So I've got a blog now...

I've been blogging for longer than just about anyone else without a public solely-owned-and-operated blog of my own. I first started blogging back in September 2003, when my friend Michael Akerman invited me to join this group blog he'd just started, "Inner Vistas, Invisible Chains." We were just beginning our senior year of high school and it was about a year or two before most people knew what a blog was. Akerman, Ed Snyder, and myself blogged about just about anything and everything, with "issues," usually political or historical, dominating my posts. It was a great way to keep in touch when we all went to separate colleges, almost as if we were simply continuing those cafeteria-table conversations that had started way back during freshman year at Ragsdale. I blogged regularly at IVIC for a little over 3 years and it just petered out.

So what happened? I suppose life, the usual things that preoccupy our minds. It's been a busy and intense 5 years, as my next post will elaborate. In particular, my style of blogging (eschewing short pithy sentence-long, link-heavy posts in favor of mini-essays), was exhausting, requiring a great deal of time, effort, and research, comparable to a research paper. Because I knew it would be so time-consuming, I put off blogging, ultimately indefinitely. Life's so full, and after work and sleep and meals and facebook conversations (not to mention my real-world social life), I usually feel like going to bed, not blogging. It's not that I stopped blogging period. I started a blog on a popular left-of-center online community and post my politcal rantings there intermittently. I wrote a few facebook posts, as well. But I've become mostly a consumer, rather than a producer, of online content. This blog is my attempt to change that.

A few ground rules (that I shall probably break in short order):

-My posts will NOT be "diary" posts. I've never understood the point of a diary, really. If you're trying to keep secrets, why write them down in a book (not to mention a public website) where anyone can read them? Plus, I want to make the job of my future biographers as hard as possible! In all honesty, the real reason I'm not a fan of diary posts is because most people's lives, mine included, aren't that interesting most days, sadly. "I got up, went to work, came home, brushed my teeth, and went to bed." Would YOU want to read that? Didn't think so! (Not that my days are usually quite that boring, but you get the idea.)

-My posts will NOT be political. I know, I can tell you're rolling your eyes now. But as I already mentioned, I have an outlet for political thoughts on that popular liberal website. Actually, I have plenty of other outlets for that, such as talking to friends. Having this prohibition in effect here will hopefully also have the side effect of spurring me to blog more on that other site as well.

-My posts will NOT be fictional. I will have, at some point soon, a separate deviant-art-style blog to serve as my creative outlet. It is there that I will post poems, short stories, song lyrics, etc. If and when that particular blog is up and running, some of you will receive an invitation to read the more personal thoughts on display there. That's going to be a much more selective list of folks, both because I'm a private person by nature and because of the nature of the internet today, with employers constantly trolling it, looking for reasons to fire/not hire employees. I need a place to be myself and show my creative endeavors to those who will appreciate them.

Now that I have told you what this blog will NOT be, what will the posts be about? The short answer is that I don't know exactly. I have some ideas, of course. Tomorrow's post, for example, will be about life and loss. I'll also be doing a series of list posts soon, reflections on the close of the decade, pop culture, music, movies, books, etc, things that have an impact on me. Beyond that, only time will tell. If my life goes as I plan (heh, yeah right!), I might be living overseas next year, in which case this blog will turn into a kind of diary for the benefit of those at home. Regardless, as IVIC was designed to be, this will be a blog of "ideas," although hopefully shorter, pithier ones!

Now the final conundrum: sign offs. "Until next time"? "By my hand"? I think for now, I'll stick with an old stand-by.

In peace,
Michael