Eureka!

Contemplation on this blog continues. Inasmuch as most of my material here has been about the blogging experience itself, would that make this a meta-blog?

I have fully realized that a policy I have practiced and will now formally adopt herein:
"If there's nothing interesting to write about, then don't."

My intention is to eventually emerge from this meta-blog worthlessness into a meadow of profundity. (Beware when I start stringing the polysyllabic words together. Sometimes signals a dangerous level of the self-import that damns so many wannabe writers.)

'Nuff said for this time (reference paragraph 2, this entry).

In Need of a Standing Eight-Count

This is just me talking to myself, but by typing into a computer. It's a freaking diary, isn't it? No, it's a weblog; blog if you're nasty. Whatever the hell it is, just doesn't seem worth much at this point.

Maybe because I've had those days lately where your life feels like a heavyweight in the middle-rounds, getting beaten on constantly, tired and punch-drunk where you keep moving to avoid the punches and have no idea where you are. And somewhere around the corner, you suspect there will be a knockout with your name on it. Yeah, that's a fun existence. That's called life and work and the grind. Once in a while, there's a good day. But so often, the days just roll on past like numbers on the odometer: insignificant as they're happening, but adding up quicker than you realize.

I've done a little snooping around in other people's blogs. The Next Blog>> button at the top of the Blogger page is the only way I've found to really check out other people's work (if you could call it that). Yeah, you can go through your profile and find people who list the same keywords as you put in your Interests list. Wow. So I can find the other 7 losers who really remember the band Fastway from the 80s? Notsomuch a lure. But that's a hassle anyway. The Next Blog>> button is as good a way as any to stumble into someone else's stream-of-consciousness. And there's plenty of people peeing in these streams.

Gotta admit, there are some cool designs, and some damned obsessive people focused on topics I do not care about. Knitting. Gay political activism. Some Spanish-writing couple's babies. Uh, no thanks.

And if you're going to have a slick-looking blog, populate it with some relevant, intriguing or at least entertaining material. Most I've seen tend to be either:

-- on-line diaries (Oh, does Josh really care about me? Will he instant message me? Would he just forward me an email? *puke*)

-- attempts at presenting an amalgam of cleverness/offbeatedness/or just pure smug intellectualism that the reader clicks away thinking, "man, they just try too hard..." *slowly shakes head*

-- are written in either a language other than English and/or by someone in a far-flung part of the world (I've seen blogs from Christchurch, New Zealand; Koala Lumpur, Malaysia; Nova Scotia, Canada; and Singapore just tonight), while intriguing that I might get insight from someone in another part of the world, I don't have the time to sort through their 'life' online to find the parts I'd be interested in reading, and they sure as hell haven't been beating a path to my neck o' the woods.

So maybe it's just the fatigue. Maybe it's because I don't have a muse, other than the whole investigation of this blog world itself. Or, could just be I'm disinterested in blogging because no one has commented on any of my posts to tell me I'm coool. *wink* *giggle*....*gag*

Somewhere between the Brazos & Bosque

Somewhere between the Brazos & Bosque

I miss my Dad. He died several years ago, when I was 25. Seldom a day goes by I don't think about him or his influence in my life. The greatest lesson in my life came from our relationship: never leave anything unsaid that you might regret having left out of the conversation of life, especially 'I love you.'

Can we edit our lives?

So the whole notion of whether or not I should edit my blog entries has had me thinking for a couple days. This medium seems so immediate, conversational and damn near stream-of-consciousness that I just have the initial gut feel that somewhere a blog geek is cringing at the thought.

Then again, it's not like I'm using instant messaging shorthand and emoticons lol :) Someone please share with me the emoticon for dripping with sarcasm.

Back to the point - I read my initial entries and cringe when I see a subject-verb disagreement, or the repetitive use of a word. My nature is to edit. I want to make it right. This isn't like presidential papers that I'm going back and wiping away proof that Reagan really knew. I'm just improving what is intended to be on display for the world to read.

The grander idea of being able to edit our lives, though, now that's intriguing. Imagine tidying up the sordid bits a little. At least where there'd be no proof or anyone else's memory to haunt you. I'm sure that's something the criminal mind prays to someone or something for on a daily basis. Then there's the really dark times. To be able to just blot out, edit if you will, that incident when you had a horrific car accident. Maybe you were abused as a child. Or, maybe someone ripped the heart out of your body and left you whimpering in a lifeless mass, wishing the damage had been physical instead of mental.

