I…did it. I made a blog. After all I said about how much I hate that word. How I hate what it brings to mind.
Not that I really hate the concept. I actually like the concept. People all over the world sharing their minds for anyone else to partake of and connect through mutual interest. But…I don’t immediately think of that when I hear the word “blog”. Yes, I just put those quotation marks before the comma. That’s where they belong, at least in my world, and this page is a tiny piece of that convoluted expanse thrust into this one. At least it will be. I suppose at this point it just looks like another default WordPress discharge (I wonder how many blogs never leave that stage?). But that will change. I will explore all those possibilities at a later date.
I might as well say it now. I have no intention of following linear thought processes on this, well, I’ll just grit my teeth and say it, blog. My Facebook notes are for linear, proper discourses. This, as the title hopefully suggests, is the other six days of the week (or, unfortunately, the other thirty days of the month). This is the tangled swamp of thoughts that may possibly aspire to someday achieve ‘note’ status but at this time are not blessed with the effort on my part. Or the near-worthless thoughts that almost (and probably exactly) no one cares about. The things I want to say, and want to say quickly, without a lot of thought, editing, censorship, or even complete sentences. I will at least use proper grammar and punctuation, except where I deem it appropriate not to or as in the case above where I believe I have valid reason to supersede traditional forms or merely commit a grievous oversight. I apologize in advance (or perhaps I’ve already done it?) for the last.
These entries will not be linear, except by odd chance, perhaps; they will abound with parentheses (such a lovely word to say out loud, do try it), run off on countless rabbit trails in whichever way my mind does please, and they may even contain the same adjective more than once in the same paragraph – although for that, I do hope not.
The reason for this is not only to satisfy my whimsical literary node. I also want to document those alternative intellectual forays which ultimately get cut from the final product or are discounted before they ever take shape. I don’t want to lose ideas that do have a place somewhere, just not in the piece I’m at that time constructing. So they will be granted life here, at my…on my…blog.
The beauty of writing – ah, there I’ve done it, I’ve gone and used a phrase with immeasurable power as an introductory statement to a body with nowhere near the capacity to fulfill it. Whether it’s a sentence, paragraph, essay, chapter, book, or anthological collection of literary works, anything that begins with “The beauty of writing…” should be a revelation that changes your life, don’t you think? The beauty of that discourse itself should be outstanding, and its message, well, breathtaking. I cannot by any means live up to that yet. So let’s try this again:
The neat thing about writing (oh, the soothing relief of minimal expectations) is that once I’ve exhausted a particular rabbit trail, I can simply scroll up to where I last diverged and continue from that point. If this were a conversation that would be impossible, not that you’d ever let me ramble this long, I hope. See, I’ve all but forgotten where I started this entry or what I meant to accomplish by it. But never fear, poor, pathetic memory, digital storage has your back! I’ll just glance back to see that…
That “glance back” took longer than expected. Turns out that the points at which I left the main trail are not, after all, that easy to recognize. That, quite simply, is because the main trail does not exist. I haven’t written this yet. So wherever I seem to diverge is actually not much of a change at all, for I was bushwhacking before, and I am still bushwhacking on a slightly different topic. Oh, the complexities of writing. That’s one of the things I intend to explore to some depth through this venture (making a blog). And there, I just remembered what I was going to say in the first paragraph. But before I go back to that (or would it be going ahead?) let me just grant closure (closure? You said you’d be non-linear and careless! Ah, but I am Type A, after all, I can’t get away with too much brute force. I have to spend a bit of time straightening the carnage behind me) here by explaining that the complexity I intend to explore mentioned above is that of multiple ideas flitting around in my head, of which I can only choose one at a time to pursue. So what happens to those other ideas? Like I said before, the more obvious ones I can scroll up, bring back to mind, and continue with, but the more fleeting ones (the majority of them) I may never see again. It pushes me to reflect on our paths in life and the choices we make. We can never really know what would’ve happened had we done something differently, we can only make our choices and stand by them – pushing through what cannot be helped and learning from mistakes. This, like so many other references in this supposedly introductory blog post, is a topic for another time.
