Give Us Today Our Daily Blog

Give Us Today Our Daily Blog

This blogging business is really quite odd. The more often I write, the fewer page views it seems I get. The less often I post something new, the more traffic, page views, and response it seems the blog inspires.

Recently thereís been a certain invisibility hereabouts. Pressures of all sorts have kept my attentions in other places. Thereís business (one must earn a living), thereís health (knee improving, thank you, but some recent stomach problems, et al, limited some of the productivity time one needs to do both life and oneís blog), thereís concentration, thereís editing (actually, I have about 5 or 6 essays in one form or another of near-completion), and thereís the Baseball Season.

Watching the Yankee [1] games is my great delight, great escape, and great passion. Even during this recent slump (some of us call it a crisis), I remain glued to the YES Network [2] coming to me via DirecTV [3] or on the rare and few occasions, on local broadcast TV [4].

An alternative to Insomnia [5] (see Pressures of all sorts, above) is taking in the repeat airing on YES of the eveningís game. Sometimes this trumps IFC [6] (the insomniacís best friend), even if Iíve already watched the game.

So for a variety of distractions, pressures, concerns and such, Iíve been ignoring blogging. Sometimes this elicits a certain guilt, a sense of missing some obligation of sorts. But this is a pastime, not a requirement. If somehow blogging could be how Iíd earn a living, trust me, Iíd do it faithfully, daily, and with commitment. My great dream in life would be fulfilled if I could actually get paid to write.

A business associate tells me that if our project is a success, I will be able to have the reserves it takes to cover the basics, live well, and manage to sit back and blog away, write fiction, and just come and go to my keyboard as I see fit. He also tells me I should be writing screenplays. And all heís seen from me is a few business plans, Excel spreadsheets, and a little bit of e-mail. Letís hope all he sees turns out to be prescient.

So the blog has been static for about a month. Meanwhile, e-mail from it is at an all time high! Comments on posts, reactions to real old stuff, as well as friends, acquaintances, and other folk getting in touch. Even one letter from a nebbish claiming that he is not the nebbish I made him out to be in these parts. And the page reads are higher than ever.

It is now to the point where promises have been made to some with regard to blog content. At the blogger [7]dinner [8] at Katzís [9] in the very beginning of May I promised Halley [10] an item about and in response to something sheíd written about September 10th [11]. Yes, that date is correct. Some time back I promised my son a link to his excellent blog [12](if you have teenagers, or are one yourself, or want to check out a very cool interactive site, look at what heís developed. I am quite the proud Dad.). My daughter spent five days up here and I think I told her Iíd blog about it.

As a result of that Blogger Dinner at Katzís I am now again in touch, back in touch, or newly in touch with various folks. Just the other night I did go to Starbucks with Howard Greenstein [13], who turns out to be a neighbor. And Dave Pentecost [14] and I, who are sort of formerly related by marriage, plan to get together. Of course Doc [15], who manages to post more than anyone except perhaps Dave Winer [16], has posted nearly everyday, and is even back in town. Doc and I will attempt to get together while heís here. Maybe this time Iíll suggest a lighter fare eatery [17], given my stomach of late!

Everyone mentioned in that paragraph has posted numerous blog entries since early May 1st. And here I am, at the end of the month, with what qualifies as my very first post, on the 27th. For them it was a Bloggerís Dinner. For me it was more like a ìtake time off from bloggingî dinner.

And now it seems I am back. More on much of the above, as well as those essays in various states of completion, coming soon. No 27 day wait this time, either.

Gee, now that this is posted, will readership and response go down? Hmmm. We shall see.