Hello, world.
But hello, empty WordPress editor, screen, even more sparse when the Gutenburger editor opens full screen.
More white space.
Forgive me blog, for it has been 11 days since my last post, and it’s been only 3 this month.
Even doing my ALL CAPS tweets of impersonation has lost its luster. President ALL CAPS was last seen April 7.
Lethargy oozes.
Yes, as my Cori reminds me, with her lovely wry smile, “there is a pandemic going on.”
Everything seems to feel, well, sluggish, in energy. That pile of work peeking out in ignored open browser tabs, windows left open. I try to get my daily photos in, but maybe it’s once a week to get to posting.
Blog drafts rummage around in my head, whispering, swirling like that majestic plastic bag.
Yet the blogging, Just. Does. Not Happen.
If anything all these years of blogging has taught– hold the bus! I completely missed the Blogiversy. April 19 was the start 17 years ago. Yes, that the only way to crack a blogjam is just to crack it open, and there is always the reliable Blogging About Blogging or Blogging About Not Blogging.
So here it is.
And what do I really have to be dragging about? Here in our quiet little town in one of the quietest provinces of Canada, we are safe, with food, internet, cat and dog playing together.
People elsewhere are dealing with much more.
Break the jam.
Then via Stephen Downes OLdaily I learned of the passing of Keith Lyons, and it will be his final blog post. I can’t say I know Keith, but he’s commenting, linked, tweeted back and forth for a while. I can find a first comment from Keith on my blog from 2008, during CCK08. And a trackback from Keith’s blog as recent a January 27 this year. And a rather complimentary post from Keith, or a “PT” (Post Terrific?), from a 2014 Howard Rheingold did with me .
Yet, in reading his obituary blog post, there is much much more to this man that I never knew. So what is known of us, what is not known, seems to always be a wide gap.
I’m humbled by Keith’s story and legacy, and also awakened to that non-original notion that our time here is pretty much a blink, especially to a planet. Use this time better than well. Squeeze every bit of opportunity out of it. Live it with as many people you can touch, connect with, make a difference for.
So this is my busting the blogjam open. Not that anyone is noticing, not that it even matters that blogging is a dwindling act in lieu of the social media quick fix (please react to this with an emoji).
It’s just that the writing here, in the past, has always been a thing to help punch through challanges and thought jams.
The blog gates are open. At least right now.
Featured Image: Logtumble.jpg a Wikimedia Commons image placed into the public domain as the work of a US Government agency. I thought I had my own photos of a river full of logs, but this one works well as these are petrified logs from Petrified National Park in Arizona, a rather underrated park worth a visit if you are ever hoofing the I-40 between Flagstaff and Albuquerque.
Well, it is a good thing that you got that blogjam opened up again, because otherwise it might just break one day and then there would be a flood. I am happy that Felix and the cat are friends and not pushing each other down the stairs. Plus, you and Cori.
Did you go for a bike ride yet in the spring weather, because that can be a fun thing to do when you’re not doing dogs or blogs? I went for a bike ride in a forest trail and found some dead ends but then I ran into the train tracks so I could find my way back home again.
Is it very flat there where you live or are there hills? I don’t think you can see mountains from there, but if you can then you can tell me. For a photo assignment, you can make a picture of you and CorI and Felix and the cat all four together at one time like a family portrait, and then you could write a blog post about that.
Well, bye!
?
There are few times when more words are generally better, but when it’s related to social media, that is often the case.
Well, this had an emoji that is now a question mark…phooey.
Hah! It’s almost as if I had cleverly designed my blog to squash emojis. Were I so clever…
I used to always have my RSS reader open in one tab, it was as sacred to my morning routine as opening my email. I’ve found that during this time the tab with Feedly in it shrunk and shrunk, almost to oblivion. And if I scrolled past I would just see the number of unread posts increase and increase and I’d just feel like I couldn’t even start reading one. I’d even practically abandoned my own blog until this week as well.
Thanks for writing this post Alan, I’m glad that I paused, sipped on my coffee and read this post in piece. You’ve put into words what I think a lot of bloggers have been feeling lately. I hope in reflecting on this post, my own blog jam breaks. Perhaps there will be a great blog jam breaking chain reaction 🙂
JR I read your blogpost and I’m reading THIS blogpost form Alan and I read Tom Woodward’s Bionic Teaching blogposts and Jim Groom’s postings about the ds106 Vinyl casts, and all the blogs, I try to read all of them. I’m an reading/commenting Army of One. Know that someone somewhere is reading.
To paraphrase Mr. Rogers during a period of Ennui induced crisis, when you find it hard to make and create and write. Always look for the readers. There’s always someone who is trying to read.
You’ve been an army of one commenting here for, maybe, forever, Eric. So please don’t think it goes un-noticed. This is a big thank you.
Writing light is on.
Thanks JR- I hit my reader daily and you’ve been very steady there. As a writer we may tend to over estimate what we perceive as gaps, dry spots, because, as a reader, every morsel is appreciated when it happens.
Blogging lives. RSS preservers. Alan posts. I have faith in these things.
Your faith gives me some. I needed that.