Alright. That was a thought worth finishing, right? I thought so too. Most of them aren’t, I know.
So what I was going to say is that the whole global community thing isn’t what I think of when I first hear the word “blog”. The first thing I think of, honestly, is a log of bla. Like a log floating in a toilet. It’s in a toilet because it’s made of bla – mundane words expressing uninteresting ideas that have been said before and are only being said again because of antagonized emotions and lack of self-control and focus. Do you know what I mean? People who have nothing of value to share nevertheless spewing their boring and at the same time frighteningly misinformed prejudices at so often tragically like-minded audiences who cry, “Hell yeah!” and take to the streets in angsty uproar.
Hyperbole? Perhaps. My guess is you either knew what I meant from the start or are one of…them.
Let me also just say that I love the font this editing field displays text in. If you object to my ending that sentence with a preposition, I could always say, “I love the font this field uses to display text.” See there, the quotation marks are outside of the period because they contain a full sentence. When they don’t contain a full sentence, I put the period on the outside. Logical, no? Are we blindly following rules and social norms regardless of their practicality or ultimate consequence? Let me insert at this point that there is absolutely no such word as “irregardless”.
And I was wrong to begin the last paragraph with a “just [verb]” phrase. Or is it a clause? You’ve got me there. Because I most certainly did not ‘just’ say that. I did not ‘merely’ say that. I said much more than that short sentence. I rarely say ‘just’ anything. I’m rather verbose…yes, yes, I know you can hardly believe it, but it’s quite true. It’s probably a weakness, a weakness I’m only feeding by indulging in on this site. Oh well.
The whole “just” issue could easily lead me into a rant about one of my worst pet peeves. But I won’t go there at this time. I won’t even launch into a monologue on the word “rant” at this time (Oh, I will eventually). But it’s getting late, that’s why I forgive myself for beginning two sentences in the same paragraph with the same word, and why I must stop writing now. It seems my writing takes on the most fervour (British spelling, you dumb WordPress spellcheck…you’re so dumb you even call your own name a mistake. There, there, I was only being expressive. You’re not really dumb. Just a bit sporadic – that’s nothing to be ashamed of, as long as you learn from it. Wait. This whole parenthetical aside is useless, because I just realized that it’s not a WordPress spellcheck, it’s my Mac’s spellcheck! Let’s just forget that bit of rambling ever happened. Please.) late at night, which is good for creative juices but bad for my health. Hopefully with this neat-o blog (I’m conditioning myself to saying it) I’ll begin writing at more decent hours. On my nice black Macbook. Are you a Mac? I’m a Mac, converted a few years ago, actually.
Okay, quick sum up for my A-ness (say that out loud – you’ll wonder why I ever let that sentence pass into the public domain). I made a blog but still don’t feel comfortable calling it that. I’m not sure I like my URL – I’ll probably think of something far better as soon as I roll over to go to sleep tonight. At least I can change the name of my page at any time. I could be doing this in list form but I won’t break up the nice paragraph thang (purposeful misspelling, killed by the fact that I felt I had to explain it) going on. You may not like my grammatical freelancing or my stream-of-consciousness style, but if you do I’d like you to introduce yourself. We may be kindred spirits. I like to write about writing. I’m embarking on this journey because I need to write a lot (for self-improvement and creative production) but am too much of a perfectionist to publish a Facebook note without much time devoted to crafting and editing, resulting in me often not even making the effort (criminal, I know). And finally, I must sleep.
Remind me at some later date to talk about journaling. And whatever else you think I may have missed or you suspect I could be tricked into expositing (that word wasn’t in my widget dictionary but it seems to exist and mean what I intend) upon.
Though I may not sound like it, I am so glad you read this far (or even skipped down to see the end, although that’s rather lame). I could never write this if I knew there was no potential for it to be read, but even if it is never read by anyone other than the future me, it was made possible by that potential. If you feel me on that one, pound it in a comment.
Okay, thank you, welcome, g’night.
-Grant
