Welcome to Forgotonia

The building where I’m teaching English to immigrants, refugees, and American-born citizens who need help learning to read and write–the job I started doing part-time in October, and which I’m beginning to think may become a real career shift for me–is located in a weird, windowless building in downtown Davenport, Iowa.

I’ve been told it was once a car dealership, and also that it was once a fallout shelter. I lose my cell signal when I’m down in the basement, which is where we ESL and ABE teachers dwell.

no takers yet this morning, as of 8:40 a.m.

At some point in the near future, the center where I’m teaching is supposed to re-open in a brand-new, multi-million-dollar, state-of-the-art (that’s a lot of hyphens) building in a more suburb-y part of Davenport.

the current building is ...er... *not* state-of-the-art

The move-in date has been pushed back several times since I started late last fall. I’m telling my students that I promise I’ll give them the heads up as soon as I know the date for sure. Most of them are excited. One is concerned about how she’ll get there now that the bus route she’d have to take would double in length.

I’ll try to remember to share some “after” photos of the new, fancy-schmancy location. (I’m excited about the move, on the one hand. On the other, I’d be content just to have a locker or a cubbyhole to park all of my books and papers, wanderin’ adjuncter that I am. Or some index cards [for homemade flashcards] that I didn’t have to purchase with my own money. Or…you get the drift.)

From laughter to near-tears, in less than two hours flat

I snapped these photos with my phone in a nervous moment this morning when none of my students had yet arrived.

I have to admit, I was most worried about the absence of D____, an African immigrant, usually the most punctual student, who also happens to be the one I’ve been high-fiving and doing little excited dances around because he’s making such awesome progress. When I see that I’m actually helping him recognize and read words for the first time in his life, I feel so excited I make loud whooping noises that I’m sure prompt some of the other teachers to wonder about me.

But he didn’t show up today. He missed all of last week, too.

Three other students did show up, about five minutes after I snapped these pictures. And we ended up laughing a lot. We did an exercise that depicted two people stuck in an elevator, and one of the students noticed that, in the drawing, the man’s shirt was un-tucked when he and his lady elevator-traveler emerged, finally unstuck after 19 hours.

“They talked, and talked, and talked,” the caption had read. R____, an American who is in her 60s, said slyly, with a cocked eyebrow, “Look like they did somethin’ else up in there, too.” The whole class cracked up.

But about a half hour after class, my phone rang, and I knew it would be D____, and I knew that he’d be telling me something was wrong.

I was correct on both counts.

D____, I learned, has found himself to be in a situation that has left him homeless. He might be living out of his vehicle–or, if he can get enough money together, a hotel.

I wasn’t sure what to say. I told him I was sorry about his situation and wished there was something I could do to help. I dug up some phone numbers for shelters, though they seemed to require certain specifications, none of which apply to him. I told him I very much hoped he’d be able to come back to class.

I’d been warned, in my little online trainings before starting the job, that adult learners often experience  “outside circumstances” that effect their education.

Somehow, though, that doesn’t make it feel any less heartbreaking.

–

Things I Love About Davenport, cont’d:

3) That you can stop in to Boozie’s (above) for a beer, and then head downstairs to Faith Explained, the Catholic store. (But only if you make an appointment.)

1. That you can pick up a bottle of black vinegar (as Chris and I often do here) and an inflatable Pooh, if you should so choose, in one stop.

Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America’s Heartland by Patricia L. Bryan and Thomas Wolf

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My holiday/vacation/part-time-employment-status reading blitz continues!

I was intrigued by this book from the moment I heard about it, not only because it takes place in Iowa (where I just moved) and on a farm (which is the way I grew up), but also because I discovered that I have a few small things in common with one of the authors, (namely that we both once lived and worked in the same small-ish town, and we graduated from liberal arts colleges located a stone’s throw from one another).

Anyway, in addition to having the true-crime hook, the story ends up being quite moving and creates a human picture of the alleged assassin, who, you begin to realize, was in many ways a victim. I appreciate the huge amount of work on the part of the authors’ having worked-in the social and historical research from the time, creating a rich picture of what life must have been like for people (especially farm women) involved in the story.

After the initial draw of the true-crime element, I did start to feel that, in the section of the alleged assassin’s trial, there was less of a hook-y mystery than maybe I had been hoping for. But it was still a compelling read.

