It’s interesting, how words stick with you. How a question lingers around your ears like a cloud.

“Where can I read your writing?” A friend asked.

Immediately: Batfort dot com!

I said: I’m not ready to share that yet.

I thought about my initial challenge, to write and publish every day for a year. I thought about how it’s been over a year since I stopped pushing myself, daily, to distill words out of myself and display them for all the world to see.

I think now about how much of this blog feels like a “coming out,” of sorts. The coming forth of ideas and wishes that previously were known only to myself and my God.

I know how much writing reveals about a person—I’ve read books and blogs and tweets—and I’m embarrassed to put forth words knowing that I’ll reveal my innermost guts and give you something to hate.

So much has changed in my life since I first started posting here. My circumstances are almost entirely different: city, type of dwelling, dayjob, friends. (And currently: global pandemic.)

But some things I rarely talk about in my real life, and those are the things that come out here: a well-crafted aesthetic bubble, admiration for a sub-set of political movers, a metaphysical view of the world that is off the beaten track (and still very much under revision), my lifelong obsession with the interplay between the structure of an idea (or thing) and its outward expression.

Putting words around my thoughts is sometimes the only way to escape them. Putting them on a blog—pushing them out into the public square—feels like the most shameful, scandalous thing one could do with the contents of one’s mind.

Yet here I am. And here you are.

Shall we?

It was a mistake to let myself off the hook from posting every day on this blog.

I got lazy, and the excuses set it. If I was tiiiiiiiiiiiired, it was okay not to write a post. We went from “a challenging goal” to “scraping by with the bare minimum.”

With the stumble in post frequency, the need for perfectionism came back. I’m back to holding on to ideas, hoarding words, rehearsing blog posts in my head that don’t ever come to fruition.

In March, I did a crapton of writing for myself. Journalling, yes, but also the beginnings (hopefully) of a book. In April, I got distracted by a contest and a new possible future. Now, in May, my mental cobwebs are growing again.

It’s crazy to me that there is *that* much of a difference between writing for myself and writing in public, but here we are.

I just watched a documentary on Nora Ephron by her son, called Everything is Copy. That was her motto—that everything in life could be spun and used for comedy or essays or the movies. It reminds me a lot of things that I’ve heard about mindset, or how to make money on line. “Content mindset.”

I was also struck by the observation that everything obviously wasn’t copy to Nora, as she told absolutely no one about her cancer. The comment was made that “everything is copy” applied to the things that you were done with, the things that you wanted to reframe, the things that you didn’t like anyway. The truly special things in life—those were not copy.

In a way, I agree with this. I haven’t made everything copy on my blog, but certainly there are things that I’m open about and those are usually the things that I don’t care too much about. The things that I really love, I don’t talk about.

Also, somehow I never noticed that Nora Ephron wrote Mixed Nuts, which is utter insanity and yet somehow one of my favorite comedies.

There’s a truism on the internet (or rather, in the Twittersphere) that everything comes from compound interest. That’s one way of thinking about it, but lately I’ve been mulling over the idea that most problems are this really complex web of interlinking parts. In order to solve the problem, each one of those linking parts also has to be solved. It takes time to build momentum, and you’re just solving one small issue after another, until the day that all the small problems are solved—and then *poof* you level up.

That’s why you get so many people who say “oh, it’s easy, just do ______” when it’s really not that easy. Finding that one missing piece only works after you’ve assembled the other 999 pieces. The hard part is doing the work, not figuring out the work that needs doing.

Speaking of which, I got to experience the results of my ‘spiderweb’ approach today. I’ve not been happy with my social life, especially after moving to a new area of the world. I’ve never been much of a social person, and I really fell off after I got pneumonia three years ago. Time for a change.

So for 2019, I gave myself a challenge. Each week, I had to do something social. It could be as small as having coffee with a coworker outside of work, or it could be throwing a party. Anything recurring only counted once, such as the small group that I joined at my church. I gave myself as much latitude as possible to ‘win’ each week.

At first, my social interactions were still few and very small. Then gradually, as I remembered what it is to interact with people and weave together a social life, the asks became more and more frequent until this week I found myself with a real, live social calendar, including a hike and lunch today. And it’s only March!

I’m not letting myself off the hook, because the challenge is to be more proactive and deliberate about my social life. Gotta take responsibility.

Still, it’s gratifying to watch the results of one’s actions.

All that talk about Nora Ephron’s keen powers of observation and her allegiance to the written word make me wonder if I have the chops for a column like hers.

Photo by me

So much for my good intentions to keep posting on vacation. As soon as my flight landed, my brain went on vacation too. I spent most of my time reading beach novels, frolicking in the sun, and sleeping.

I clearly needed a vacation, and I refuse to feel bad about it.

It became especially clear as my travelling companion had little interest in listening to my passing thoughts (many of which will become future blog posts) that I miss writing daily—so posting here will resume post-haste.

I’m also contemplating some sort of podcast, perhaps to document my upcoming journey of de-gnostification. It’s a bit early to set firm goals (I typically do that between Christmas and New Year’s), but I’d like 2019 to be a year of face-to-face relationships, doing art IRL, and examining many of my prior assumptions.

Anyway. I’m back.

Photo By David Hanjani

There are a few things converging in my life right now:

• Vacation in an undisclosed tropical location
• Wrapping up normal life in preparation for said vacation
• Some sort of upper respiratory sickness (of course!)

I don’t want to let vacation stop the momentum here, but my brain also needs time to relax and unwind. Give me a minute to figure out how we’re going to play this—currently I’m considering uploading a daily sketch diary of my travels.

The visual focus will give my brain a break and maybe something cool will develop out of it.

In the meantime, enjoy looking at this rad picture or read about what blew my mind last week.

Thank you, and goodnight.

I’ve never been overly enthusiastic about Thanksgiving.  Orange and brown was never my aesthetic and as a kid with an autoimmune digestive illness the whole focus on “eating too much” was occasionally problematic.

What I do love about Thanksgiving is the premise: it’s a time to give thanks.

We all know how busy we can get, and how difficult it can be to see the big picture in our daily struggles. I often forget (or disregard) all of the good things in my life. I’m grateful for the built-in chance to sit back, contemplate all that God has done in my life and in the world, and truly appreciate.

I’ve been blessed with a lot (being born at this time in history, in America, to loving parents who taught me to know God) and have worked to know myself but also to carve out some small accomplishments on this earth (my health being first and foremost—I didn’t do it all myself but by gum I have to give myself a little credit for doing the work).

It is hard to feel confused or doubtful or hateful when your heart is full of gratitude for what you have received and what exists in your life.

I try to thank God for something (any little thing) every single day, but there is so much to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.