I completely forgot to mark it, but this past July was the tenth anniversary of Graphic Firing Table; July 17, 2006 was the very first post up at this joint.
Reminds me; I gotta start trying to figure out what the hell to say.
It's not going to be about this election, oh no. You ain't draggin' me into that.
Maybe a nice cat video?
Hmmm.
Showing posts with label milepost posts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label milepost posts. Show all posts
Monday, September 19, 2016
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Mister 2000
Well. I've got there. Two thousand posts.
Two thousand. Makes my typing fingers tired just to think about it.
But I've been slowing down quite a lot.
As I posted here back in 2012:
It took me more than 3,000 days to get here from the beginning: 3,117, to be exact, which means I'm down to 0.6 posts per day or a post about every one-and-a-half days. Which makes sense when you look at the interval for the past 500 posts: 958 days, the longest interval for 500 posts since I started blogging.
I won't pretend I haven't thought about hangin' 'em up and that that is one reason things have slowed down around this joint so badly.
U.S. politics today - and politics in this country is what I wrote and write about a hell of a lot (something like 400 to 500 of my posts are labelled "politics", "U.S. politics", or "war") - sickens me when it doesn't just disgust and irk me. The liberal and relatively-sane lack confidence whilst the reactionary and teatard are free of doubt, and I don't see any point in writing more about that; it just pisses me off and scares the horses. We also seem bound and determined to ram our collective dick back into the Gilded Age meatgrinder and I've said everything I need to say about that.
But the narcissitic delight in the sound of my own voice seems to drive me back here from time to time, albeit a sparser and less productive time than when it seemed that I had something of value to add to our "public discourse".
The truth is that what I say here will be neither much noted nor long remembered and that's not especially bitter. Were I a better writer I'd be writing in a grander place, and I'm largely here to entertain myself and those of you who are foolishly fond enough to be entertained, so this little shebeen is appropriate for me.
And let me say that I do enjoy our sort of epistolary friendship and hope that we will continue to meet here for as long as Calliope, Muse of epic poetry, gives me the words to write and Thalia, Muse of Comedy, give me leave to continue this peculiar, ridiculous jest of mine.
POETRY
And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
~ Pablo Neruda
But I've been slowing down quite a lot.
As I posted here back in 2012:
The first five hundred posts took more than two years; from 17 JUL 2006 to 19 AUG 2008, or about 763 days.
The next five hundred took three months less; from 19 AUG 2008 to 8 JUN 2010, or about 660 days,
Then I took 737 days to go from 1,000 to 1,500. That was a total of 2,160 days for 1,500 posts. About a post every 1.4 days.
I won't pretend I haven't thought about hangin' 'em up and that that is one reason things have slowed down around this joint so badly.
U.S. politics today - and politics in this country is what I wrote and write about a hell of a lot (something like 400 to 500 of my posts are labelled "politics", "U.S. politics", or "war") - sickens me when it doesn't just disgust and irk me. The liberal and relatively-sane lack confidence whilst the reactionary and teatard are free of doubt, and I don't see any point in writing more about that; it just pisses me off and scares the horses. We also seem bound and determined to ram our collective dick back into the Gilded Age meatgrinder and I've said everything I need to say about that.
The truth is that what I say here will be neither much noted nor long remembered and that's not especially bitter. Were I a better writer I'd be writing in a grander place, and I'm largely here to entertain myself and those of you who are foolishly fond enough to be entertained, so this little shebeen is appropriate for me.
And let me say that I do enjoy our sort of epistolary friendship and hope that we will continue to meet here for as long as Calliope, Muse of epic poetry, gives me the words to write and Thalia, Muse of Comedy, give me leave to continue this peculiar, ridiculous jest of mine.
POETRY
And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
~ Pablo Neruda
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Fifteen Hundred
The first five hundred took more than two years; from 17 JUL 2006 to 19 AUG 2008, or about 763 days.
The next five hundred took three months less; from 19 AUG 2008 to 8 JUN 2010, or about 660 days,
And since then it's been 737 days. A total of 2,160 days for 1,500 posts. About a post every 1.4 days.
Fifteen hundred posts.
Hmmm.
That's a hell of a lot of writing.
