Starting over (again)

January 8, 2007 - 12am

If any of you used to read my Diary-X blog, you’d know that I used to blog significantly more frequently, and my posts were more… significant.  Virtually everything I’ve written in this miserable abortion of a blog have been tidbits of meaningless crap.  Even I don’t want to read most of what I’ve written.

There are a few reasons for this, ordered for you in a lovely and totally unnecessary list:

  • I don’t really have much to write about.  My life is increasingly banal. Describing how I bought and installed an under-counter light above the kitchen sink to disinterested third parties–that would be you–seems rather pointless.
  • I spend way too much time watching TV, and nowhere near enough time reading.  Seriously.  It’s all I do, and it’s really sad.  I decided tonight that if something isn’t worth recording on my DVR, why waste time watching it?  The more I read, the more I want to write.  It’s already the eighth, and I don’t think I’ve picked up a book yet this year.
  • I’ve been reticent about being overly personal in my posts.  Blogs have become the essential means of saying either “Hey world, look how fucking great I am,” or “I have so much pain to unload on the world.  Thank god I have my blog to vent in… or I’d need to go cut myself while listening to Dashboard.”

    I’ve been shying away from these stereotypes for quite some time, though I don’t really know why.  On my last blog, I let total strangers see my psyche laid bare on the asphalt.  I think the reason I was so comfortable there was because I knew no one was reading it.  When I belatedly found I had a small audience, I felt the need to censor myself.  Well, fuck it.  If I’ve got something to say, I’ll say it.  I’m tired of pulling punches.  From now on, I write for me, and any readers are incidental.

  • Most of the work I take pride in is unintelligible and uninteresting to readers.  When I’m at work, I spend my time doing seriously technical work.  A good deal of it is in-depth enough that even Microsoft Mikey doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

    I could easily post an entry proudly describing how I put third party firmware on a WRT54G, hacked it to act as a wireless bridge with 128-bit WEP encryption, had issues with the ARP proxying not working when I tried to netboot a headless FreeBSD client–but who’s going to understand that?

  • I spend less time drinking alone.  This is a good thing, obviously.  Unfortunately, I’ve always done my best writing while half in the bag.  The words flow smoothly and the subconscious mental blocks in my vocabulary dissolve after a few whiskey and cokes.
  • I have very few friends in Madison. Or anywhere, for that matter.  I’ve always had a hard time making and keeping friends.  No friends means I spend most of my time in my apartment, means I spend too much time watching TV, means I do nothing and have nothing to talk about.
  • I’ve spent too much time making this list.  What the hell was I talking about when I started this whining?

    :: scrolls up ::

    Oh, right.  Explaining why my posts have been crap for the last year.

So I’m starting over.  A fresh start for a new year.  I’m going to blog more often, about whatever the hell I feel like that day, and just write because I want to write.

I hope you’ll continue to read.  Chances are pretty good that my quality and quantity will increase in the near future.  I appreciate people reading my writing, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop myself from saying things you may find offensive.

Commenting validates my miserable existence.

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