Back when I was in junior high, probably out of sheer boredom, I started writing silly, funny notes to nobody in particular; tucking them into the framework of my chair for whomever else sat at that particular desk to find. I remember it started during a particularly boring eighth-grade English class, where we were pretending to listen to the teacher preach about how Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle went from being an expose on the American meat-packing industry to propaganda on socialism. From there, my new hobby expanded to my Earth Sciences class; culminating when my notes became so anticipated that my identity was no longer a secret – to the students, or the teachers; some of whom were bemused by my creativity, others who felt detention would be in order if they ever caught me.
They never did – catch me, that is – because at that point, as I recall, I started responding to the writing people left on the desks and bathroom walls. One particularly big hit had been my response to the crude and not so subtle demand, penciled on my math-class desk, to “Eat me!” I quickly penned the response, “No thanks, I’m dieting”, which immediately revealed my identity to all who read it. The combination of truth and dry sarcasm (I really was dieting) was like a laser pointer in my direction. My school was a small one, where everyone not only knew everyone else but also their business; and my disordered eating habits were better documented than I realized.
These thoughts came to me tonight as sleep eluded me, and I thought to myself, “Isn’t a blog like those notes I used to leave under the desks and on the walls?” Well, isn’t it? Isn’t a blog just an adult version of writing on the walls? A grown-up version of stuffing notes into the framework of my chair for anybody to read and respond? I suppose it is…and I find myself hoping that my blogs will be as successful – as anticipated – and as enjoyed as those missives of long ago.
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