What Has He Been Doing?

Back when I started doing this, I told myself that I wouldn't blog about blogging. With blogging, as with most things, nobody cares about the process, just the product. It's just human nature to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. And speaking as both a blogger and a blogging reader. it's less than thrilling reading about bloggers blogging about blogging.

I am, of course, violating that principle right now. Eh, what the hell. I figure there's no need getting all high and mighty with myself.

Back when I started doing this, I wanted to write longer posts, too. Partially to train myself to write column-length stuff in case someone may one day want to underpay me for prose; partially to avoid horning in on the act that the bloggers I read were pulling off. Still, I'm not sure I'm going to stick to my guns on that one. Maybe a few quick paragraphs from time to time helps keep the neurons from getting too sticky.

Also back when I started doing this, I was under the impression that there were fewer people without a shred of a sense of humor. Really. I like to try to keep this light. I'm not here to get on anyone's case. I'm not usually pushing an agenda, apart from simple straight-up good government stuff. Most of my posts have dealt with desserts and countertops and Star Trek. I'm not a rabidly opinionated type of guy.

But it makes blogging a whole lot less fun when I have to get all defensive every time I make public some trivial detail of my experience. It has never made any sense to me to pursue the politics of personal destruction that have so pathologically perfused the populace over the last decade. Sure, other folks opinions may be uninformed, factually incorrect, or just flat-out stupid, but nothing to me has ever been truer than the somewhat politically incorrect maxim that arguing over the internet is like running in the Special Olympics--even if you win, you're still retarded.

I like a good discussion as much as the next guy, but I get tired of being called names, having my positions misrepresented, and basically taking a big bite of shit sandwich when all I'm trying to do is keep writing. I'm going to have to move to fiction. Actually, I have a short story started, and I'll end the post with the first couple paragraphs. If anybody wants to read more, I'll post the rest of it:

Jennifer Love Hewitt reshouldered the dusty AK-47 she had ripped out of the hands of a dead Soviet paratrooper back in Angola in 1986, spit a Skoal Bandit into the sandy ground, and peered past the chalky cliffs into the blinding sun.

"Fuckin' pricks," she muttered to Kelly Clarkson, who was standing two paces behind her. "You can tell they're just going back to the old playbook. Flank us around that ridgeline and pin us down while they run back to the high ground. That's just how fuckin' Hilary Duff got her tits blown off." Sweat dripped into her cleavage as she defiantly spit, "Not this time, you douchebags. Not this time," to the enemy hidden in the surrounding hills.

Clarkson understood, too. She understood Jennifer Love Hewitt in only the way that semi-hot, family friendly young female celebrities and lesbian lovers turned elite strike force commandos can understand each other.

So let me know. I'll probably start posting more regularly now that summer is winding down, but I'm not going to be picking any fights with anybody for a bit. You'll just have to deal with mundane--yet witty and impeccably punctuated--comments on stuff like what TV shows we're watching and our latest charity event. Go ahead, see how big and smart you sound picking on me about being a Rotarian, tough guy.