The Long And Winding Road

It was ten years ago today – November 21, 2011 – that I burst upon the wide and welcoming WordPress landscape.  I immediately began spewing forth bullshit to fertilize the fields, and bring in crops of creativity, contentment and controversy.

A WHOLE TEN YEARS?

IT’S BEEN AN ENTIRE DECADE?

I can’t possibly know all two million WordPress participants, but of the popular, well-known blog-sites of ten years ago, faint few are still posting.  AFrankAngle has ceased his social/political observations, and in his retirement, has re-invented himself as Beach Walk Reflections, offering more philosophical meditations.

Like me, although more lucidly, the Coastal Crone is still pumping out rants and rambles on a wide variety of interesting subjects.  After you’re finished reading my work, you might have a look at each of them.

While my blogging was to be a way to occupy my time in retirement, and give me a chance to be creative and tell my little stories, I have treated it as at least a part-time job.  With no-one to answer to but me, I still work hard to guarantee that scheduled posts are ready and published on time.  While I treasure my visitors, I still also do this very much for me, to keep me organized and thinking clearly.

Other than a few, extra, bonus posts like this, I long ago settled into a steady three-a-week, Monday/Wednesday/Friday publishing schedule.  Tallying it up, it means that this is my 1475^th post.  I recently turned 77.  With good genes, and increasing medical support, I hope to still be doing this in another ten years.  I look forward to be still attracting someone’s attention.

As I threaten, at the top, I offer rants and rambles about many things.  I have provided history, humor, insights into language development, politics, religion, and some peeks into growing up in both a small town, and one that is crammed with big-city summer residents.

As The Beatles say, it’s been The Long and Winding Road, and I have enjoyed every twisted mile of it.   A big shout-out and thanx to all my visitors, both past and future.  Excelsior!!

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com! You registered on WordPress.com 10 years ago. Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

Flash Fiction #246

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER

I never thought I’d say, ‘I wanna go back to work.’

It’s nice that the company arranged working remotely from home by computer, but, I want to go to the break room for a mug of the world’s worst coffee, or ruin my diet with a donut or cake – ‘cause it’s always someone’s birthday.  I miss the office gossip, politics, and resident weirdo.  I miss the water-cooler sports discussions, even if I hate sports.  I even miss breathe-on-you, Lecherous Lennie’s tales of barroom conquests – all the little things that used to irk me.

This “NEW NORMAL” is getting old, fast.

***

Want to join the Friday Fictioneers fun??  Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Flash Fiction #241

PHOTO PROMPT © CEAyr

SELF ACTUALIZATION

Life was a giant jigsaw puzzle to him.  He’d attempted to fit in, but every time he tried, it seemed that there was a protruding corner, or an unfilled gap.  Everyone else knew that the answer to 2 + 2, was 4.  For him, it might be ‘Blue,’ or ‘Yesterday.’  This had been going on forever.

He’d finally learned to accept himself for who he was, and not struggle to be acceptable to everyone else.  His list of friends was short, but they were all real.  They stood together, by standing apart.  He liked being a shepherd, not a sheep.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

300 – The Rise Of Curmudgeon!

So, here it is, ten months later, and we meet again at Insecurity Junction. I made it to my 300^th post, and all you lovely people accompanied me.

Despite it being intended as an ongoing retirement project for me, when I began this, I never “thought” that it would go on forever, because, as usual, I didn’t think about it at all. I just unconsciously assumed that I was full of snakes and snails, and rants and tales, and could blather forever.

LIFE HAPPENS

Being retired, whether I publish or not, there will be no great changes in my life, until something other than life, happens. I’ll keep you posted on that. Maybe I should get at that obituary blog, just in case. Perhaps I could bare my soul to Benzeknees, and convince her to format one for me, or at least provide an outline.

I’ve plodded my way to the 300 mark, much slower and more markedly than many bloggers whose posts I read (semi)regularly, but I am finding many of them slowing down, some from lack of further inspiration, but many, because life has happened.

Sparklebumps is on her third job since I met her. She started a bit before I did, and posted more often, though now they’re farther apart. Her blog count must near 400, and she just mentioned that her followers finally equalled her posts. I guess I eventually learned how to attract attention – and followers. Mine equalled out at number 273, and are now well above 300.

BrainRants lacked bandwidth, and personal time, for a year in The Suck, and has been spotty since his return. An impending transfer, and the possible need to find financial support in the civilian sphere will do that to you. We’re all gonna miss him greatly, if he has to go dark.

H E Ellis’ big promotion, and the need to keep writing on her several books, has her posting far less often, and often reruns, and others’ work. Life seems to keep Sandylikeabeach off the grid for a month at a time, and John Erickson drifts in and out of medical and weather-induced blog-coma.

On the other hand, I have recently discovered, not one, but two, bloggers who have been at this for ten years. Not posting every day, mind you, but ten years! I asked one lady how many posts she’d published in that time. She didn’t reply, but I know it’s a lot more than my paltry 300.

New bloggers continue to make the scene, and old reliables slow down, or disappear altogether. AFrankAngle commented that the number of his followers continues to rise, but the visits, likes and comments don’t seem to increase.

I was set on this course by my wife and daughter, who saw it as a way to keep my aging brain sharp through composition and curiosity – that, and keeping me out from underfoot during my retirement. I have vapidly ranted and rambled about so many different things, that you, my beloved followers and readers, must be almost as addled as I am.

I don’t have the oomph and pizzazz to have things like being invited to join Stuphblog, or Long Awkward Pause, happen to me. I have been polluting Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site by submitting little, hundred-word stories, based on her weekly photo prompts. I’ve surprised myself, if no-one else, with my concise brevity, and have attracted several new readers and followers. It’s been fun.

New thoughts slowly form. New viewpoints, sometimes of old happenings, are found. Occasionally, old vignettes, or pieces of my childhood history, are dug out of the memory vault. I continue to enjoy assembling chunks of the language to offer them to you, and I very much enjoy when you visit, and read, and comment, and discuss.

Like Erickson, sometimes I am distracted and don’t do the visiting and reading that my interest and good manners says I should. I am very happy that so many of you forgive that, and make my self-imposed seclusion less secluded.

If you good folks feel that you can continue to follow in my doddering footsteps, I am pretty sure I can get to 400, my next plateau. 400??! Pah! The sky’s the limit. Onward and upward. Excelsior!

Do not use with alcohol. May cause dizziness, confusion or blurred vision. Your senility may vary.