esrosedotblog

The blog is 13 years old this week.

See all the dates in the archive there to the right?

That is me writing my fingers to the bone.

I have had a good time for the most part. Enjoyed it.

A few times, I announced that I was giving it up.

Some kind readers urged me not to.

If that was not enough, after a little while, I got the itch again and resumed my work.

A lot of people keep journals. Mostly private. That is not me. I am not much for closeted confessionals.

On the other hand, the public nature of the blog does cause me to harness myself in.

Language for one thing. There are only so many "fucks" I do not want to give.

My aim is to try to write clearly and grammatically. I ended my work life as a writer and so once grooved, the practice is worth maintaining. Of course then I had editors and copy readers. Not now.

Just the jerky spell check which "corrects" incorrectly more often than not.

A perennial pain.

The public nature also makes me think. There are not many posts where I just pull it out of my ass. Sometimes it takes half a day of "thinking" or marinating. Occasionally, I go back later and either insert or delete something that came to me after I felt I was done.

Another outcome of the blog is that I finally learned touch typing. I wrote about this recently. Now that was a change. Valuable time lost hunting and pecking is gained back.

Thank you Mavis Beacon. You are the best.

Writing the blog also gives me purpose in my geezer years. I need that stimulus, obligation, activity. The volunteer work on the condo association helps too but that is sporadic and not me alone. There, I fulfill my need to engage in teamwork. Another nice exercise. Practicing what I preached for many years.

So happy birthday to my blog and many happy returns.

Someone asked me if I go back and read the blog at all.

No. Not really. It is over for me. I am like an actor who does not go see his or her movies. I lived it once, I wrote about it once and that, by gosh and by golly, is enough.

Labels: blog, blogging

This month marks my 13th year writing this blog.

You can see the history to the right. Click on "Archives" to see them. I cannot. It is history.

At one time I figured I would give myself a history of things but that has changed.

I do it now for a few people who read the blog, it is easier than sending emails all the time, and for me. I still do not go back and read much of it. But it provides a sense of self in a world where this is a bit scarce.

Self. I quit work work in 1979. Went off the road and quit the business.

So work and the business no longer define me.

I used to kind of hang out in my old place's web site but the company got a new management and I lost interest. I do not look in any more.

And little by little my business persona has all but disappeared.

I am still in touch with an old business partner on a very occasional basis. And one special wonderful client friend and I are still together. A blessing.

There is my family of course and, it turns out, the blog has not replaced letters "home". I still send email updates. Especially for the kind of things I would not put in the blog.

There are some interesting stats though.

I have made 11536 postings.

Holy shit.

There have been 110,968 viewings. So ten times the number of posts. Ten readers each post. Including me. I do not think that I read each post ten times. So, someone do the math. Or not.

Not a big universe.

But I am writing for me

So it has been a long time project for me. I am usually done with stuff well before this.

I did give the blog up for about 4 months once then re-instituted it. I wrote to everyone I knew to let them know it was back. A burp.

So. I will continue. A day at a time.

Labels: blog, blogging

I missed blogging for two days.

And it didn't kill me!

I watched some old movies so nothing to report there.

Saturday was the usual laid back day and Sunday even more so. I didn't even join "the boys" for the morning dog walk on Sunday.

It was a nice break. The world got along quite well enough without me.

I may take a couple more days.

Labels: blog

Today is the 11th anniversary of this blog.

My first post was a review of Rififi.

You can go back and see it for yourself. Just go to the link at the right for the first month.

A trip back shows me experimenting with various setups. I actually did a red, then green, date thing for December. Yikes.

I have loved doing this thing.

I have found it a source of enlightenment as I try to look at what goes on in my life by reporting on it.

I suppose it isn't that much different than having a special friend to talk to or a husband or a neighbor.

But here the conversation is one way. I used to get comments from some people. Even some attacks which were fun. But none of this has happened in a long time.

I know that people, friends, read the blog because they comment on it from time to time in emails or conversation.

It is a very good substitute for the email newsletter. I don't do a lot of the news breaking that way that I think some people do. In a way it is not much different than folks who do the "cc: to everyone in their life" approach.

Most of all, I just enjoy doing it.

That is reason enough to decide to continue into a 12th year. To death do us part? Who knows? I preserve the option to bail out. I tried it once and came back in three months so even that is conditional.

Labels: blog

OK. I give.

Even I miss the old blog.

On the walk with Booker tonight I thought "why not"?

Well, because it is work and I got bored but maybe I won't be bored if I restart it.

A lot has happened since November when I quit this.

