Saturday, September 15, 2018

In Which I Slink Back From Oblivion

Have I ever stayed away from Linguini this long?

Blogs became passe' as Twitter snipped away at readers' tolerance for lengthy prose. It's safe to come back and write as I write. No one is reading it; certainly no one who would care what I think.

In a way, I'm rather happy my erratic posting schedule chased away the few regular readers I had. How bogged down in correctness and apologies I had become! Going back through some of my scant postings, I can barely get through all the switch-backs and detours of my own writing. But I leave it here because it's real. This is what happens when you start thinking more of the reader's reactions than the truth of what you are saying.

I continue Linguini, partly from tradition and partly for that occasional visitor that may stumble in, read that top post and have some sort of reaction, good or bad. But the main reason I continue is the same reason I began this blog almost 13 years ago:
Even before there was such as thing as a “blog,” this stream-of-consciousness-Andy-Rooney-esque commentary on life would be continually running through my brain, getting in the way of other, more fruitful thoughts. Only I’d edit my rambling, stopping myself just short of – dare I say – enlightenment to study the grammar of the sentence with which I was involved.
This is the only purpose I can see for this thing called “blogging.” It might shut up the never-ending flow of commentary long enough for me to balance my checkbook in peace.
I was 48. I was incredibly stupid.