And on top of the personal/local connections I mentioned above, it turned out that part of what inspired the research on this story was that it had been reported on (for a Des Moines newspaper) by a young woman who went on to become an award-winning author who was a contemporary of Eugene O’Neill–and she was from Davenport.
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View all my reviews

Chris and I joined some of his co-workers for a small gathering at the Bierstube in Davenport, during which I consumed:

1. Blue-cheese burger (on a pretzel-roll bun),
2. Waffle fries (whole serving, nary a crumb left behind), and
3. Three–three!–of these tall boys. (I am part German, [and part Irish], you know).

Oh, and then half a cheesy pretzel (split with C-Nor).

In other words, B’DANKA! That’s the sound (in German) of my big ol’ butt falling off the Weight Watchers wagon. Ouch!

It was delicious, though. No regrets. (Until I try to put on my jeans tomorrow…)

Now this is an interesting approach to marketing.

Care for an empty, already-opened beverage?

These crunched-up cans have been sitting in this Propel Water-brand machine in the “courtyard” of our apartment complex for quite some time. I haven’t seen anyone make a purchase…

A note about this post: despite what you might begin picturing, I am not, as of this writing, wearing Birkenstocks, eating out of a bag of homemade soy-granola, or stinking up the local library because of my refusal to wear chemical-laden anti-perspirant.

You may, however, go ahead and call me a tree-hugger. (Or if you can come up with something catchy and alliterative for “obsessive recycler who freaks out if she sees nary a Post-it going into the trash,” let me know.)

Chapter 1: Footprints in the (Toxic, e-Polluted) Sand

If you’ve stopped by here recently, you now know that I have some difficulty letting go of sentimental things.

But now I must admit that it’s not just mementos I find hard to throw away.

I feel incredibly guilty any time I know I’m throwing away something that will end up in a landfill.

And that’s on a regular day. The moving process only increases this anxiety.

Dragging old mattresses and box springs to the curb, (as I did on moving day), makes me not only worry about the environmental footprint I’m leaving, but also, about how many other people in the world are dragging their crap to the curb on a regular basis and don’t give a f#$%. (Like the neighbors in our apartment complex who left this the other morning. I had to fight the urge to chase after them and beat them with a bamboo-handled, made-from-repurposed-dental-floss tennis racket. [Just kidding, they don't make those. ...do they?])

And it’s not just the broken futons I’ve deposited over the decades that make me feel bad. I hate throwing burned CDs in the trash. I’m not worried about whatever data might be on them, so much as how the physical thing is (not) going to break down.

And I need to know that when I do finally force myself to part with my good-attendance certificate from sixth grade, I can at least make “use” of my trash.

So as soon as I moved to Davenport to join my husband a month ago, I began gently but firmly insisting that we needed to start sorting out recyclables even though the apartment complex doesn’t have curbside pickup. Doing so, however, would create even more clutter in our apartment, (and perhaps it’s not a stretch to say my husband, C-NOR, is a bit of an anti-clutter fascist.)

But upon watching him throw a “perfectly good” milk jug into the “regular” trash, I shuddered, then walked over to the can and retrieved the offending numeral-one-in-a-triangle receptacle: “Nuh-uh. We are so not doing that.”

And that’s only a hint at my level of  obsession.

Chapter 2: Doing the Can-Can

For several months this past year,  when I would go out for a walk–especially in late spring after the college kids had vacated the rental premises near the campus–I’d take along a plastic bag and pick up bagfuls of empty beer cans so I could recycle them.

It felt like a sort of twisted, adults-only Easter egg hunt, like, I spy a Four Loko under that bush! And then I’d actually scurry over to get my hands on the giant thing before some other crazed recycling-addict could get their grubby paws on it. (Or more like get their paws grubby on it. But whatever.)

And you thought they'd been banned. How wrong you are.

True, this strange hobby sometimes earned me looks from people driving by. (Sometimes I worried about seeing myself in the police blotter:

“At 5 p.m. Monday, a resident reported seeing a woman in business-casual attire, in the front yard of  house at the corner of University Drive and Rental Apartment Row, allegedly in a scuffle with a transient over a tobacco-spit-containing can of Keystone.“

But I did gather, and recycle, hundreds of empty cans from those littered lawns.

So of course there was no way I could live in this new Dumpster-only apartment complex without coming up with some sort of solution.

Chapter 3: Fling, Flang, Flung

My first week here, (rather than sending out resumes to become more than marginally employed), I Googled and called around until finally figuring out how and where to take our recyclables.

