....but how about we try to refute that truism I just made up?
So yeah, today was the first day of a seven day break from my job. At my work, taking vacations the final two months of the year is a no-no. This means you must use your vacation days before October 31st and you lose them unless you can bank them. I had 8 days remaining and could only bank three, so I took Monday-Friday off and had the weekends off anyway, so that worked out well.
We had planned for about a month or so to head up to our parents' cottage in the northeastern part of WI, about 20 minutes away from the Michigan border. The cottage is nestled deep in the woods, and quite rustic; there's no indoor pumbling and our electricity will come from a gas generator. But I think it will be quite nice not to be tied to the internet or my Playstation or DishTV for a little bit. Not in any kind of Walt Whitman-esque yearning for the sanctity or nature, but just to be....away? If anything, it will be an adventure.
The last time we were up there was the last weekend we had the boy we had in our care for 1 1/4 years and he had a blast. My middle brother came up with his wife and their five kids and my folks came up, too. It was a nice goodbye to him under some less-than-ideal circumstances, so now hopefully this trip will allow Kel and I to have our own memories of "The Shack", as my mom refers to it.
Of course, as seems to happen with any long-term plan we start executing, we hit a few snags on the road. The main one came to light about three weeks ago when I got a call from Chris, a former co-worker who had worked her way up the ladder to where she had recently become the Operations Trainer for the group of stores in our territory, or "District" in our vernacular. I am currently doing the job she did when she worked at our store, and she helped train me when I was promoted back in March. I can't remember how the conversation flowed word-for-word, but basically she told me there were openings for her position at the Milwaukee district office and in her opinion I would be a great candidate. After a few fits and starts, I applied electronically and had it on my mental back-burner until this Sunday, when I realized going for the interview might mean curtailing or even cancelling the shack excursion. Obviously, for such an amazing opprotunity, I'd cancel it and not think twice about it -- you're not guaranteed any shots at the fabled "brass ring" so you go for it when such a chance falls in your lap.
One of the fellows whom was to interview me called just before I got home Tuesday, but he was gracious enough to give me his cell number, so I quickly called him back and it turned out he wanted to talk to me...but for scheduling purposes it pretty much had to be Friday morning in Milwaukee. It was nice that I didn't have to eat up part of a vacation day, but my store has a supply truck come in Friday AM and part of my duties entail scanning all the merch. I explained this to my interviewer and he said he didn't think it would be a problem and just to let my manager know. His intuition was correct -- my manager gave me the thumbs up and got the second-in-command to come in and replace me (thanks again, Troy!) so I could make my way. Since I was looking fairly shaggy, I got a haircut and -- for the first time in about eight years -- ended up with a complete lack of facial hair. Kel purchased me a nice little outfit, and by early Friday AM I was ready.
I took my Neon, which was badly in need of an oil change. As a result, I budgeted time for an oil change along the way. I stopped to the local lube joint just before 7am. The lights weren't on and there were no hours of operation posted, but there was a fellow behind the register, emmersed in a magazine. I got his attention, but he stated the store wouldn't open til 7:30am, which would not fit into my timetable. Instead of trying to Lincoln-Douglas my way into him opening early or finding another place, I made my way to the Cream City. "Hey," my internal logic joked as Janesville shrank in my rear-view, "if the car breaks down along the way, that's a big sign the job wasn't for you, anyway." My internal logic is such an optimist....
My voyage to Milwaukee was fairly smooth, my soundtrack provided by the newest Mew album (I won't type it out, this blog is long enough already) and Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest. The only minor hiccup was a minor misunderstanding of the Mapquest instructions I had transcribed in my notebook. (General hint: following step 8 becomes much easier when you make sure you've complete step 7 first. Oh numerical order, what would we do without you?) Even with the lovely detour around downtown Milwaukee, I still managed to end up at the locale with 20 minutes to spare.
