1000 and Counting: Retro=backwards, Spectare=to look
This silly bit that you're reading now represents the 1000th time I've posted my thoughts in this space. Don't bother counting, you can't read them all. So what's this been all about, anyway?
A few facts:
I started this journal with an invite from moonlighttea back when one still needed an invitation from a current member to get a Livejournal. Thanks, B.
The name came from a mostly neglected Hotmail account I had started a while before. I don't know why I thought I needed a Hotmail address, or what it was that brought the phrase "Lone Gunman Theory" to my head the day that I created it, but the two events coincided, and I'd always liked my twist on the phrase, so it carried over. After being cemented in the name of this journal it pretty much became my internet nom de pixel (in either it's original form, or the more melancholy, less conspiracy theory sounding variation, Lonecellist) from then on.
My first test of the Lonecellotheory Broadcasting System made its way from my mind, to my desktop, to the world at large on a Thursday afternoon, May 30, 2002, probably while I was at work. (More on that later.)
By my count, that now puts us on day 1547 of this little exercise in self...expression? promotion? flagellation? abuse? That equals one post roughly every day and a half over that time.
At the beginning, I had the acute sense that no one was reading. Or very few people anyway. I think I was far more personal and censored myself far less as a result. As time has gone on, the number of people reading has increased quite a bit, both in people I know only via LiveJournal, and in terms of my friends and family. And, as it turned out, some co-workers. As a result, highly personal items are now generally restricted to just myself, a select few, or are couched in language so abstract that it may or may not actually be about me, and it may or may not be simply a writing exercise. Not even I always know the difference.
I've been given by LJ the opportunity to meet people I'd never have met, maintain relationships that might never have been maintained. It's also, indirectly, kick-started a new direction when I most needed it. For if my blogging habits, and, more importantly, my blogging content, had not been found out by my last job, they might not have fired me, and I'd probably still be there and still be miserable. It's given me a place to exercise my brain and write for no other reason than to grab a handful of the steady stream of words floating through my brain and record them somewhere. And along with that, it's given me cause to actually feel good about what goes on in this head of mine.
At the beginning I had a pretty low opinion of myself. While I still have bouts of the bad self-esteem, it's nothing like what it was. It's been a slow process, but I generally feel pretty good about myself. And my future therapist will probably have a lot to say about this statement, but I think a lot of that has to do with this "place". Call it a need for validation, or call it garden-variety attention-whoring, but I like to know that people are reading, and I like to know that they like what they read. And I'm comfortable with that. I started this at a point in my life when I'd pretty much stopped writing anything at all for a number of years. And now I write here more than I did even then, and I'm writing things that are being read by people who don't even know me in any fashion at all. It's still a constant struggle to write not just the travelogue of my life, but also to write things that have a ring that pleases my ear and makes me satisfied in the act of creation. But I like that I have a place where I can put either or both.
Last, but not least, thank you to all those who read, whether you're friend, family, or interested lurker. The conversations and debates and traded praise and critique with all of you over the last 1000 posts is part of the enjoyment. So happy 1000th post to me. Based on past performance, post number 2000 can be expected sometime not long before Thanksgiving of 2010. Stay tuned. I plan on having fun getting there. Hopefully I'll continue to keep your attention for a while longer with my various stories, ramblings, righteous indignation, and attempts at creating little bits of beauty here and there.
A few facts:
I started this journal with an invite from moonlighttea back when one still needed an invitation from a current member to get a Livejournal. Thanks, B.
The name came from a mostly neglected Hotmail account I had started a while before. I don't know why I thought I needed a Hotmail address, or what it was that brought the phrase "Lone Gunman Theory" to my head the day that I created it, but the two events coincided, and I'd always liked my twist on the phrase, so it carried over. After being cemented in the name of this journal it pretty much became my internet nom de pixel (in either it's original form, or the more melancholy, less conspiracy theory sounding variation, Lonecellist) from then on.
My first test of the Lonecellotheory Broadcasting System made its way from my mind, to my desktop, to the world at large on a Thursday afternoon, May 30, 2002, probably while I was at work. (More on that later.)
By my count, that now puts us on day 1547 of this little exercise in self...expression? promotion? flagellation? abuse? That equals one post roughly every day and a half over that time.
At the beginning, I had the acute sense that no one was reading. Or very few people anyway. I think I was far more personal and censored myself far less as a result. As time has gone on, the number of people reading has increased quite a bit, both in people I know only via LiveJournal, and in terms of my friends and family. And, as it turned out, some co-workers. As a result, highly personal items are now generally restricted to just myself, a select few, or are couched in language so abstract that it may or may not actually be about me, and it may or may not be simply a writing exercise. Not even I always know the difference.
I've been given by LJ the opportunity to meet people I'd never have met, maintain relationships that might never have been maintained. It's also, indirectly, kick-started a new direction when I most needed it. For if my blogging habits, and, more importantly, my blogging content, had not been found out by my last job, they might not have fired me, and I'd probably still be there and still be miserable. It's given me a place to exercise my brain and write for no other reason than to grab a handful of the steady stream of words floating through my brain and record them somewhere. And along with that, it's given me cause to actually feel good about what goes on in this head of mine.
At the beginning I had a pretty low opinion of myself. While I still have bouts of the bad self-esteem, it's nothing like what it was. It's been a slow process, but I generally feel pretty good about myself. And my future therapist will probably have a lot to say about this statement, but I think a lot of that has to do with this "place". Call it a need for validation, or call it garden-variety attention-whoring, but I like to know that people are reading, and I like to know that they like what they read. And I'm comfortable with that. I started this at a point in my life when I'd pretty much stopped writing anything at all for a number of years. And now I write here more than I did even then, and I'm writing things that are being read by people who don't even know me in any fashion at all. It's still a constant struggle to write not just the travelogue of my life, but also to write things that have a ring that pleases my ear and makes me satisfied in the act of creation. But I like that I have a place where I can put either or both.
Last, but not least, thank you to all those who read, whether you're friend, family, or interested lurker. The conversations and debates and traded praise and critique with all of you over the last 1000 posts is part of the enjoyment. So happy 1000th post to me. Based on past performance, post number 2000 can be expected sometime not long before Thanksgiving of 2010. Stay tuned. I plan on having fun getting there. Hopefully I'll continue to keep your attention for a while longer with my various stories, ramblings, righteous indignation, and attempts at creating little bits of beauty here and there.