My First Try

Okay - I've heard people talk about blogging... read people's blogs... but never until today considered doing this myself.  Now I'm wondering why I haven't.  It probably will be a useful tool in my travels if I can get in the habit of using it.  For example, recently I was on a business trip to France and took a week of vacation afterwards to go to England and Ireland to meet relatives I've only known by e-mail.  It would have been a good idea to record the things I saw each day, particularly in France, and my impressions of them.  I discovered (the hard way) that my cell phone camera does not date stamp photos.  (They were all taken January 1, 1980 for some reason), nor does it transfer them to the computer in the order taken...so I find myself at the moment with quite a lot of photos that I can't identify in terms of place.  I even made a point of taking photos of the signs at the entrances to the different places, but since the photos are in no particular order, I find myself playing detective - trying to match stonework to determine which photos were taken where.  I've decided that two of my folders are going to be Misc scenery and Misc architecture.  Perhaps written descriptions would have made this easier - perhaps not.

I also find that I'm leading rather a solitary existence.  I guess this happens to people who travel a lot,  I don't have the opportunity to make and maintain friendships anywhere other than on the internet.  Frankly, I've never been good at the friendship thing in person.  I find I usually don't know what to say or how to say it.  The internet gives me the luxury of playing with the words - typing and re-reading and editing until they say what I want them to.  This luxury doesn't exist in real life.  It's hard to find the courage to speak in social settings without being able to try out my words and make sure I've found the right ones.  I usually run them around in my head a few times before I'm convinced they're ready to be released for public consumption.  Unfortunately, by the time my words are ready to be spoken, the topic of the conversation has usually changed and I have to discard them.  If there were a collection bin for all my ideas that I never managed to speak, it would be overflowing, I'm sure.  I was told once that sometimes people think I'm a snob because I act like I'm too good to join in the conversation.  If they only knew!

On the other hand, put me on stage with a microphone and a topic I know something about and I'm as comfortable as can be.  The stage allows me to be separate, not a part of the group, far less subject to being mocked or confronted.  Usually members of an audience who disagree with a speaker will just leave.

Best of all, put me on stage with a microphone and a guitarist who knows the old Irish pub songs and I will be more than comfortable - I'll be happy - I'll be free - I'll be me, singing to you about Molly Malone and Tim Finnegan's wake, and I suspect I'll make you happy too and you won't want to leave.  But at the end of the night, you will still be a stranger and I will be no closer to having found real world friends than I was to begin with.

So maybe somehow my blog can be my friend.  It won't talk back or confront me.  (Although if anyone actually reads it, they might call me an idiot - but there is no fear, no confrontation.  This is the internet).  It will be an interesting experiment, anyway.  Here's to experimenting!