While not a voracious reader of other on-line blogs, I have had a few favorites from time to time. Usually, about the time I get really hooked on them, the author runs into writers block, or some other facet of their lives gets in the way, and the blog stops updating.
I write the stuff I write here for no one but me. Aside from my partner, I’m not confident there are any other readers at all, and that’s fine with me. But, that doesn’t make it any easier to come up with stuff with which to entertain myself.
One of my all time favorite bloggers is Large Tony of West of Mayberry. He’s now on version three of his blog. Despite his protestations to the contrary, he comes across as an extremely literate, very intelligent kind of guy, one I’d be pleased to know in person and have over for Sunday dinner and to play horseshoes with. It’s even more fascinating that he’s apparently from the upper east corner of Tennessee – very near to where my Dad was born and raised, and not far from where I lived myself for a few years back when I was a small town country radio DJ. By the way, his newer blog is probably not one you’d want to open at work – it’s a bit more visual than the last.
Another blog I keep up with from time to time is Raising my Rainbow. This woman should be every gay boys mother. Heck, she should be everyones mother no matter what kind of little boy you are. She’s just plain wonderful, and she writes well to boot. She’s welcome at my dinner table anytime.
These people have things to write about. Large Tony lives with his 90-something year old granny, and has a long-distance relationship with The Attorney. You could make a TV show of the stuff he writes and I’d sit down in front of it and eat it up.
C.J.’s mom is raising a gender-non-conforming preschooler, and doing a damn fine job of it. The insights she has, and the tales of how her family overcomes the bias are absolutely riveting. I hope she turns her blog into a best-selling book. Her story needs a wider audience, and it wouldn’t hurt if we all learned some of her parenting skills.
I don’t have every day things going on in my life that stir me to write. Sure, I have rather passionate observations about politics and the people who practice it, but I don’t want to grow shrill. There is something in the paper every day that makes me want to write about Rick Santorum, but I resist.
I’m trying to figure out what the most exciting thing that ever happened to me so far has been, so maybe I can come up with a story on that. Was it being sent to Hawaii for four years of shore duty while I was barely 18? Or perhaps the 7-weeks premature birth of my first son in 1975? Being on a navy ship that visited lots of ports of call in southern Europe? Standing on deck as we sailed through the Dardanelles? The three weeks we spent in Gemlik, Turkey? The 3 nights I spent in the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia on my way home from the Navy? My hike into Pompei? The time I got so drunk I walked off the pier in Barcelona and had to be fished out? Watching Snowflake, the albino Gorilla at the Barcelona Zoo? My trip to Angel Falls, the worlds tallest waterfall? Living in Caracas, Venezuela for two years?
I suppose that my life has not been as dull as I make it out to be. I wish I was like my partner and had near total recall of things out of my past. I don’t remember the names of any of my middle-school classmates, and very few of my high school class. But, I suppose writing about things do bring them back to the surface, and maybe I’ll remember a few more details.
We’ll see.