the depths I hope to reach, slicing through the calm surface and bringing some sort of light or motion into murky places. Does my writing improve with practice? Have I found (can I identify) my own narrative voice? These are my hopes, and as easy as it would be to simply abandon this space in my current mood and distraction I would feel somehow traitorous. Maybe it's just the count I see every time I log in: this is 75; 100 is not so far off; 1000 only 3 years away. Maybe it's some sense of loyalty to the few of you who come and visit. Maybe it truly is the hope of a small slice of my childhood dreams coming true.