Luckily, I discovered there is a drop-off facility just a few miles from where we live.

Along with the public library, this is the other hip local spot I've been frequenting.

But it’s still less than convenient to take the items to this place ourselves. And rather than store our rinsed-out refuse in a garage, (which we don’t have), we have to find an out-of-the-way place and organized way to let stuff accumulate until there’s enough of a pile to necessitate a trip to the facility.

At first I thought I had come up with a genius solution.

When we were planning our wedding and reception earlier this year, one of my goals was  to be as eco-friendly as possible. I found recyclable beer cups (did I mention our wedding reception, was, technically, a kegger? See profile pic at right), and I ordered some pop-up recycling containers called Flings, in which guests were asked to deposit the ceremony programs and, later, their empty cups.

The handy little pop-up receptacles were smaller than I had hoped, but they held up well and did the trick.

So I figured we could use one of these in the apartment for our junk paper.

But I had that thing stuffed in, like, an hour after moving in.

And then when I took it to the recycling facility, I had to upend it inside the mouth of the giant bin, which is protected by these rubber-curtain flappy things. In the process of trying to shake the stuff out of the container and into the bin, my genius solution collapsed in on itself and got caught in the rubber flaps.

Finally, I got so frustrated I just dumped the whole damn Fling in there and stomped away in a huff, startling the retired grandpa guy behind me with my foul mouth. (Sorry, sir.)

Finally, a few days later, I ordered a set of matching, wipe-able-out-able color-coded bags on Amazon.

So now we’re hiding them behind the kitchen table–until they fill up and it’s time to take them to the facility. (But only if it’s not rainy, cold, too dark out, too early, too late, or, is a Tuesday and I just don’t feel like it. You blame me? You take it there, then. Isn’t it your turn, anyway? Oh and the dishes too. Thanks!)

Recently I shared with you that I got hitched after many years of single-hood.

And I also told you about how, subsequently, I left my animal-infested rental cabin (in rural, small-town Illinois) to move in with my husband in semi-metropolitan “Quad City” area in Iowa).

Hence, it’s time to share with you some thoughts about crossing the state line and becoming an official Davenportian, as I like to say.

(I also like to call Bettendorf [one of the cities in this area] “B’dorfadorf,” in the style of “badonkadonk.” You may call it that as well.)

1. DMV Delight

My transformation became official on my second day here, when–upon realizing I was about to become an illegal driver in two states (my IL sticker set to expire)–I shucked out an arm and a leg and got my vehicle registered in Iowa.

Thankfully, I’ve got an aging Honda. They charge you by year and size of vehicle here. (Yet another reason not to drive a tank.)

my proof of purchase

When I opened the door to the Davenport driver’s facility, I wasn’t upset when I saw how many people were seated in the waiting area. Cool, I thought. Now I can get all those jokes on the sitcoms!

Where I grew up, in rural Illinois, not only did I not have to take a number at the DMV, but, the person at the desk would usually wave me over, call me by my first name and ask me what my mom has been up to lately.

So I have to admit I was almost disappointed when the Iowa DMV workers whipped me through one line to the next and I was in and out in under an hour. No chance to build up cred as someone who has finally lived a “big city” experience.

But I did take away one memorable moment: I discovered that the state of Iowa has some kind of weird dental discrimination.

When it was time to get my new license, as I stood in front of the blue background cloth, the lady manning the camera commanded me to brush my bangs off my forehead. “No problem,” I told her.

“No teeth,” the lady said.

“Huh?”

“You can smile, but you can’t show your teeth,” she said.

“Oh…okay,” I said.

What’s the state of Iowa got against a toothy grin? I don’t get it. But I didn’t want to argue. This lady might have had the power to deny me residency.

So I grinned, weirdly, and now I have a very Kermit-the-Frog face on my ID.

2. All Moody, All The Time

(And no, I’m not talking about my husband discovering what I’m really like now that we live together. Ha!)

I wonder what Elvis Costello could come up with if he were asked to update “Radio, Radio” after spending just one day in Davenport, Iowa in 2011.

Ever since high school, (or, for the past 15 years up until now/ having access to Spotify), I’ve envied my Seattle family members, college friends from Chicago, and others who lived in a place where there were radio stations playing music that was actually recorded in the current year.

As a kid, I had no problem getting access to the tunes I loved, because, first of all, I had no concept that there was anything other than Top 40 radio, and because second, I actually loved what was mainstream and popular, from Whitney and Bobby to Wham! and Belinda Carlisle.

