My sister is the person who actually suggested that I write a blog. At the time, I had only the vaguest and skewed idea what a blog was. I'm not that technologically literate and there's lots of reasons for that. First, I like the idea of paper and pencils. (I'm like a kid in a candy shop when I walk into an Artist's Supply store.) Second, there's something soothing and helpful that happens when you're forced to put your ideas down on paper. I suppose I feel like there's a necessary validity that anything written should possess. Finally, eWords don't have the same properties. Instead, they're quick, casual and don't actually exist - anywhere. Except maybe in the rings of Saturn - who knows. Cloud technologies are so weird. But I guess that's a pretty accurate description because these types of thoughts and words have the potential to dissipate entirely, develop into storms or travel huge distances with no assistance from any human and land somewhere - else.
So back to my sister. We were in the car. I had just finished grad school. Thinking back on that day - I wondered why she was so quiet back there in the back seat. I forgot she gets carsick. Now I feel bad. She was probably miserable.
Oops, I was talking about the graduation ceremony I had just endured. Yes, endured is the most polite and accurate word. It was awful. It felt more like an Amway sales conference slash "Raa-Raa!, Go Team!, You-Can-Do-It-Even-Though-Nobody-Actually-Expects-The-Majority-Of-You-To (shhhh, you didn't hear that) party" than any congratulatory gathering. The speaker was close-minded and self-absorbed regarding his own path to wealth. He spoke with condescension, ignorance and hubris. The audience was . . . hmmmm. We were there. I could just imagine all of them making beelines for trailer parks and battered apartment complexes well stocked with anything alcoholic, actually convinced that their achievement might magically lift them from their self. I shared their hopes. And yet, at the same time I was mortally embarrassed to even be a part of any of it. I dreaded the big screen television monitors and hoped to God that my portrait would be somehow overlooked - simultaneously by everyone.
I told my sister that I was wishing "that the cells of my body would somehow restructure their DNA and momentarily transform me into anything the size of a dust spec so that I could sink (and fit) down between the fibers of the carpet and disappear from sight and subjection."
This was the statement that generated the, "Oh my God, you have to write a blog!"
I'm still not sure that I know what a blog is, but I know that this is my version of a blog. That whole "life is what you make it" might work here. It works for me most days.
I'm still not technologically literate despite the prodding and eye-rolling glares my son delivers at regular intervals. He just speaks IT. He doesn't understand why other people don't or how they could avoid not. It's as simple as breathing or sight - you just do, an involuntary facet of existence.
My sister has lots of good ideas. I've been stealing them for most of my life without her realizing it and much to her chagrin when she did. Even though I don't understand some of them (she's too smart for me and it takes me a while to catch up) I know they're good. So . . . I'm writing.