My sweet jellybean,

Well, that makes a month. No my life hasn’t changed significantly for the better or the worse. I didn’t expect any cataclysmic changes this quickly. The processes that cause a downpour, a bolt of lightning, a volcano, an earthquake are equally slow and complex. Climaxes don’t happen in the beginning. Although Shakespeare did put them in the middle, in Act 3, rather than later on as they are today.

Not for the worse. I mean, let’s face it: I was almost already a hermit. Very little has changed. I remain grateful for Murphy. It’s important to put on clean clothes and go out into the light of day once in a while.

And besides that, I have at least a modicum of focus and discipline. And I’m loving the discipline. If my former high school teachers could all see me now, actually voluntarily maintaining a diary rather than filling my pages with apocalyptic doodles and nonsense to fill the page. Or perhaps, after all, I haven’t changed all that much. For the most part, we are who we are by the time were 20. The rest is editing.

I’ve covered quite a bit of ground in 31 days. I figured out Moveable Type. No, I’m no master. But I learned enough to make this almost work. I’ve had a few passersby, as with an old but quaint downtown shop, pass by and look in the window. And while almost everybody loves an audience, that’s not nearly my primary objective. I love the discipline, as I said. I like the potential of this madcap project and, something I hadn’t really entertained before – I’m looking forward to the archive, to having this compulsive record of my life, years from now. Yes, I have always said posterity is overrated. Time and condition will make hypocrites of even the most earnest of men.

No, I haven’t got a new camera yet. And yes, I’m still intending to solicit or woo camera companies. But not yet. I want a firm identity and presence before I get to that. Soon. Everybody could benefit from a sponsor.

And of course, I’m very pleased that a Google search for “my sweet jellybean” brings you up second or third. I’m happy that you’re flattered. I think that’s nifty.

I admit I’m a little concerned that I had a stockpile of things I wanted to write, things waiting for me to pick them and write them like jars on an apothecary’s shelf waiting to be drunk or popped, things I needed to get off my chest if only for purely selfish reasons. And now that I’ve written many of them I’m a bit concerned, having written things off of my chest, from which other part of my body I might be writing from next. No matter.

Does that mean that all of this is still apocalyptic doodling and nonsense? No matter. I’m still having fun.

SS