A hell of a lot of sitting up late at the computer thumping my index finger on my skull trying to figure out another word for "fucktardry". A hell of a lot of paging through the Internet looking for Charlie Sheen quotes to put in Muhammar Qaddafi's mouth. A hell of a lot of sorting through Asian bondage porn pictures for a good illustration for the concept of "hogtied".
Okay, maybe the porn wasn't exactly required for the bloggage. But, hey, I respect all Internet traditions!
It's late, and I don't want to go on and on about this; the first 500 seemed like a big deal. The next came at a sort of pivotal time in my life, and I wondered whether all this meant anything worth a cup of warm spit. But now I think I've pretty much figured this stuff out and I'm here for a while yet, so, hey, no biggie, right? Another 500 down, another 499 still to go. Put yourself a cup of coffee from the Silex, we might be here for a while; there's more stuff about soccer, kaiju movies, the barracks at Fort Kobbe, Panama, and "Republican Is The New Stupid" I need to talk about. And did I mention the whole "bikini record album cover" topic thing.
Yeah. That.
So I gotta get some sleep. See you tomorrow?
The next five hundred took three months less; from 19 AUG 2008 to 8 JUN 2010, or about 660 days,
And since then it's been 737 days. A total of 2,160 days for 1,500 posts. About a post every 1.4 days.
Fifteen hundred posts.
Hmmm.
That's a hell of a lot of writing.
A hell of a lot of sitting up late at the computer thumping my index finger on my skull trying to figure out another word for "fucktardry". A hell of a lot of paging through the Internet looking for Charlie Sheen quotes to put in Muhammar Qaddafi's mouth. A hell of a lot of sorting through Asian bondage porn pictures for a good illustration for the concept of "hogtied".
Okay, maybe the porn wasn't exactly required for the bloggage. But, hey, I respect all Internet traditions!
It's late, and I don't want to go on and on about this; the first 500 seemed like a big deal. The next came at a sort of pivotal time in my life, and I wondered whether all this meant anything worth a cup of warm spit. But now I think I've pretty much figured this stuff out and I'm here for a while yet, so, hey, no biggie, right? Another 500 down, another 499 still to go. Put yourself a cup of coffee from the Silex, we might be here for a while; there's more stuff about soccer, kaiju movies, the barracks at Fort Kobbe, Panama, and "Republican Is The New Stupid" I need to talk about. And did I mention the whole "bikini record album cover" topic thing.
Yeah. That.
So I gotta get some sleep. See you tomorrow?
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
One Thousand
"It's early days yet, but I'm hoping to use this place to talk about politics, soccer and adoption. Hang on while I get myself organized and I'll be back."
That was Monday, the 17th of July, 2006. 1,423 days ago. Three years, ten months, twenty-three days, some hours, minutes, and seconds ago.
1,000 posts ago.
(Almost exactly 7/10s of a post per day, for those of you keeping count, BTW...)
I would say that I've fulfilled the promise I made to talk about politics and adoption. Soccer? A bit. Birding? Not so much. But bike racing and music and cool things in North Portland and geology and parenting and kiddos and travel and love and fear and success and failure. I hope that all that has been worth coming around for a read now and again.
As for us, along that way we lost a dog, lost (or perhaps never really had...) - and then gained - a daughter, aged three years and change, retired from the Army after 22 years, changed jobs, changed cars...
It's been quite a ride.
I have no idea how much longer I'll keep doing this. I suspect that I may have a few more posts in me. But as long as I continue to enjoy it...and as long as there are a few friends along to upbraid me and keep me straight...I will be here doing business at the Fire Direction Center, perhaps for another thousand posts.
And let me just, for a moment, turn this back on you the readers. I've gained more than I've given over the past 1,423 days from your comments and observations. I will always regret and miss those of you who no longer visit; Atomic Mama, Wicked Witch, Millicent and Floyd, Beeb, wzgirl, Dee, holly. And I treasure, and enjoy, those of you who still do. If this place, this thing, this "blog", means anything, it is in the interaction between you and I, between what I write and what you write back.
I had a conversation recently with someone who was contemplating removing herself from Facebook - not all that horrific an option, IMO - but compared it to the "epistolary friendships" of the Nineteenth Century. And so this has been, in a way, a long conversation carried on in writing, between those of us who have visited here and elsewhere.
So, in honor of this 1,000-mile mark, of you all, and of myself, a pint raised to us; who's like us?
Damn few.
And they're all dead.
Thanks for the last thousand. Hope we're here for the next thousand more.