For one thing I stood for the Board of Directors for my Home Owners Association.

This has been a lot of fun and it actually has revitalized my life. Not that I was dormant. But it is a task of service. It is fun. It is being "in charge".

I am the Treasurer.

That means that I do a little work but not much. I read the monthly financials that are prepared for us by the professional managers who actually do the day to day running of the 150 condo complex (well, 147 but I like the rounder number).

The meetings are once a month and the in between is not very rigorous. So far, no one has brought me "issues". I am pretty repellant about stuff like that. My theory is that it has to be invited for it to occur. A lot of people invite the engagement and then complain because of the intrusion. Not me.

Actually, I remain dedicated to the idea that the Board is a board and acts as such. This has the advantage of saving me a lot of bullshit and spreads the load.

It is also amazing how many people somehow get less whiney about stuff when they have to come to a public hearing.

There are laws and regulations that govern our behavior. The state is quite explicit. We have bylaws and regulations codified in the complex. There is precedent.

We have the advantage (I see it this way) of having three out of five members appointed this year, none of whom have served in the past. On this Board anyway. A couple were on previous association boards and stuff. Not me. I am a virgin.

The "old members" include the Chairman who is old only by virtue of his having been appointed mid term when a member moved away. The other old old member holds this as a kind of warrant to hold forth but we are immune.

One reason most of us went on the Board is that we had enough of the old guard thing going on.

So. Something new. Something enjoyable, even fun.

My sacred schedule still holds pretty well. Most days I do some work in my recovery Program, early on. Go to an actual Meeting or on some days meet with people I sponsor for an hour or so. Work the Steps.

I watch a movie a day and still write mini-reviews because one of the long time readers of the blog asked me to. I have been sending them out in email.

I take a nap every morning. I work the internet in the afternoon. I make supper and walk the dog after. John does the morning walks.

I like a bit of routine.

That is it.

A post.

I may do another one.

I have to get my old blogging chops back but I am up to it. Or not. We will see.

Labels: blog, blogging

In a few days, I will have been doing this blog for ten (10) round years. It has been a lot of fun. When I started, blogs were a bigger thing than they are now. So I jumped into the pool. Once I got started, I found that I liked it both as a way to stay in touch with friends and family but also as a kind of journal for myself. I had a fairly large readership at that time and put the blog address on all my emails so I picked up a lot of readers that way. I also found that a lot of people were reading the posts who had googled themselves there or when the blog had showed up on their radars somehow.

Over time, as it turns out, blogs in general have given way to other media. The dread FaceBook that I will not join, Tweets which sort of interest me but not enough to stay in touch with them and whatever else comes down the pike that include photos, video and so on. Technology has passed the blogger on the road to communication and we are eating the dust.

Hardly anyone reads the blog today. Most, not all, family and just a few friends. I find that I have to write the current events of my life in emails and phone calls which are aimed to the specific people who I stay in touch with and they with me. Outside the blog. Better in a way because these are tailored and, while not as frequent, more meaningful connections than the blog has been. Although I have felt the connection with an audience as I have written, pictured some people reading.

This has never been a comment laden blog. But it has been months since there was even one of any kind. Even a return rant. The guy who kept answering the same post I wrote over five years ago about the con-letters from Africa hasn't been irate now for over a year.

Recently I reduced the size and scope in an experimental way. Not satisfying. One says he misses the blog. Others say no comment. Me? It is not the same.

I note that in the last month or so, we rounded a corner of another kind. Not just the tenth (10th) year of the blog but also the 10,000th post. That is a lot of writing. I get tired just looking at the number but also a little proud I kept with it so long.

There are still the archives. I will not be dumping those although I suspect that Blogger will catch up somehow and one day tell me that a new layout or agreement means the end of those. But in the meantime, it is all still in the cloud or wherever they keep this stuff. I, personally, don't plan to dig in and look at them but you never know.

If you have hung in this long, thanks. It has been fun. I already miss you. The "you" I visualized while writing. A bit. But not too much. Send me an email. I will write back. To you, not to the masses. That is it. I am out of here.

Cheers!

Labels: blog, blogging

We have visitors.

The kind I want to spend all the time with.

So, no postings for a few days.

The tiresome routines of the government and the relentless beat of the drums of right wing arrogance and obstructionism have sort of worn me out of any comment. They ain't worth it. They have lost but let them know if you will.

I am taking a vacation from that too. Not my job.

The good news is that I just completed my 34th year of sobriety and celebrated with many of my Program friends yesterday.

