Why Bother Blogging?

So then, why do I blog?

The question is worth answering, so I will relate the event that pushed me over the top, the nail in the coffin, so to speak. By the time I responded to Roman Sacristan and suddenly found myself the proud owner of my very own blog, I already knew that I would one day have a blog. Just not so soon....

Anyways, I work in the sciences, and was trained to act, live, eat and breathe the scientific lifestyle. I am boring at parties and don’t get invited anymore. But I digress. All that training in the sciences left very little time for enjoying the arts, such as art, literature, and music. So for the past few years I have tried to explore these areas to give some kind of a pop off for my genius.

I tried it all. With most of the arts I failed miserably. Painting, drawing, music(the guitar in particular) were all unsuccessful trials. After analyzing what happened, I realized that I have difficulty translating what I see in my mind, say, in the example of painting, into a picture on paper or canvas. The same with photography. I look at the world, trying to frame a scene that looks memorable in real life, and somehow all my pictures end up looking like stuffed animals. With music, my short and fat little fingers made it difficult to depress just one guitar string at a time. I figured the wider gaps on a classical guitar would be too far for my fingers to reach. My children refused to share time on the piano.

I was left with literature. After exhausting limericks as a means of self-expression, I turned to haiku and other poetry types, with little success. I still had trouble translating what I think into what I put on paper. I also realized that writing, like some many other skills, should get better with practice. So writing something every couple of days would allow me to try to improve my writing ability. Setting up a blog would also serve to discipline me to write something and put it out there for the world to rip apart heartlessly.

All these thoughts were running through my mind one day, while I sat in car at the mall while the wife of dad with noisy kids ran in quickly to pick up something at Niemann Marcus. I had to admit that the idea of seeing people make light of my work was really holding me back from eventually creating a blog. I lacked confidence. What if nobody liked what I wrote? Suddenly the music died down on the radio, and a man’s voice solemnly intoned,

“I’m just sitting in my car, waiting for my girl.”

That’s a silly phrase, I thought. I was doing the same thing. I hoped that the wife wouldn’t be much longer, since I was parked illegally in the fire lane, and it was hot in this car. I wonder if there were any parking spots –

“I’m just sitting in my car, waiting for my girl!”

There he goes again! Can you imagine someone sat down and composed music and then words that included such a ridiculous line? And they probably made a lot of money doing it, and crowds of people pay to see them say,

“I’m just sitting in my car, waiting for my girl!”

I could write nonsense like that. As the song came to a crescendo, implying an end I realized that if some yahoo could write stuff like this, then I might as well start a blog. It suddenly struck me that a lot of contemporary music seems to be modeled loosely on the structure of Ravel’s Bolero, which seemed to be a metaphor for -

I’M JUST SITTING IN MY CAR, WAITING FOR MY GIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLL!

The music ended, and I realized a mall security guard was tapping on my window, motioning me to move on. I rolled down my window.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m just sitting in my car, waiting for my g- wife,” I stammered.

“Oh. I thought you were talking to someone on one of those Bluetooth things. Move along, sir.”

My attempt to comment on Roman Sacristan’s blog was the final push to start this blog rolling.

dad with noisy kids