considering my next entry

I’ve been writing here since February 4th, 2004. I have a total of 4,239 entries, 156 of which are Private. 3551 entries – 3552 including this one, are open to all, and, including FO entries, there are 4,083 available to read.

I have "published" over 10,000 pictures, although none very recently, and it’s been awhile since I’ve even taken any pictures.

I’m considering my next entry. There are stories I want to tell; stories that are not fiction, but are true, they really happened events and thoughts about this life. I’ve been thinking off and on of what to write, besides short notes like this one and the recent entries, but I’ve been kind of reluctant to get the DNR;TL (do not read; too long) reaction that might occur.

Then I thought, well, it’s not my responsibility to ensure readership; this is MY life story, and if people don’t want to read something because it’s long and involved, well, so what? TELLING the stories is the important thing, and besides, Sitemeter tells me that I get a lot of readership even if the notes are scant sometimes.

Words and sentences and whole paragraphs are going through my mind; I have a lot of things to write about, both recent events and past events that have shaped my life and the way I think. It’s getting to the point where those words WANT to get out; HAVE to get out. They don’t necessarily involve much day-to-day stuff; my Daily Life is kind of boring and uneventful, most of the time, but my past has some interesting (I think) stuff in it that I’d like to tell you about.

Two subjects have been "fighting" to "get out", both covering long periods of my life, and indeed, are an on-going facet of that life. One will have to be an FO entry, because I don’t really want to tell the whole world, at this time, that series of stories, and I don’t have any control over who reads it. The other story I need to tell is more "benign" – less likely to get me any negative judgements, left in notes or otherwise. My diary is pretty much open to the world; anyone can read it, parts of it, whether or not they are OD members. By writing FO entries, I can limit the audience to the "people I know", or think that I know, and those tend to be the most "open" entries in this diary.

A lot of those entries are in the "mask of confession" chapter. Day to day stuff tends to get put in the year chapters – "Notes on Life 20xx", from 2004 through 2013, and Photos have their own chapter, covering all the years I have written here. "Slideshows" too are covering all those years, although it is a "newer" chapter than "Photo Entries" or "the mask of confession" chapter, which also is an on-going, unlimited by years chapter.

(aren’t the chapters a neat idea? Open Diary lets you organise stuff by chapters, which tend to be of a type. My Front Page of this diary is set to an "all entries" list and covers Everything I post, but dividing my stuff up by broad subject matter lets me keep themes and times separate)

Remember how you felt when you posted your 100th entry? I passed that mark in 2004, not all that long after I began this diary (although the Great Hack Attack of 2004 erased around three months worth of effort). I long ago passed the 1000 entries mark, and damn, I passed the 4,000 entry mark last year. Sitemeter, which I haven’t been using as long as I’ve been writing – since October 29, 2006, shows 171,261 Page Views and 79, 858 individual visitors.

Pretty damn impressive, eh? It is to me, and I seem to have a world-wide audience – 39 countries and counting, with new ones popping up every so often. Readers around the world. Boy, that’s very impressive to me, and ya know, it’s all "free"; I don’t make any money off my efforts, although people have sent me cash occasionally to help me out; I’ve nearly always been, here, dirt poor and struggling to bill the bills.

"No one but a blockhead ever writes but for money", Samuel Johnson wrote, so perhaps I am a blockhead, but words need to get out, and I "need" them to be read, and I don’t especially care about money – it’s nice to have to pay bills and to get stuff, yeah, but it’s not the be-all, end-all of my life, and I kind of hate the stuff anyway. Sour Grapes, that, maybe, but my motives for doing this are not related to money; no, they are directly related to a NEED to tell my stories, to show the pictures I love to take, to show off "my" Oregon, and to connect, in some small way, with other people.

So, my thoughts for the day, if I can corral them and get ’em organised, are about "what should I write next?"

Atomic Tourism? I have been to both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I lived in Nevada for awhile, and was born at the height of The Cold War, in 1962, when the US and the USSR came close to launching Armageddon on the world; the Cold War was The major feature of my life from 1962 to 1991, when the Soviet Union ceased to exist – an unthinkable thing just a few years before. I won’t say things nuclear have been an "obsession", but I knew a lot more than your average person about that stuff, and still, I humbly submit, do.

Personal relationships? I’ve written a lot about the more open aspects of that here; I was married for 11 and a half years, from 1984 until 1995, and I have known and loved that woman since 1981, 32 years, and she is still a part of my life. Not my wife anymore, and it’s been almost 20 years since we were lovers, but the friendship has endured and, as I said, she is still part of my life. Other people are in that life, and have been part of it, one whom I want to write about soon, a woman I have known for 17 years now, and have done stuff with that demand a more limited audience, just on General Principles, and because of that control thing – I don’t Know who’s reading this diary, really, and some things I have to be discrete about, if for nothing else, my own safety. There is such a thing as being "too honest".

Well, a busy, thoughtful day today. Stories to gestate, words to wrangle, thoughts to think.

Stay tuned please.

 

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