More and more I am spending my time with the volunteer work that I like so much, work with other alcoholics. This doesn't include comment at a public level.

Nor does my work with the current high school seniors that I am seeing in connection with their interest in MIT.

SO.

Not a whole lot of raw material there either.

I am thinking about putting the blog into retirement and going back to my communications with friends on a more one on one basis.

We shall see.

A short time off might re-fresh the blog batteries.

Labels: blog

I updated the last couple of blogs because I had more to say or did not say enough or.......Rising disappointment and Astute just below have added sections today.

Labels: blog, updates

Blogger is getting tough.

Suddenly, without one word of warning, Blogger, my host, demands that I use the "in house" titling protocols.

Actually there is nothing wrong with this other than the fact that I have never done it and gotten away with it all this time.

So, this looks different.

I could let this stand and use the same Caps heading I have been but it looks too heavy.

So I went to lower case.

The latest trend.

Did you know that all Caps signage on highways, streets, all over are on the way out? Visibility. Readability. Safer.

So, in line with the trend, here it goes on esrosedotblog.

While I was at it, going to the lower case, I thought again, maybe it was too light.

So I tried the first sentence headline approach ala newspapers everywhere. The subhead. Blah blah.

See? The NYT uses it all in one edition. I can do what I want.

Deal with it bitches.

Labels: blog, blogging

WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE

It has been a while since I conducted a "readability test" on the blog.

So, first thing this morning, before the blog woke up, I did a run through here. Juicy Studios. There are other sites but this is the one I have always used.

If you want to know what these scores mean go to the site.

Based on 630 total sentences, more or less randomly selected with 6116 total words, the average words per sentence were 9.71.

Yes. This is intentional. I try to write short, punchy active sentences. Blog sentences.

There are 4465 words of one syllable, 1114 words with two syllables, 387 words with three syllables and 150 sentences with 4 or more syllables.

This means there are 8.78% words with over three syllables, and an average syllable per word count of 1.38.

Rather readable.

The Gunning Fog Index is the grade level that a reader would have for good comprehension. This blog is good for the 7.4 grade.

The Flesch Reading Ease result it 80.04. Authors are encouraged to aim for a score of approximately 60 to 70. A little high here.

On the other hand the Flesch-Kincaid Grade is only 4.51. Like the Gunning-Fog index, it is a rough measure of how many years of schooling it would take someone to understand the content.

Here are some examples of Fog indices for some works. TV guides, The Bible, Mark Twain are at 8. Most popular novels=10. The New York Times is 14. Academic papers usually 15-20. Government sites=20. It says that if there is a Fog over 30, someone is covering something up.

So, you don't have to be much of a reader to get through this. It is easier than the Times.

There is nothing to do with this. Just watch the fog roll in and out.

Labels: blog, blogging

You might notice some different shit on the post titles and so on.

Blogger has changed their whole format but nicely so.

I find it user friendly.

I don't have to use the heavy new post title thing but I think that I will.

I like this a lot.

Thanks Blogger. Owned by Google. Like everything else.

Labels: blog, blogging

I LOVE THIS

Obama's fun with GIFs here.

It was so good on the email, so startling, I immediately hit the donate button.

I do not know how to put GIFs like this on my blog.

If anyone out there knows how to do it, please comment or send an email.

Labels: blog, fun, Re-election of Barack Obama

BETTER

Booker went for his five day bandage change and his operation is clean and closed. He gets two or three more five day visits then out of it. Off with the collar. On with a normal life.

IRS COMES THROUGH

We have been informed that our "case" with the IRS in which we made claims for back years with a joint return has been settled.

We get the refunds in a few weeks.

This is the end of a long drawn out process where they didn't "get" what had happened. A revision of the code that rules domestic partners can file jointly in California because it is a community property state.

They still don't really get it but we appealed to the Advocate's office and won our appeal. It is a lot of money.

Just like "the straights".

TIME TIME TIME

So busy, so busy and now they are taking an hour away from me tonight. At least I got a few posts in on the blog today.

I plan to set the clocks ahead around 6 PM and go to bed an hour early.

Wish me good luck with that.

Labels: blog, Booker, money

ANNIVERSARY updated 110311

Today is the EIGHTH anniversary of esrose.blog.

Eight years.

For some reason the first five days are not in the archive.

No matter, they weren't very interesting. I was feeling my way.

I had a photo journal before that but I had quit taking pictures. Hard to have a photo journal if one isn't working it.

Then, the software I had been using crashed and somehow the backup didn't work and so I said "fuck it" and retired from the scene.