It's weird how little I remember of the actual interview itself. I remember seeing my store's old pharmacy manager, as he had been promoted to a district position earlier in the summer, but other than that, I have snapshots in my head rather than discernable YouTube clips. I think by watching too many inspirational sport movies, people tend to equate Potentially Big Events with the dramatic slow motion scene where a second or two of real-time gets elongated to gain suspense and drama. That isn't really something you can convey by having two people on one side of a desk asking questions to a fellow on the other side. Still, the interview lasted right around the time budgeted and both of my interviewers seemed pretty upbeat at the end. I guess the future will tell. After stopping at the Walgreens for some liquid refreshment (my interview took place in a building with a Walgreens on one side, an empty shoe place on the other, and the Office up the stairs of an unmarked area between the two) I headed back to Janesville to finish my shift, but took a lunch break at the local Burger King as I had a Buy One Get One coupon for a chicken sandwich.
As I came back to work, I estimated I had three hours before I could punch out. Funny related note: if half your day is travelling multiple counties to take part in a potentially life-changing interview and then coming back, the other half of your day is going to go as slow as Paris Hilton doing long division. Maybe even longer. Still, eventually the little hand got 90 degrees to the right and my vacation time could offically begin.
Today was supposed to be Packing Day, and tomorrow we were to leave bright and early in order to meet the parentals in Green Bay at noon. But Kel has been sick all week, and my motivation to do anything is solely lacking. (Although I do have my clothes, most of my tolietries and a crap ton of books and board games ready to go as I type this.) I'm bringing a notebook and will hopefully have a few reflections while up there I'll jot down. Considering how earnestly I blog and transcribe stuff in my notebooks, expect the read the results... by 2010? Maybe?
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Remembering...
I’m gonna philosophize with you for a little bit. It’ll set up the main point on this blog, I assure you. It’s my assertion that there are two types of memories. The first is the kind that just sort of happens, like if you accidently hit the record button on your VCR or DVR and you get a small sliver of whatever’s happening at the time. Like when I hear the Beatles’ song “Do You Want to Know a Secret?” I flash back to being 4 or 5 years old in Green Bay, WI, coming home from shopping at the Port Plaza Mall. I’m in the back seat of the car, a brand new Presto Magix in my grubby lil mitts and we’re on the road on route to UWGB where Bay Beach Amusement Park is to your left and the Wildlife Sanctuary is to your right. I was digging to “doo waaa oooh” background vocals, and just then the car followed a curve so the sun hit me with the perfect amount of warmth. Now, there’s a million things I did as a kid that were more memorable, or meant more in the overall scheme of my life, but for whatever weird reason my brain took a hold of *that very moment* and I can recall it, even today, with crystal clear clarity. But my 8th grade graduation? Nope, don’t remember that.
The second type is the kind of feel obliged to remember, or you remember only because you would rather forget it. An example, keeping with the Beatles motif: I remember waiting for the school bus in the dining room, and I think it was cold and wintery. The radio was on but I wasn’t paying attention, and then my mom peeked around and told me John Lennon had died. Now I was 6 or 7, so I couldn’t claim to be that deeply affected by his stuff back then. But I remember how sad my mom was. I don’t think she was crying, but her face suddenly had this weight attached to it, something you could see and even feel to some degree. I also remember parts of Hands Across America, and that was specifically because I was **told** to remember it as it was going to be a great moment in our country’s history. (The fact that some of you may have to go to Wikipedia to find out what exactly “Hands Across America” is shows how insightful that advice was.) I mostly remember our small Catholic school and a few other people in a line of about 50, with no other clusters of hands to connect to the left or the right.For some bizarre reason I thought the line was going literally snake across the country and that you’d be able to see this huge mass of people on either side of you, and you would complete the connection wherever you were. Yes, I was a weird little kid. I also remember the Challenger exploding and them announcing it on the building’s PA. All the teachers took us to the gymnasium (at the time I went to a small Catholic grade school, so the whole K-8 was probably a little more than 100 people) and they wheeled out a 19 inch TV on one those wheelie holders that brought the TV up to about a six foot height and we watched a hour or so or the news coverage following the disaster. I still to this day cannot understand the internal logic behind that, beyond that it was a “historic” moment. Now on the less gloomy side of things, there are certain events in your life everyone seems to remember: your first kiss (hi, Kimberly!) Your first day on the job (ah, the carefree days of being a dishwasher at Ledge View Supper Club!) Your first day of school (crying at kindergarden, wanting to cry at high school, being at first overwhelmed and then bored in college, followed by my first of many walks from the Lakeshore dorms to State Street to pick up the new Sonic Youth CD.) The first time you touched a girl’s bra (again in college, a few weeks later....OK, the aforemantioned bra – a red one – was in the dryer as I was putting in my clothes, and I oh-so-smoothly asked the only other person there, “Uh, hey, uh, is this yours?” and indeed it was)
