This
Journal

October
1999

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September 1999

August 1999

July 1999

"Sigh," said Sid.

Month number four. How much trouble has This Journal stirred up? Not too much yet. A few minor scrapes with self and others. But it's my own damn fault. (Don't bother to ask; I won't tell you.)

This month's redesign prompted a site-wide makeover. I think The Closet is looking a bit more presentable. Its more uniform appearance could be a problem, however. Just a little tedious? Well, this also is a reflection of some portion of my character. You will come to love it (my character, if not my tedium).

The pictures throughout these new pages are old but not too nostalgic. I have discovered that old yearbooks are a good cheap source of copyright-free illustrations (until I learn otherwise). The photos are taken from old Catholic High and Carmel High annuals.

I find that writing here has caused me to be more attentive to my own processes (an English teacher's holiday). I'm pleased to see how quickly I came to flying by the seat of my pants.

Back in July I used to plan carefully each entry by writing it out longhand, fiddling with it on the page, then typing it up in PageMill (where I would fiddle with it some more). Then, after uploading it to Geocities, I'd find more typos and goofs and would often need to make more corrections in their Advanced HTML Editor.

Over the past month or more I've been composing directly into PageMill. I often start with no clear idea of a topic or a direction. I start in a void, stare at the screen until a word, a phrase, a thought, or feeling rises up. And sometimes by the end I still don't have a clue, nothing came together. (Any reader could probably pick out several entries that fail in this way.) Sometimes I don't see what I've been saying until after I'm done - and then I need to consider re-working the whole piece along the lines of that discovery. But I am a lazy man on limited time, so I don't rework too many pieces too often. Sometimes - most of the time - I settle for Good Enough; Space Filled.

It's a messy process that, when I think about it, makes the notion of "first thought, best thought" seem kind of naive. I have this "fiddling" habit. I'm changing words, moving and removing sections of sentences, cutting, adding, correcting typos, pondering tone and wondering about an expression's impression on a reader. Will I be understood? Will I offend? Does this matter?

Sometimes the entry becomes a list of random moments from the day. Stuff that still holds some emotional weight by the end of the day.

What do I leave out? Unfortunately, I leave out most of "the good stuff". I leave out my judgements of people, the picky little (or big) irritations or attractions that fall into the bucket of Private Thoughts, that rich ooze of fear, desire, infantile delirium, adolescent insecurity, adult rationalization (or any recombination of those elements). In other words, I try to leave out my pettiness, my peeves, my perversions. Sorry about that.

We work in our own darkness
a great deal with little real knowledge
of what we are doing.
John Steinbeck