But I liked the idea of writing a journal without my own pictures and so I tried out blogger. And the rest is history.

At first, I promoted the blog and put the web address on every email I sent.

It was only later that I allowed comments and found out that there were a lot of people I never met responding. Some weird ones, one note harangues. But, for the most part interesting.

This was a surprise to me. I didn't know that people had software that told them where their particular hobby horses might be riding on line.

At some point I quit promoting it and now, there are a few friends who read it, more than I would think. I assume my family looks in as they talk to me about stuff. There are probably 30 or so irregular regulars.

Maybe I should ask everyone who reads it to make a comment and then I would know. I mostly write out of my own interest. Occasionally, I write pieces for someone who I know is in the crowd thinking that they will be interested. Maybe even with the knowledge that they might get a little pissed off.

The Facebook Sonnet* that I put up here some time ago rattled a few cages. I think that one guy may have left over it. Are you still there?

I suppose that some of the staples of the blog interest some people and not others.

I cannot believe that everyone who reads this looks forward to the movie reviews. But some do. Some make suggestions! Many of my Asian films are from people who see many more than I do.

There are a couple of people who do not like Obama. Good.

They even write back occasionally.

Some of the personal stuff is more for family although anyone can read it.

The main thing is that I get to read it. Surprising myelf. And if it is interesting to others so much the better.

Of course I do not put everything in the blog. I only sketchily include stuff about family or friends. Mostly things that have been sent to me.

I don't talk much about my husband. Although he claims that he reads some things for the first time in the blog. Never discussed one on one.

I don't say much about my involvement with Alcoholics Anonymous. Not that there is anything wrong with doing it. Anonymity is only to be protected in the area of media. Press, radio, television and internet for the public. Mine is a closed system.

But I still keep it out of here pretty much.

For the last year I have been journaling my way through the Twelve Steps for the nth time and that has taken quite a bit of my writing energy. Maybe that has shown here. I will be done the end of this month with that.

But the thing is more that AA is a spiritual program of recovery and mostly depends on contact with other alcoholics. Not everyone who reads here is in that class. A few are and they are totally capable of reading between the lines.

But everything else is pretty much fair game.

It is strange but true that some very very close friends do not want to read the blog. I think that they sneak a peek every now and again but I think that, for them, it distorts the relationship. I get that and approve totally. They get long emails or one on ones instead.

What does it do for me? It is somehow liberating. To be open about being gay. To be clearer about my political beliefs. To tell my personal story from time to time. Cunnerman (hill billy) makes good, goes out in the world and finds some things to do that he never, ever thought could happen. And much of it stuff that I didn't even know I wanted or could do or have.

Every once in awhile, I get tired of it and think about stopping. This is quite prevalent on the web. I recently just lost a long term site that I read. Just like that. Gone. Done. One or two have left the site up but have retired from the scene. When that happens it feels bad to me. I know that a lot of what is on the net is not real but enough of it comes through as honest and interesting stuff that it is a BIG DEAL. Someone is out there who I like to read and so am I. Out there.

When and if I leave I will say a "long goodbye" unless I end before the blog and then maybe a family member will be kind enough to let people know that the blog is over by default.

OK. On with ths show.

* from the New Yorker.

Labels: blog, blogging

NOT ONE RED CENT

I was very happy to see this.

US suspends $800m in Pakistan military aid

These fuckers drive me crazy. They are two faced bastards who have been shown time and time again to be lousy allies.

This goes way back. I am talking about the days when Bhutto was running things.

They let that guy Kahn give away the atomic secrets. They are beyond the pale.

Nasty bastards.

It is past time that we let them know we don't like them and won't support their shit.

Do I sound a bit strident? Good.

Historic link. This is the first time that I have used a link to Al Jazeera English which I am reading every day now. It is very interesting to do so. Nice web site. Take a look!

Their videos are very good. I learned more about the mess with Murdoch in Great Britain from the Al Jazeera videos than almost anywhere else.

No. They are not wild eyed crazy muslim loons in robes and head wraps.

Labels: blog, Middle east, news

LOW BLOG

It has been a busy week. Not so much blogging.

We had visitors every day last weekend and then Monday, I got a small, itchy, throat cold. A good excuse for not writing. Not.

But the weekend put me behind for household accounting, some writing that I am doing of a personal nature and for a few other things. I am tightly scheduled! If I take time out, then something doesn't get done.

This is the complaint of a compulsive, routine driven, inflexible person.

Well, I am not that. Not really. Or I don't want to be. So I had to give in to something and that was the blog.