So obviously the date of my post might clue you in to where I’m going here. Yeah, 9/11 was an event few will ever forget, an event that shakes every generation exposed to it. Much like how your parents or grandparents can tell you where they were when Kennedy was shot or when man landed on the moon, the Internet generation can paint a pretty vivid picture of 9/11 through their eyes. My eyes at the time were spending my days at my future wife’s apartment in Mazomanie, small and cozy. We had been dating for a few months, and were starting to adjust to each other’s routines, and our main routine was our work schedules. I was an assistant manager at Walgreens in Madison, WI, specifically the store that used to be located at the Hilldale Mall. Being a manager meant you had erratic schedules, and so that Tuesday I was scheduled for the afternoon closing shift. This meant I got to sleep in, which even back then was a nice luxury. Kelley, however had a Monday to Friday morning gig at MCI Worldcom in Middleton, so by the time I woke up she was already dressed, arrived and punched in.
In the weeks before the event in question, the radio had started playing two different songs. One was “Rockin the Suburbs,” the first single from Ben Fold’s first solo album of the same name. I had enjoyed all the albums he had released with the Ben Folds Five, and enjoyed the single, which mocked the rap/rock genre that was florishing at the time. The second was by a (then) largely unheralded band from Canada called Nickelback. It was called “How You Remind Me” and Kelley really enjoyed cranking it up when it came on (which was a different station than Ben’s song, and played a lot more often) I had thought it would be a nice gesture to get her the CD when it came out, which happened to be September 11th. So around 8:30am, I woke up and got ready for work early. My plan was to get the CD at Target on the west side, which was the closest CD-selling store to her work, coming to her office and surprising her with it, and then maybe going out to lunch with her, giving me plenty of time to be at work by 1:00 pm. I had a love/hate relationship with the radio at the time, and pretty much the only time I would listen to the radio was AM radio, and then only when Jim “Pimp of Dead Air in the Box” Rome was on. Since it was not 11am yet, I decided to take a CD with. (My Buick did not have a CD stereo, so what I did was attached my Discman CD player to the dash with some cleverly placed velcro and plugged in the cassette adapter.) The CD in question was Split Enz’s Anniversary, which was a concert of the seminal New Zealand band’s 20 year reunion in the mid 90s. I’m not a super big Enz fan, but I am a big Crowded House fan (Neil Finn, before forming Crowded House was in Split Enz with his brother Tim, who would later briefly rejoin his little brother in Crowded House as well as the aptly named Finn Brothers) and found the Anniversary disc cheap enough to give it a shot. So as the Twin Towers burned and the Pentagon was breached, and as Flight 93 abruptedly landed in a pasture in Pennsylvania, I was heading into work early, listening to Split Enz, with no idea of the horror that was happening one time zone ahead of me.
My first inkling something had gone horribly wrong was when I stepped into Target and almost everyone – employees and customers alike – were huddled around the TVs right by the entrance gate. I thought this was weird until I turned toward the TVs and saw buildings with huge clouds of smoke coming out of them. Like the rest of the people I wacthed for what must have been a half hour, before the scene got too much for me. I wandered around, trying to distract myself from the ugliness of the TV. I saw the Ben Folds CD and then the Nickelback CD, and thought of purchasing both before remembering we were trying to save money to pay for a washer and dryer at Sears. So I just got the Nickelback CD and hurried back to the car, eager to surprise Kelley and discuss the crazy events that had happened just a couple hours before. By this time I knew how to get to MCI blindfolded and a few miles later, was in the building and heading up the elevator to the MCI office. What I saw when I got there I had never seen before during working hours: the entrance room was dark and there was no one behind the desk. Since that’s where Kelley was supposed to be, it was a little off-putting. I hung around the dimly lit office and went to the door where the main offices were. I heard a TV in the distance, filtering in the latest information on the attacks, and nothing else. I didn’t want to barge in, since I figured everyone’s collective paranoia was at a peak. So I wrote a quick note to Kel, stuffed it inside the Target bag with the CD, and headed to work.