These days, whenever I listen to Top 40 radio, in any location, I hear myself saying things I (of course) swore I’d never say: “Gah, what is this crap? That little Katy Perry is just another flash in the pan, you wait and see.”)

But now that I’ve moved to a place that actually has some population–a place I totally assumed would have at least one decent radio station, if not several–I find myself actually excited when I land on a station that’s playing anything recorded after 1978.

When I run errands or drive to work, and it happens to be a time when I’m not interested in listening to NPR, (i.e., news over, classical music begins), I scan the stations and it goes a little something like this:

“I can’t drive fifty-five” (skip) “…I was born on the bayou” (skip) “Today’s Tom Sawyer …” (skip) “…I ain’t no Fortunate Son” (skip) “…hold on to that feel-ay-ee-ay-in’… ‘” (skip) “….please join us in prayer here at Moody Bible Radio–”(skip)…”…I ain’t no senator’s son…” (skip) “…welcome to the Women’s Connection, where today’s focus will be: ‘How can be we work Jesus into our morning carpools?’” (skip)

 

Now, mind you, I love Credence and Journey and Rush. (Sammy Hagar, though, not so much). And I’m fully aware that ClearChannel owns the entire world and the days of varied radio are long over. But why can’t I find at least one station playing something other than classic rock?

Oh wait. I can.

Between every snippet of 70s-era guitar solo, I land upon admonitions to stop sinning and get with God before He smites me down right then and there in the automatic car wash.

The other day in my 5-minute drive between dropping off recyclables and stuff to donate to Goodwill, I got yelled at so vehemently by a guy declaring that life. starts. AT. CONCEPTION, I was starting to feel guilty for something I hadn’t even done.

3. Cross-Town Traffic (Brought to You by Big Brother)

At the risk of making myself sound like a serious hick, I have to admit that I’m still culture shock over the fact that there are two, four, even six of everything here: Hy-Vees, Targets, Wally-Worlds, Paneras, etc. There are two shopping malls, a “north” and a “south.”

And, while I haven’t really patronized any of those too much since I moved here, I have been running around a lot doing errands–partially related to moving/getting settled in, and partially to be a helpful housewifey type (since I’m only partially employed and my husband is double employed). So, whenever I ask my him how to get to some business or facility, I love that I can legitimately use phrases like, “Is that downtown?” Ooh, so urban.

On the other hand, I am so not used to actually having to wait (more than 3 seconds) at stoplights.  Or the fact that, on my drive to and from work, I pass through no fewer than three “photo-enforcement zones,” otherwise known as intersections through which, at any time, I could be videotaped and subsequently mailed a mean-ass letter saying I was going too fast (or interpreted a yellow light as “speed up.”)

My husband, Chris, has already received at least 2 of these evil letters in the mail in the last year or so, complete with a link to a video of himself behind the wheel. (And no, he claims, he was not caught picking his nose.) And a co-worker at my new part-part-time job told me she’d received a few as well, but, hey, “There’s a silver lining. They don’t affect your insurance.”

Well, I’m used to living in a place where the only “stoplight” in the entire county was a blinking red light on a pole.

4. The Final Nail in my Coffin of Nerd-dom

I have always–always–thought that if I lived in a place of any size, I would patronize the local music clubs and go to shows whenever anybody decent was in town.

But, in the weeks since I’ve lived here, I’ve already missed a couple shows of note: a group of Communion folks performing at the club with the weird name, and Paul Simon at the big arena (i Wireless). And the talented singer/songwriter M.Ward will be in town in a couple of days at RIBCO.

Question 1: Am I a drooling fan of any of thee above? No.

Question 2: If any of these acts had come to any of the small towns where I previously lived, would it have been thee biggest moment of the year? YES.

The truth about my new life is that, instead of spending time at rock shows, I’ve been…(tucks head down in shame)… hanging out at the library. Actually, make that libraries.

Did you know that there are places in this country that you can go to and find books and music and movies and that they let you take them home for FREE??? And that some of them even have coffee shops inside?

The linked library system in these quad cities is amazing. I can’t stop checking stuff out. And wondering aloud, “Why did I ever used to buy books, again?”

(Oh, and speaking of the driving situation earlier?? This sign at one of the Davenport libraries was definitely a first for me.)

In Conclusion and In Sum

The verdict, in the big picture, is this: I absolutely love living here so far. So much so that, with frequency, I’ve been shaking my head and going, “What took me so long?”

