On Blogging…Again

Here we go…

This is the first of what I hope will be an ongoing series of missives on what I find interesting, amusing, outrageous or just plain fucking dumb in the world.  I hope to make these posts interesting enough to get you to read them and funny enough to prompt you to laugh and share them with your circle of online friends.  I’ll do my best not to disappoint or, God forbid, embarrass you.

Before I get into the whys and wherefores, a bit of background.  As some of you will already know, this is not my first rodeo.  By rodeo I mean an attempt at being a blogger (ugh, such an ugly word).  Some of you will remember that I had another website, a mildly–very mildly–successful one called “Ray’s World” at which I posted such things as the story of how I almost came to blows with a stranger in an Albertson’s supermarket parking lot on account of my son being a lazy no-account.  I’m kidding, my son’s a good kid, but sometimes…  Anyway, the story was hilarious, or so people told me.

Ray’s World doesn’t exist anymore.  First, I was never really happy with the look and feel of it, something which I blame on Blogspot (I’m now in love with WordPress, by the way) and its crappy customization interface, tools and options.  Secondly, I became unhappy with how I managed the content on that site.  I was all over the place with it.  Instead of sticking to one theme or style and nailing down a reliably consistent, but entertaining voice, I started playing around with different genres of writing and subject matter and, well, I got lost and I lost interest in it and just let it collect dust on the internet for the past year.  A few nights ago, I archived all the stuff on it to my Macbook and, mercifully, put it to sleep.  RIP, Ray’s World.

Now, I’ve got a nice, new, blank sheet of digital paper in front of me and I’m excited to get started.

That brings me to why and why should you care?  Because I have to do this.  No, it’s not a matter of life or limb or anything like that.  It’s just that most of what I write will never be read except by me and, on very rare occasions, a disappointed editor at some magazine or website or whatever.  I get that, it’s how this works.  But I find that sometimes it’s just fun to write for fun and not because I want to get paid or otherwise non-monetarily recognized for it and then send that out to you wonderful people to make you think or laugh or both and maybe have you let me know that you liked it or hated it, as the case may be.  That instantaneous and reinforcing feedback is what I need.  Call it therapy and you guys are, collectively, my shrink and my group.  Welcome.  I hope this turns out to be fun for the both of us.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to clog your Twitter feed with promoting either the site or when I post.  I’ll send out two or three links at targeted times to let everyone know there’s something new to read and that’s it.  I believe in word of mouth or the Twitter equivalent: retweets.  Finally, if you’re interested, that Albertson’s supermarket story is on my Medium page (a place for short fiction and other stories that don’t quite fit what I have in mind for this blog).  Here’s the link.

Stay classy, friends.