IM: What I'm Learning On My Non-Book Tour, Part 2

A great deal. Including the fact that I need to self-censor some of my responses to what I find, see, hear, learn, encounter.

This blog (isn't it time for a new word for this form??) has always been MINE. Mine alone. No one else's. As I've said here before, too many times no doubt, this site is my online home. This blog is my living room and therefore my rules apply. Yours don't.

Except, sigh, when they don't. I wrote, posted, and then pulled a long rumination on a talk I gave last week in Missouri because I realized (okay, I was told) that it was likely hurtful to those involved. And yes, it most likely was. (Although I assure one and all that was not my intention.)

No. That's not true. I pulled it because I didn't want to deal with the hassle that essay might provoke. I suspected that it would attract commenters and arguments, eruptions, blah blah blah . . . . There's a time and place but this ain't the former. So.

I pulled it. Tucked into a desktop file where all the rest of the miscellaneous writing lands. (That miscellany always gets used. Sometime, somewhere, somehow -- all of it provides fodder for my work. So, no, it's not wasted.)

The fact is I've got a life to live and not much time in which to live it (I ain't no spring chicken. No pun intended). Every day I make choices about what's worth it and what's not. Most of it's not.

So away it went.

But I got two bits of Life Advice For Myself out of that experience.

First: I'd no idea how much I missed the places where and people with whom I grew up.

My life now bears zero resemblance to where I started decades ago. I love my life. I do. But --- apparently part of me misses that which made my childhood memorable. There wasn't much, I hasten to add. I'd not wish my childhood on anyone. But the good stuff? Wow. It's all still in me. I hadn't realized it. And I kinda miss it.

Second -- I've been blogging since 2006 and I'm used to saying precisely what I think/feel in precisely the format that I want. This is only the second time I've pulled something because of a comment from a reader. (The first one was c. 2009, when I compared web designers to used car salesman. The guy who inspired that post objected and, fearing that he might decide to tank my site or otherwise hack it into oblivion, I pulled the blog entry. Motherfucker.) I don't plan to pull anything again. At some point, I'll return that pulled essay to this blog.

But for now . . . well, I rather feel as though my living room was invaded by a stranger and it doesn't feel nice.

But apparently what I wrote didn't feel nice to the guy who complained. So we're even. I think.

Anyway. On with the non-book-tour. Which probably got a lot less "non" after this kerfuffle. I doubt I'll have many speaking gigs again.

Which is okay because --- I've got a life to live and not much time in which to live it and there are always sunsets to watch and birdsong to enjoy and my friends and family to love. So I'm fine.

Hope you are, too. Thanks for reading.

Here's where I should insert a random photo, right? Let me see if I've got a good one. Hang on. (And didja notice? NO FOOTNOTES.)