I was about 2 ½ hours early, so I parked in the lot and just listened to the radio as facts and rumours trickled in. By noon I was hungry, so I walked in the mall to get my lunch special (the baked chicken breast at Sentry) and was taken aback at how barren the mall was. After eating, I came in to work, and everyone to a person was shellshocked and in a catatonic. And when I say “everyone” it was about five employees and maybe 10 or so customers the rest of the night. (They had closed the rest of the Mall around 2pm, but since Walgreens closes for absolutely NOTHING, we remained open regular hours, and they left the closest outside doors in the mall open just for us.) Some of my co-workers couldn’t stop talking about it, some were already tired of hearing about it. The canned muzak, either on the 11th or the day after, abruptedly changed to a mishmash of patriotic marches and pop songs with the word “America” or “USA” in them. Some were obvious (Lee Greenwood? You betcha) and others less so (there was a Frank Sinatra one right after Prince and The Revolution’s “America” that had ol’ Blue Eyes rhapsodizing about kids playing in the park) There were only about eight or nine songs in this instant mix, which despite the noble intent, made it really annoying really quickly. (Plus, it seemed to go on for the better part of a week, before the country was ready to heal and listen to Seals and Croft and Air Supply again.) All the way home, and then at home, was catching up with the crisis. Since we had no TV in the apartment, we listened to the boombox radio, which made it feel like my grandparents probably did when trying to get the latest on the wars of generations past.
In the days and weeks to follow, more would be learned of the attacks, and the nation's collective paranoia would level off to the point it could be rated and color-coded. The drive to and from work was now suddenly dotted with American flags on either side of the road. On a personal note, we would end up moving less than two months later, right next door to a post office, just as the anthrax terror would reach a fever pitch. (Despite the numerous signs they were legally obligated to tack up, our local postmasters in Arena, Wisconsin didn't seem too worried.) And yes, I did end up getting that Ben Folds CD a few days later from Kel.
Of course, I ‘celebrate’ not one, but two big events on 9/11. Because two years after the Towers fell, my wife was rear-ended by a semi on her way to work, the after-effects of which (bad back, numb leg) she suffers til this day. I only remember bits and pieces of that day (but I remember again I got to sleep in) other than Kel’s dad leaving a message, telling me Kel had been in an accident but that she was OK. It's weird that I almost seemed to have shut that day from my memory completely. Obviously it happened, and we still deal with the ripple effects even now. But the voice of my father-in-law on the answering machine is the only thing that has stuck with me.
So on the anniversary of 9/11, all I can say is: my thoughts are with all the people who died on that fateful day, in New York, in Washington DC, on Flight 93, and all those who loved them and knew them. It was a sad day that the whole world still feels the effects of, and hopefully the best thing that comes from it is that we can stop something that horrendous from happening again.
