Hello again, how the flippin’ ‘eck are you?
It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
I’m not even sure when the last time I was here putting words in some sort of order to resemble a sentence that would form vague coherent thoughts. Nor can I recall a time when you were here reading those very words!
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So, if you are new around here, I’m Jason, although most people call me Jay, I’m a man, now well into my fifties and I used to be a committed blogger. [insert your own joke about how I should have been committed years ago] I would write various entries in this space, some about current affairs, some news, essays of my mind, gay lifestyle related stuff but mostly I was just documenting my life in all its glory or lack thereof. I’d let my fingers dance upon the keys on a weekly basis, although, it was quite often much more than weekly. I’d sometimes pour my heart out in this sphere of the internet for your delectation, desire or derision. There was very little that was ‘off limits’ I was as open as Dartmoor, indeed, I used to have a little motto proudly proclaiming, ‘my life if an open book, it just needs you to turn the page!’
Then one day, I wasn’t there, or here, or ...well, you get my meaning. I just stopped coming by so regularly, until one morning I just stopped blogging altogether. I sincerely wish I could recall the reason, or reasons why my mind could no longer drag up the enthusiasm to sit at a desk, in front of a keyboard and let letters spew forth into words. But, I can’t, not really, sure there are vague reminiscences of death threats, of boredom, of life changes, but the fog of forgetfulness is rather thick over those times. In my defence, the last proper bloggy type post here was more than a decade ago, so I hope I can be forgiven for not exactly being as sharp as a…..sharp thing as far as memory goes!
Yes, it was back in October of 2013 that I was last here, properly, and that post was a groan about customer service from the local supermarket and how a complaint had resulted in a £10 voucher to say sorry. I’ve just reread that post and it was, is and forever will be a little on the dull side, but then again, life isn’t all rapid fire excitement! That post, like all the others are still here, in an electronic archive of sorts. I could, if I so desired, click a few buttons and republished the lot. Once again, the inner workings of my mind, soul could be out in the open and that diary of my life in the form of 1286 blog posts be in the public domain. I’m not sure I want to do that, the oldest one seems to date back to October 2007 and I’m not sure how interesting something from that long ago really is in these current crazy times.
Although, thinking about it, my first blog wasn’t here, it was on a thing called ‘expage’ which was a web hosting platform from back in the day. I think it dates back to 1997 or thereabouts, but my expages are of the year 2000 vintage. Oh what fun it was back then, you didn’t need to know how to code to create simple designs and colourful pages. Yes, by today’s standards it looks more like Ceefax or Oracle than a website, but back in those days it was ‘funky’ at least I thought so!
Thanks to the WayBack Machine, that blog is still there, yes all archived, dusty and unedited. I read a tiny sample of it the other day and it made me cringe, it honestly did. But, hey, I’m sure if you were to look over the things you did in the year 2000, assuming of course you were around back then, you’d experience a similar sensation of embarrassment and shame. One day I suppose, I might just be brave enough to post a link to it, you never know!
When I originally decided to come back to the blogosphere, I was going to dedicate the first post to catching you up on what had occurred since I was last here. However, considering it was back in 2013 or so, that might be a bit of a tall order. No, not might, it certainly would be a mammoth undertaking to type all that stuff, so much so that my fingers would be worn down to blistered stubby knuckles and your eyes would be bloodshot and bleary [more than they are normally!] before you got even half way. So, lets just whizz through some headlines….. I changed jobs, I moved home, my mother died of cancer, my brother took his own life, my father died of cancer, I’ve had some bits cut out of my body, I’ve retired, I’ve put on weight, I’ve taken some of it off again, I’ve travelled and yet, after all this time, I still have a hankering for cheesecake!
Phew, that was a long one! 918 words long to be exact, although, now that I’ve typed that, it is 932 words long, of which around 700 are superfluous to requirements!
Thank you for reading this far, if indeed you have, and, in the words of Chris Mason, you clearly ooze stamina. I’ll be back soon with another post, to let you know where I am, what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. It would be great if you’d come back and say hi, especially if you used to come and visit me in times passed. I’d equally like it, if this is your first time here, if you popped up to say hello, if you’re so inclined.
