update: a vast wasteland of pixels and light

So my question to all of you out there is ... uh, is there anyone out there?

The blog: Yeah, it's about ego. It's about self-promotion and instant gratification and "Look at me! Whoa-ho! Look at me! Look at what I'm doing!" Thousands of individuals with the impulses of a five-year-old. We may be better at dressing ourselves, and, okay, many of us have gotten a grip on concepts like cause-and-effect and the transient nature of time. Doesn't mean we're not all twirling and jumping and hoping that Mommy looks over and sees.

A simplistic critique? Hey, I'm not exempting myself. And I'm not even using it as a means to head off the essential message of this post: Look at me!

I know it's a silly request. I mean, if you're reading this (or even if you just stopped because you realized I was just going to keep going and you were wondering what happened to the little tennis girl), then you're looking. If you're not, well, my drawing your attention to a forum you're ignoring by communicating over a forum you're ignoring isn't likely to meet with massive waves of success.

This is simply the first time I'm breaking from my pattern of posting bits of fiction on here for you. Whoever you are. You know who you are. At least I hope you do. And since I'm breaking the pattern, I'll just clarify what I've been doing, in case it wasn't obvious. I'm ... oh, gosh, I gave it away just now, didn't I? I'm posting bits of fiction on here for you. Bits of fiction I wrote. Bits of fiction you may or may not have seen before. Bits of fiction you may or may not ever see again.

This isn't a testing ground, exactly. Most of what I'm putting here is in a state that's close to finished. Or I mean to say that it's finished for now, but if were called on to repurpose it for something or have it printed elsewhere, I wouldn't be able to resist giving it a touch-up. But this stuff was put down much as I intended to put it down, and only the passage of time and my own glacial learning process will give me the insight to do much better than I've done here. Also maybe some effort and encouragement. A promise of wine. A breezy tennis date ...

Uh ... oh, so there it is. I'm putting the stuff out there. If you read it, tell me something about it. That is, if you have any thoughts at all. If not, then maybe your communiques wouldn't be of much use to either of us. Too bad, because you seemed so nice at first.

In any event, I'll continue putting stuff here as long as I'm able to cull it, draft it, or crib it from someone else. Shout-outs to CO, Lil' Biscuit, and JR Guttertype. Peace out, ya'll. As my great-grandfather used to say, "Be yourself and you free yourself." We kids never really got what he meant, but when he said it, we knew he was finally tipsy enough not to watch the beer cooler too closely. That's all we'd been waiting for.

We learned so much from that old man.