The second type is the kind of feel obliged to remember, or you remember only because you would rather forget it. An example, keeping with the Beatles motif: I remember waiting for the school bus in the dining room, and I think it was cold and wintery. The radio was on but I wasn’t paying attention, and then my mom peeked around and told me John Lennon had died. Now I was 6 or 7, so I couldn’t claim to be that deeply affected by his stuff back then. But I remember how sad my mom was. I don’t think she was crying, but her face suddenly had this weight attached to it, something you could see and even feel to some degree. I also remember parts of Hands Across America, and that was specifically because I was **told** to remember it as it was going to be a great moment in our country’s history. (The fact that some of you may have to go to Wikipedia to find out what exactly “Hands Across America” is shows how insightful that advice was.) I mostly remember our small Catholic school and a few other people in a line of about 50, with no other clusters of hands to connect to the left or the right.For some bizarre reason I thought the line was going literally snake across the country and that you’d be able to see this huge mass of people on either side of you, and you would complete the connection wherever you were. Yes, I was a weird little kid. I also remember the Challenger exploding and them announcing it on the building’s PA. All the teachers took us to the gymnasium (at the time I went to a small Catholic grade school, so the whole K-8 was probably a little more than 100 people) and they wheeled out a 19 inch TV on one those wheelie holders that brought the TV up to about a six foot height and we watched a hour or so or the news coverage following the disaster. I still to this day cannot understand the internal logic behind that, beyond that it was a “historic” moment. Now on the less gloomy side of things, there are certain events in your life everyone seems to remember: your first kiss (hi, Kimberly!) Your first day on the job (ah, the carefree days of being a dishwasher at Ledge View Supper Club!) Your first day of school (crying at kindergarden, wanting to cry at high school, being at first overwhelmed and then bored in college, followed by my first of many walks from the Lakeshore dorms to State Street to pick up the new Sonic Youth CD.) The first time you touched a girl’s bra (again in college, a few weeks later....OK, the aforemantioned bra – a red one – was in the dryer as I was putting in my clothes, and I oh-so-smoothly asked the only other person there, “Uh, hey, uh, is this yours?” and indeed it was)
So obviously the date of my post might clue you in to where I’m going here. Yeah, 9/11 was an event few will ever forget, an event that shakes every generation exposed to it. Much like how your parents or grandparents can tell you where they were when Kennedy was shot or when man landed on the moon, the Internet generation can paint a pretty vivid picture of 9/11 through their eyes. My eyes at the time were spending my days at my future wife’s apartment in Mazomanie, small and cozy. We had been dating for a few months, and were starting to adjust to each other’s routines, and our main routine was our work schedules. I was an assistant manager at Walgreens in Madison, WI, specifically the store that used to be located at the Hilldale Mall. Being a manager meant you had erratic schedules, and so that Tuesday I was scheduled for the afternoon closing shift. This meant I got to sleep in, which even back then was a nice luxury. Kelley, however had a Monday to Friday morning gig at MCI Worldcom in Middleton, so by the time I woke up she was already dressed, arrived and punched in.
In the weeks before the event in question, the radio had started playing two different songs. One was “Rockin the Suburbs,” the first single from Ben Fold’s first solo album of the same name. I had enjoyed all the albums he had released with the Ben Folds Five, and enjoyed the single, which mocked the rap/rock genre that was florishing at the time. The second was by a (then) largely unheralded band from Canada called Nickelback. It was called “How You Remind Me” and Kelley really enjoyed cranking it up when it came on (which was a different station than Ben’s song, and played a lot more often) I had thought it would be a nice gesture to get her the CD when it came out, which happened to be September 11th. So around 8:30am, I woke up and got ready for work early. My plan was to get the CD at Target on the west side, which was the closest CD-selling store to her work, coming to her office and surprising her with it, and then maybe going out to lunch with her, giving me plenty of time to be at work by 1:00 pm. I had a love/hate relationship with the radio at the time, and pretty much the only time I would listen to the radio was AM radio, and then only when Jim “Pimp of Dead Air in the Box” Rome was on. Since it was not 11am yet, I decided to take a CD with. (My Buick did not have a CD stereo, so what I did was attached my Discman CD player to the dash with some cleverly placed velcro and plugged in the cassette adapter.) The CD in question was Split Enz’s Anniversary, which was a concert of the seminal New Zealand band’s 20 year reunion in the mid 90s. I’m not a super big Enz fan, but I am a big Crowded House fan (Neil Finn, before forming Crowded House was in Split Enz with his brother Tim, who would later briefly rejoin his little brother in Crowded House as well as the aptly named Finn Brothers) and found the Anniversary disc cheap enough to give it a shot. So as the Twin Towers burned and the Pentagon was breached, and as Flight 93 abruptedly landed in a pasture in Pennsylvania, I was heading into work early, listening to Split Enz, with no idea of the horror that was happening one time zone ahead of me.
