Ten years ago today, my old AOL friend Noah flipped the switch on his server out in California, and I started this blog. [Picky readers will point out that I had started blogging over at Blogger some months before, but I defy them. I regard them as naught.]
I was still working at Newnan Crossing Elementary, about to finish my specialist degree in instructional technology; my lovely first wife was still in charge of lots of stuff at Piedmont Newnan Hospital; my son was still in high school. I was midway through my tenure as assistant program director for instruction for the Governor’s Honors Program. I was beginning the final push on finishing William Blake’s Inn. I had just made my second labyrinth, at Newnan Crossing, my ear was unpierced, and the Lichtenbergians wouldn’t exist for another two years.
Since then I’ve blogged in spurts, sometimes going for months without posting, but I always keep this tab open on my browser so that I’m reminded that I have this ongoing experiment to deal with, to write and share my thoughts with at least half a dozen people on this planet, to say things that I need to say.
The blog has never been—and never will be—a diary or personal journal. Whatever personal issues I’ve had over these years, you didn’t read about them here—I don’t think they’re interesting, first of all, and secondly I don’t think it’s necessarily beneficial to share these kinds of things with the wide world. If I’ve exorcised demons in writing, you may be assured that it was in some other venue/medium.
Mostly this blog has been a journal of my creative life, from my music to my writing to my adventures in Lichtenbergianism and hippiedom. It’s been fun reporting on my roadblocks in composing or my progress with Lichtenbergian goals or philosophical underpinnings of getting naked in the desert. It’s been fun ranting against the conservative idiocy that infects our nation. It’s been fun just putting one word after another while avoiding other tasks.
So ten years later, here we are: I’m retired, my lovely first wife now works at the Samaritan Clinic, my son is married, and this is my 1,416th post. Onward!