There's this cliche in movies and in life of people who are asked to reflect on their lives. "I wouldn't change a thing," they invariably say, wistfully recollecting an arduous but rewarding journey. Screw that. Even my best days I'd probably change a thing or two. There's always room for an even better ride, isn't there?

Maybe that's just the editor in me talking.

Justice due

OK. This is my second attempt to write my second blog entry. Damn power blinked off before I could save a half-written entry. I don't have it in me to try to recreate it.

I did get into a discussion with one of my best friends about blogs and my publishing of one. He brought up Chris (see previous entry), and I explained post No. 1. This friend, despite being under the influence of alcohol and extreme mental agony from a subject not to be discussed here, really made a point to me that I had been missing.

The topic was why I was doing a blog. I suggested that there was a potential desire to be published as a writer. He pointed out that blogs aren't really 'published' in the original sense of publishing. To be published, he said, someone has to read your work, decide they want to publish it and then go to the expense of publishing it. Blogs are people posting their own writings on the Internet. It's not the same, he said.

And while my inner journalist self could only look down, wondering how I had missed such an obvious perspective. Perhaps that was because of a minor rant I had once made in an essay on the review website Epinions.com. While it's primarily a review site, epinions at one time (I haven't been active in several years) would sometimes pose rhetorical questions for writers to try to answer with their own subject matter knowledge to try to help others sort it out. The topic was 'Would you be willing to pay for an online subscription to newspapers?' My essay went off on a tangent than directly answering the question. But it's a belief I've had for many years. The editorial process is an undervalued process that is increasingly becoming underused. It is directly related to the notion of publishing requiring someone willing to take a chance on an editor's work.


Back to the new subject of today's entry (the first was going to be more exploration of this whole blog experience, how it has worked to now, the process of self-editing, yadda yadda tomato):

Went to lunch with some friends today. They were working. I wasn't. Guess which one of us had a margarita for lunch. On the way back to drop them off, this Dodge 4x4 truck tries to cut us off as we approach a stop light, then swerves back into his lane and runs a red light just as it turns red. Across the intersection, he barely misses a car and swerves around another vehicle and then speeds to get past a semi-truck before two lanes merge. All three of us in the car exlaim out loud how close that guy was to causing an accident. I point out, in the line of traffic perpendicular to us, about 4 cars back is a cop. And there's a cop right there, I point out with my finger, and I bet he didn't see anything. Then, as the cop gets to the intersection, he abruptly turns and goes up the street out of sight with no lights or siren. We proceed on when the light turns green, wondering if he really was pursuing the truck or just trying to get somewhere else.

Just as we were about to give up on the idea, we see him as we crest a hill. The cop pulled over the truck and neither of them look too happy. I slow down and honk my horn three times. We all point at the guy and give the thumbs up. Justice due and justice served.

Sideways or up

So it is, I begin a blog. I have my reservations, primarily that I'll become my friend, Chris, who now has a dual identity: that of a big, nerdy nice-guy like me and that of "cool-guy" Chris, who has his own blog and seems to have developed this new circle of techo-savvy friends who seem to think he's cooler than the guys in our fraternity ever did.

One might suggest that I'm just jealous. Yeah, I've thought about that. If anything, I'm jealous that I'm the trained writer, and he's the one getting published regularly. But more than the jealousy, there's the George Costanza-independent George thing that has gone bad. Used to be, Chris was always looking for something to do. You could call him and say, "Hey man, what's up?" and before long, you were at a shooting range killing poor, innocent clay pigeons. But Mr. Cool-Guy Chris now has plans all the time. "Oh, I can't meet you, I'm going to Deep Ellum with some friends tonight." Used to be that I was one of his friends. Now, I'm a backup.

Enough of the whining, let's begin blogging.

Did I mention that I'm a trained writer? LOL, that sounds like a bad '70s movie when the dweeb gets jumped by badasses ... "Stand back, I'm a trained killer!" Don't let me get all uppity. I have a journalism and English degree. Whether it was a double major could be disputed. My original transcript said I was a de facto double major because I had enough English hours that an intended minor turned into a second major. Now that my alma mater (East Texas State University) has on-line transcripts, the notation is not there. So you be the judge - how bads is my writings?

I begin this endeavor aimlessly. I kinda like that. I don't have a purpose for starting a blog - no axe to grind (that's just whining about Chris), no product to subliminally push, no ego to stroke. I've always been fond of the idea of serendipity. The results, though, have proven to vary.

My desire with this blog is to wander into the stream-of-consciousness that my wicked mind flashes past my eyes and channels down to my fingertips. And then I'll leave some room for the occasional rant. Short of that, let's see where this thing goes.