That was Monday, the 17th of July, 2006. 1,423 days ago. Three years, ten months, twenty-three days, some hours, minutes, and seconds ago.
1,000 posts ago.
(Almost exactly 7/10s of a post per day, for those of you keeping count, BTW...)I would say that I've fulfilled the promise I made to talk about politics and adoption. Soccer? A bit. Birding? Not so much. But bike racing and music and cool things in North Portland and geology and parenting and kiddos and travel and love and fear and success and failure. I hope that all that has been worth coming around for a read now and again.
As for us, along that way we lost a dog, lost (or perhaps never really had...) - and then gained - a daughter, aged three years and change, retired from the Army after 22 years, changed jobs, changed cars...
It's been quite a ride.
I have no idea how much longer I'll keep doing this. I suspect that I may have a few more posts in me. But as long as I continue to enjoy it...and as long as there are a few friends along to upbraid me and keep me straight...I will be here doing business at the Fire Direction Center, perhaps for another thousand posts.
And let me just, for a moment, turn this back on you the readers. I've gained more than I've given over the past 1,423 days from your comments and observations. I will always regret and miss those of you who no longer visit; Atomic Mama, Wicked Witch, Millicent and Floyd, Beeb, wzgirl, Dee, holly. And I treasure, and enjoy, those of you who still do. If this place, this thing, this "blog", means anything, it is in the interaction between you and I, between what I write and what you write back.I had a conversation recently with someone who was contemplating removing herself from Facebook - not all that horrific an option, IMO - but compared it to the "epistolary friendships" of the Nineteenth Century. And so this has been, in a way, a long conversation carried on in writing, between those of us who have visited here and elsewhere.
So, in honor of this 1,000-mile mark, of you all, and of myself, a pint raised to us; who's like us?
Damn few.
And they're all dead.
Thanks for the last thousand. Hope we're here for the next thousand more.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Five Hundred
It was almost exactly two years ago: July 17, 2006. I stumbled across this thing called "blogging" that let me do what I enjoy almost as much as scratching my ass through tight shorts: blabbering on about everything - "anything moving"
The Peeper was the subject of my second and third posts that very same day. And I promised to talk about adoption, soccer and politics, and I think I've done that. I can promise that as long as we have Little Miss around there'll continue to be adoption, politics is as much a part of me as the whole really-loud-snoring-thing (sorry, honey), and I'm going to talk about soccer whether y'all like it or not (and judging from the lack of comments, you don't).
Oh, well.
That's why it's MY crappy little blog - I get to chose what 99.78% of the world doesn't read.
This blog has been with me, a part of me, from frozen peas through times of small joys to great happinessand almost inexpressible sorrow to glasses and sippies and drywalling and scooters...
And after two years and a month, 761 days, this is post #500.
Every day we pass another milestone. That's not exactly profound; rather, it just is what life is, our slow walk from birth to death. If we're lucky, along the way we find hope and joy and love to go with the pains and losses, we use our hands and our hearts and minds to craft our route; dig out a root or two across the path, built a bridge or three. If this little electronic place has helped me talk to and touch you, I am pleased, and content. I can stop by the woods at today's evening feeling that I have made a small progress along that Way.
"For the woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
R. Frost
The Peeper was the subject of my second and third posts that very same day. And I promised to talk about adoption, soccer and politics, and I think I've done that. I can promise that as long as we have Little Miss around there'll continue to be adoption, politics is as much a part of me as the whole really-loud-snoring-thing (sorry, honey), and I'm going to talk about soccer whether y'all like it or not (and judging from the lack of comments, you don't). Oh, well.
That's why it's MY crappy little blog - I get to chose what 99.78% of the world doesn't read.
This blog has been with me, a part of me, from frozen peas through times of small joys to great happinessand almost inexpressible sorrow to glasses and sippies and drywalling and scooters...
And after two years and a month, 761 days, this is post #500.Every day we pass another milestone. That's not exactly profound; rather, it just is what life is, our slow walk from birth to death. If we're lucky, along the way we find hope and joy and love to go with the pains and losses, we use our hands and our hearts and minds to craft our route; dig out a root or two across the path, built a bridge or three. If this little electronic place has helped me talk to and touch you, I am pleased, and content. I can stop by the woods at today's evening feeling that I have made a small progress along that Way.
"For the woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep."
R. Frost
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