These 100 Days

Why I think I will keep up with a blog I don’t know.

–me, Nov. 11, 2018

So here we are, 100 days later. If this were a television series back in the three-network heyday, we would be somewhere in Season Five before celebrating the 100th episode. Instead, it’s been just over a quarter of a year and here I am, already celebrating.

I have to say, it feels like a celebration from this end. While some of you may sigh and say to yourself, “Not another post,” — and there are mornings where I go through my own version of that, more along the lines of, “What am I going to blither about today?” — I have to regard this as a victory for myself.

It’s been a long time since I sat (or lay) down to write on a regular basis. Rust is definitely there, but I can still write — and that is gratifying to know. George Sibley once introduced me at some event as someone who had written millions of words about Gunnison, and I realized he was right. And now I’m writing about Gunnison again, although I have a ways to go — again, it may not seem like it to you — to get to another million. I’m roughly one-tenth of the way there.

And let’s not forget the whole new skill set I’m developing as I become a major on-line presence. When I started, I wasn’t sure I could manage to post a picture, and now I’ve figured out how to post photos, take and post screen shots, and borrow images from the internet. I can also post Youtube videos, although just the other day I discovered that if I want to post my own videos, I have to upgrade my WordPress plan.

I still haven’t watched any of the instructional videos, and for months I have ignored WordPress’ exhortation to “try the new block editor and level up” my layout. What does that even mean? I have mastered some of the layout buttons, like links and special characters, such as ñ and é, but I have yet to figure out to make the quote button work. I did eventually discover the word count WordPress keeps for me at the bottom of each entry as I compose it, and — again, you may not believe it — I do discipline myself to deliver in under 1,300 words. (I warned you at the outset: I’m long-winded in a short-winded world.)

Endings are still more problematic than I expected. I’m never as eloquent as F. Scott Fitzgerald as I reach a semblance of a conclusion each day. (And don’t forget: it’s never too late to post your favorite literary line in the comments section of yesterday’s post.) Beginnings are easier: I just start talking about myself.

Okay, that’s rarely my intent. The original purpose of this blog was to provide a means for people to check in on house-building progress. But there’s not always house news (although now there’s foam between the wall and where each shower will go — what could be more exciting than that?), and that leaves me rambling about whatever comes to mind, even though I lead a very ordinary, happily uneventful life. There’s always the weather (it’s snowing again).

One of you, my followers — and yes, this still sounds like a cult — was kind enough the other day to say this is like having coffee with me each morning. Although I’m the one dominating the conversation. There is always the comment section, if you want to get your words in edgewise, and I do enjoy hearing from you. I can always tell when my sister Terri gets bored at work, because she reads — and comments on — a bunch of entries all at once. My favorite was when she noticed a distinct theme in my work: I appear to have dragged her along for courage and/or moral support when undertaking a large number of childhood endeavors. (Actually, my real favorite was when she suggested that perhaps Mexico could pay for the walls in our new house.)

And, since I’m getting The Look from him right now, we should not neglect Na Ki’o’s contribution to this blog. He has not been on active duty this week, and even now is not on me but close by, on the superbly cat-sized loveseat arm. I believe the message I am getting right now is: Hurry up with this crap so we can move to the important part of the day: my food.

Oz, my current moral support in endeavors, is directly underneath Ki’o, sound asleep with whiskers twitching. Lynn, responsible for many of the blog’s photojournalistic efforts and daily updates on house production, is at work, doing her bit to financially support me in a manner to which I would like to become accustomed. She’s also responsible for my highest viewership to date, which came on Valentine’s Day.

That just leaves the mysterious Marrakesh, of this family but not of it — he’s asleep upstairs. But he did, in a rare treat, participate in my Lapful of Cats on Saturday, and remained there for a full half-hour, even after Ki’o held him down and licked his head.

As you can see, this blog is a group effort, and you all are part of it. Part of the TL Writing Rehabilitation Project, if you will. My co-workers, even if only one of them reads this blog, are part of it, too: it has made me late(r) to work every one of these (Monday through Friday) 100 days.

This is technically Post #102, since one day I posted an update, and WordPress thoughtfully although unwantedly did the first entry for me. It’s just a photo of their choosing and the words “The journey begins.” Was it just yesterday I was dissing Henry David Thoreau? Well, I guess I can continue, because while I thought he was the one who said it, the internet credits Lao Tzu: The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

So WordPress was right, and the journey has begun, and here we are, 100 steps on our way to a thousand miles. I grant you, some entries all by themselves might seem like a thousand miles, but I will slog onward regardless. Thanks for coming with me on my journey.