My first inkling something had gone horribly wrong was when I stepped into Target and almost everyone – employees and customers alike – were huddled around the TVs right by the entrance gate. I thought this was weird until I turned toward the TVs and saw buildings with huge clouds of smoke coming out of them. Like the rest of the people I wacthed for what must have been a half hour, before the scene got too much for me. I wandered around, trying to distract myself from the ugliness of the TV. I saw the Ben Folds CD and then the Nickelback CD, and thought of purchasing both before remembering we were trying to save money to pay for a washer and dryer at Sears. So I just got the Nickelback CD and hurried back to the car, eager to surprise Kelley and discuss the crazy events that had happened just a couple hours before. By this time I knew how to get to MCI blindfolded and a few miles later, was in the building and heading up the elevator to the MCI office. What I saw when I got there I had never seen before during working hours: the entrance room was dark and there was no one behind the desk. Since that’s where Kelley was supposed to be, it was a little off-putting. I hung around the dimly lit office and went to the door where the main offices were. I heard a TV in the distance, filtering in the latest information on the attacks, and nothing else. I didn’t want to barge in, since I figured everyone’s collective paranoia was at a peak. So I wrote a quick note to Kel, stuffed it inside the Target bag with the CD, and headed to work.
I was about 2 ½ hours early, so I parked in the lot and just listened to the radio as facts and rumours trickled in. By noon I was hungry, so I walked in the mall to get my lunch special (the baked chicken breast at Sentry) and was taken aback at how barren the mall was. After eating, I came in to work, and everyone to a person was shellshocked and in a catatonic. And when I say “everyone” it was about five employees and maybe 10 or so customers the rest of the night. (They had closed the rest of the Mall around 2pm, but since Walgreens closes for absolutely NOTHING, we remained open regular hours, and they left the closest outside doors in the mall open just for us.) Some of my co-workers couldn’t stop talking about it, some were already tired of hearing about it. The canned muzak, either on the 11th or the day after, abruptedly changed to a mishmash of patriotic marches and pop songs with the word “America” or “USA” in them. Some were obvious (Lee Greenwood? You betcha) and others less so (there was a Frank Sinatra one right after Prince and The Revolution’s “America” that had ol’ Blue Eyes rhapsodizing about kids playing in the park) There were only about eight or nine songs in this instant mix, which despite the noble intent, made it really annoying really quickly. (Plus, it seemed to go on for the better part of a week, before the country was ready to heal and listen to Seals and Croft and Air Supply again.) All the way home, and then at home, was catching up with the crisis. Since we had no TV in the apartment, we listened to the boombox radio, which made it feel like my grandparents probably did when trying to get the latest on the wars of generations past.
In the days and weeks to follow, more would be learned of the attacks, and the nation's collective paranoia would level off to the point it could be rated and color-coded. The drive to and from work was now suddenly dotted with American flags on either side of the road. On a personal note, we would end up moving less than two months later, right next door to a post office, just as the anthrax terror would reach a fever pitch. (Despite the numerous signs they were legally obligated to tack up, our local postmasters in Arena, Wisconsin didn't seem too worried.) And yes, I did end up getting that Ben Folds CD a few days later from Kel.
Of course, I ‘celebrate’ not one, but two big events on 9/11. Because two years after the Towers fell, my wife was rear-ended by a semi on her way to work, the after-effects of which (bad back, numb leg) she suffers til this day. I only remember bits and pieces of that day (but I remember again I got to sleep in) other than Kel’s dad leaving a message, telling me Kel had been in an accident but that she was OK. It's weird that I almost seemed to have shut that day from my memory completely. Obviously it happened, and we still deal with the ripple effects even now. But the voice of my father-in-law on the answering machine is the only thing that has stuck with me.
So on the anniversary of 9/11, all I can say is: my thoughts are with all the people who died on that fateful day, in New York, in Washington DC, on Flight 93, and all those who loved them and knew them. It was a sad day that the whole world still feels the effects of, and hopefully the best thing that comes from it is that we can stop something that horrendous from happening again.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
So I was thinking....
So why DO people read blogs?
