Out of all of the eleven Januarys that I've been writing this blog, I think this one has seen the most posts. I'm not trying to set a record or anything, it's just that I've had a lot of things to say and getting them down on cyberpaper is a good way to get those thoughts out there.
Someone asked me once, "What is a blog post?" With my never-changing wit and wisdumb, I answered—completely straight faced—"It's kind of like a telephone pole with a lost pet notice on it, only instead of a notice, it's a bunch of stuff that I've written for the world to read."
Lord, help me.
While blogs themselves are fairly new, the concept actually goes back a ways. The word "blog" itself is a conglomeration of the term "web log." Say that fast over and over, and the words begin to blend together. For whatever reason, the "blog" part stands out. A web log was pretty much any writing about anything that anyone could do and post on the world wide web for everyone to read.
From 1989 through 2006, I kept what I called my journal. In my case, I pretty much chronicled my life. I began by writing in a blank Hallmark book meant for that purpose. Then I moved to putting it on a computer using various word processing programs. Within that period of time, I became a father, raised a daughter, went to Walt Disney World twice, got and lost many jobs, got a new car, won a nice case of Type 2 diabetes at the local shooting gallery, edited a club newsletter, went through some marital woes, had a week-long stay in the hospital, and many other things that I didn't list here. I stopped keeping my journal because I had gotten sick (hence the ER/hospital stay) and just said "no more."
After a few years, I realized that not keeping my journal meant that the life I was living was simply passing by. Not that anyone ever read my journal, but I sometimes referred to it to find out when I did some particular thing. In the meantime, I came across a blog that a friend was writing (thanks, Terri!). A little research showed that I could get my own blog with Google's Blogger program, and it was completely free. Putting two and two together, my blog was born. I now had a place of my own to write, entertain, fantasize, annoy—whatever I wanted. It's really been a godsend.
While I post a link to my latest posts on Facebook, I honestly don't know how many people actually take the time to read it. For fun, I often joke that I only have about two or three readers. Currently, I have nine followers. It was up to 14 at one time; apparently some folks stopped following me because they saw where I was leading them. My guess is that they weren't too keen on the idea of taking a sudden fall off of a cliff in the middle of the night. I don't blame them one bit. Remember that you can get my posts in your e-mail by entering your e-mail address in that space in the upper right hand corner of the page. Whether you do so is up to you, and to my knowledge, there's no spam.
In a way it's probably a good thing that I don't have a computer at home. If I did, then there would be so many posts that you couldn't read all of them in a single lifetime. The library (where I usually go) is only open certain hours, and I'm not always able to go over there. That makes your spare time more manageable. I do have a phone and a tablet, and have made posts from both devices, but it's a lot easier at the library.
For whatever reason, no one leaves any comments below my posts in the blog itself, though some people comment on Facebook under the post with the link in it. I always appreciate comments and feedback about what I've written. Criticism is OK, too, because that often helps me to make improvements.
The beauty of writing about your life is that for most people, it's always changing. There are new experiences to be had and worthy of being written about in a blog or some other format.
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