See my fingers fly now that I have some time. Good.

Let's see what happens. The house is cleaned, my personal journal is current, there is no gym for the next two weekend mornings and there are no visitors.

Good.

Labels: blog, blogging

SOME SHIT CAME DOWN

On Blogger.

That kind of shit. The site was down.

A lot of posts were lost. They were down for uploads for two days. Two days!

Some people lost a lot of postings. I lost nothing.

It turns out that some of those blogs were gay blogs.

Gay paranoia says that the whole thing was a plot to de-gay blogger.

Unlikely. Everyone knows that Blogger is about the gayest web site that there is after Tumblr. If you took "the gays" off it, it would not exist.

Anyway, all my stuff is there. I don't post porn although I am thinking of it. I would get a lot more traffic if I did.

Labels: blog, blogging, gay fun

SEVEN YEARS

The blog is seven years old this week.

That is longer than I have done a lot of things in my life.

I changed jobs and companies every five years, first out of necessity and then as a matter of principle. Each move was to a smaller company until there was just me.

I would have crazes of hobbies that would last for awhile and then, having reached a certain level of competence, I would drop it and move on to another.

The blog hasn't worked that way. I have not gotten bored, which, finally, was the reason to change companies (also more money) and not stay with any hobbies.

I look back and feel pretty good about the result. By that, I mean that I feel good about the process of doing it.

The blog posts are all in the archives. I suppose it would be interesting to go back and read to see what happened and what I was saying about my life at a particular time. But I have never done that. Not once except, perhaps, to find out to check a date. But hardly that.

I am not much interested in dates. Or the past.

Or the future for that matter. Really.

I am very interested in today.

This is similar to my experience with taping meetings in my work with training groups. I could never go back and look at them. Same with my running journals. I scrupulously recorded the weather conditions, the length and route of my run and the results in time and so on. I never looked at it and I had a whole steno pad or two of data.

I have no idea who reads the blog any more. I think, at the beginning, a lot of friends and family read it.

I put it on my email for people to link up. I would mention it.

Now, I get comments from a few people I know and, occasionally, a complete stranger. I know that some of the stuff shows up on Google. Esoteric. Nice.

But fundamentally, I am writing it for myself. It is a journal. I tell people I do not journal but here it is. A white lie.

I don't promote the blog anymore. It just is.

I suppose this all sounds weird but then there is a lot of me that fits that category so why not the blog and my blogging.

Sometimes I think about quitting but I never do. I have followed some blogs where the guys just stopped one day. Sometimes with a curt explanation or nothing at all.

I promise a long goodbye if I drop this. Unless I drop it involuntarily. I am of a certain age where you never know what might happen.

Then my family can keep the archives and not read them. That would not make them weird. I wouldn't either.

"Oh! That's the blog he wrote". Click.

As it should be.

Labels: blog, blogging

DOCUNUT

You might have noticed that I am looking at a lot of documentaries.

It sort of runs that way as I add to my Netflix queue and the films become available. In this case, I found a trove of docs and put them into the queue at the same time. Most were already available. Voila! A run of docs.

I suspect that my enjoyment of these satisfies a loss in never watching or having a television set.

So be it.

Another reason not to have a set soaking up space in my living room or my head.

I developed a taste for the documentary when I was in high school.

Mr. Seems was the guidance counsellor and, at a certain age, he held classes for all students in "careers". But Mr. Seems was also a film nut and what he did was show us movies. All kinds of movies. All documentaries. Long, short, funny, sad. Industrial, citizenship, social issues.

Non stop.

We never talked about careers. Mr. Seems sat in the first row. He ran an audio visual club and the kids ran the projectors and fixed the broken film. All 16mm.

It was great.

Mr. Seems also, later on, supplied my father with pornography. Very soft core. But in those days, maybe not.

Nudist films, story lines about the door to door salesman and the blonde, and so on. They were on silent 8mm. My dad didn't watch them much but I did.

I watched the guys although usually the guys were not very good looking. This is a standard porn meme. The girls are beautiful and the guys are kind of plain and wear their sox while fucking.

Gay porn, on the other hand, is all looker except now there are a lot of semi-pro videos and the guys are more plain again and, oddly, much sexier.

This incidentally shows the evolution from documentaries of porn through studio productions and back to the documentary.

See? I did get back to the beginning of the loop.

Labels: blog, films

DAY OFF

I am taking the blog day off today.

We are having a first-time visit with a good friend in our new home and I want to be there for that.

Have a nice day.

Back tomorrow.

Labels: blog