Inaugural post

I have joined the blogging revolution. Info superhighway speeders, beware. Not quite sure what this will develop into, but thought it might be good to start self-publishing some stuff and seeing if anyone hits it (accidentally or otherwise). Just to see what happens. Seeing as we're in an age of self-publication.

Saw New Stage Collective's production of "Kimberly Akimbo" tonight. David Lindsay-Abaire. Absurdity. Funny stuff. I liked it better than "Fuddy Meers," which was, by the way, brilliant. I hope that audiences flock to the CAC to see "Kimberly" and that NSC can continue its journey beyond Season 3. I looked for a blog created by local media in which to post my thoughts about the play, but alas, there are none that fit or are active enough to get the hits necessary to make even a small difference. So, I thought, why not start one of my own.

A teacher of mine in college, whom I didn't like very much, was stuck teaching technology to teachers and teacher-wannabes. It wasn't a very happy job and I think I picked up on his dislike of the course he had to teach. But one thing he said, nearly ten years ago, has stuck with me. In the context of a discussion about web design, he said "if you're going to have a website, you have to have something to say." For that reason, I never really pursued the idea of creating my own site. I was never sure I had something unique to say. After all, haven't all plots in the realm of the literary already been discovered?

Still, the web thing bugged me. I tried learning some HTML, which was a joke for me. My brain just doesn't work that way. I know enough to make this word appear as such, or to underscore my point as necessary, but that's about as far as I got. How nice to have the lovely people (programmers) in the blog world. They've created the interface for me and I don't have to worry about all that pesky HTML.

Another comment someone made to me once has also stuck with me. In undergrad. Dealing with a "creative crisis" and wanting to construct, to create, to live in that wonderful moment that being 20 and carefree and in the faux liberal academic society created... but I struggled with the words. My friend said, "well, you don't have anything important to say yet. You're too young."

Bastard, I exclaimed in my mind. I do have important things to say. I could write volumes on what it means to lose a parent, what happens when you start to realize that work in one course inter-relates to another, the joy of discovery of philosophy and literature that was written eons ago but still has relevance, and what it means to get your heart broken. Like the good little undergrad I was, however, I took my friend's words to heart. I wrote but I didn't write. Not really.

Notice I don't recall all the people who told me I could write. Who told me I did have a unique voice worth reading. Of course not. We never remember the positive feedback--only the stinging remarks leave their traces.

So, in essence, this blog is in defiance of my tech teacher and my writer friend. Sometimes I'll have something to say. Sometimes it might be earth-shattering (but more often than not, it will probably be me complaining about something boring like knitting patterns, or relating kids' antics or bemoaning the lack of interesting stuff on summer tv). But bottom line, I'm going to say it.