I think wanting to connect to people is a basic human emotion, and being able to keep track of a person’s growth (be it spiritual, physical, etc etc.) can also be a way you yourself can rate your own growth. Back in the olden days, before internet, motorized transportation, traffic grids, etc. this sort of connection was confined to your general area. You’d probably be on pretty good terms with your neighbors and the people at your church, and how much else would depend on how willing you were to travel and where you travelled to. Nowadays, the internet allows us to span the globe and easily access thousands, if not MILLIONS, of potential friends. Yet, I would reckon a lot of you out there have only passing familiarity to your neighbors, and maybe only hobnob with a few people at your place of worship – if you even HAVE a place of worship you frequent.
The main point I’m getting to is the unique relation a blogger has to their audience: for the audience, a blog is a great way to get personal, but at a safe distance. You can follow someone’s relationship drama, experience their pain and anguish (at least as much as they are willing to share) just like you would a close friend. But chances are you won’t get that 2 a.m. “Screw me, I hate my life” confessional you might get from that hypothetical friend. It’s all berries and no nuts, quite literally. Plus, if someone’s online ruminations get to be too much, you can simply take it off your bookmark folder and move on with the rest of your life. Real friendships don’t tend to just stop like that. But yet, the blogger will sometimes reveal stuff they may only tell their bestest of the best friends.
Weird, eh?
So as I continue with my blogging experience, I have to look back upon myself. Exactly how much of myself do I want out there? I don’t plan on running for a political office any time, so I don’t have to censor any of my legally dubious endeavors. (Of course, all those who know me know that my legally dubious endeavors are between rare and scarce... can’t serve a buffet with an empty pantry!) I could give my thoughts and analysis of the great matters of the day, but I’d rather not come off as sermonizing or judgmental. How about my friends, relatives, etc? How much of their lives can I share? Simply put, it’s a tightrope to walk.
I know this was kind of a heavy blog, but it’s something that’s been nagging at me, and something I’m sure I’ll internally wrestle with a bit. Feel free to let me know your thoughts and feelings ... it’s interesting to know peoples’ differing philosophies, especially considering how new this whole enterprise is.
I think wanting to connect to people is a basic human emotion, and being able to keep track of a person’s growth (be it spiritual, physical, etc etc.) can also be a way you yourself can rate your own growth. Back in the olden days, before internet, motorized transportation, traffic grids, etc. this sort of connection was confined to your general area. You’d probably be on pretty good terms with your neighbors and the people at your church, and how much else would depend on how willing you were to travel and where you travelled to. Nowadays, the internet allows us to span the globe and easily access thousands, if not MILLIONS, of potential friends. Yet, I would reckon a lot of you out there have only passing familiarity to your neighbors, and maybe only hobnob with a few people at your place of worship – if you even HAVE a place of worship you frequent.
The main point I’m getting to is the unique relation a blogger has to their audience: for the audience, a blog is a great way to get personal, but at a safe distance. You can follow someone’s relationship drama, experience their pain and anguish (at least as much as they are willing to share) just like you would a close friend. But chances are you won’t get that 2 a.m. “Screw me, I hate my life” confessional you might get from that hypothetical friend. It’s all berries and no nuts, quite literally. Plus, if someone’s online ruminations get to be too much, you can simply take it off your bookmark folder and move on with the rest of your life. Real friendships don’t tend to just stop like that. But yet, the blogger will sometimes reveal stuff they may only tell their bestest of the best friends.
Weird, eh?
So as I continue with my blogging experience, I have to look back upon myself. Exactly how much of myself do I want out there? I don’t plan on running for a political office any time, so I don’t have to censor any of my legally dubious endeavors. (Of course, all those who know me know that my legally dubious endeavors are between rare and scarce... can’t serve a buffet with an empty pantry!) I could give my thoughts and analysis of the great matters of the day, but I’d rather not come off as sermonizing or judgmental. How about my friends, relatives, etc? How much of their lives can I share? Simply put, it’s a tightrope to walk.
I know this was kind of a heavy blog, but it’s something that’s been nagging at me, and something I’m sure I’ll internally wrestle with a bit. Feel free to let me know your thoughts and feelings ... it’s interesting to know peoples’ differing philosophies, especially considering how new this whole enterprise is.
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