I have creative interests, so of course I need to live in a place where there are art museums, concerts (I will go, eventually), actual downtowns.

I do wonder, though: As I start to get more and more comfortable in a place where, (as you can kind of see in the background of the library pic linked above), there are cookie-cutter houses popping up everywhere, and where I can hit a Target just by throwing a rock, (but also where the neighbors in our apartment complex are not only strangers, but people who seem to attract the police on a daily basis), will I miss at least some parts of living in a small town?

What if I lose a part of my authentic self by becoming less rural and more suburban?

Mostly, I feel I’ve already gained so much by living here. (And, no, not just weight from better restaurants).

It’s not just the schlepping of so much stuff from one place to another, and the ensuing chaos (although that really, really does suck).

It’s that moving always (this time especially so) creates in me an overwhelming feeling of failure. (Don’t worry. Poop will be mentioned in this post).

The type of organized, clutter-free, bandana-wearing mover I will never be.

I had a full month to get ready for this move.

And I did try to donate several things to the Salvation Army, and to take small loads one-by-one from my place in Illinois to my husband’s in Iowa.

But come move-out day, the process of packing–or, more truthfully, the “process” of “shoving all of my s#$% in its current disorganized state into un-labeled tubs at the very last possible moment”–becomes a forced intervention. It’s been this way each time I’ve moved from one place to the next, even though I swear I’ll do better next time: friends and family who got suckered into helping discover that the boxes they agreed to help load into the truck or van are actually not…um…packed.

I can see now (about two weeks post-move) why I put off packing. It’s because having to physically deal with all of my crap means having to face up to a lifetime’s worth of failure.

In other words, schlepping multiple plastic tubs of stickers, fancy cardstock paper, and glitter glue forces me to admit how many evenings–how many weeks, months, years now–I’ve been telling myself that I’m going to do something constructive while watching TV, not just sitting there eating junk food.

As I boxed it all up this time to give it away, I sighed in defeat.

I am, and will never be, a person who uses glitter glue. I will never make anything with scraps of pretty ribbon. (I will, however, have dropped enough loose popcorn kernels to have planted a field between the sofa cushions.)

And this is not to mention the decades worth of unorganized photos I’ve been meaning to transform into a beautifully chronologized scrapbook of my youth.

As I sat in a circle of shoeboxes stuffed with sentimental crap, I had to admit to myself that it’s just never going to happen. (And so it’s the world’s loss that the Spring 1995 State Pep Band Showcase won’t be preserved for all time after all.)

But, worse than this, dealing with all of my tangible stuff forces me to face another ugly truth:

I’ve got some things in common with those people on that show who live amongst  excrement.

(Although, at least unlike this one poor guy they featured, ["Steven"], the poop is not my own).

Here are three reasons why:

1. I keep useless stuff, like empty glass bottles, because I truly believe I’m going to find use for them someday. (Real Simple.com, you and your “New Uses for Old Stuff” column are nothing but evil, evil enablers).

2. The idea of wasting things–like the perfectly good bottle of Tobasco sauce I threw in the trash this morning at my husband’s insistence (because neither of us like it, but which probably cost a whole $3 when I bought it to use one teardrop of in a recipe)–causes me sincere anxiety.

(Sometimes I try to defend this anxiety by saying it comes from my grandma’s family having been so poor during the Great Depression, they had to live in the chicken coop at one point, [after their home caught fire]. But seriously, that was my grandma, not one of my parents or even me. And it’s an effing bottle of Tobasco sauce. If our own home catches fire one day, Chris and I will not be saved from poverty by holding on to T-shirts from my college days or food products we didn’t use up completely. (, we don’t even have a chicken coop.)

But worst of all, like those people on that television show,

3. I (a person who thinks she is so self-aware, she makes fun of other people for not noticing their own denial), have been guilty of living in denial.

warning signs, perhaps?

Here’s a little bit more on that last one.

On the night before my third and final schlepping trip involved in this move, my husband and I were at his parents’ house mooching off their laundry facilities (and cable) when we landed upon an episode of Hoarders (and, perhaps as Chris’s attempt to send me a message, he kept it on that channel).

In this episode, a man had dozens of cats taken from his home–several of them alive but sickly, and several more, it is revealed (after animal-control people raid his home), have been rotting away dead in the ceilings and rafters.

The shrink on the show, noting how blind the guy seemed to have been to his situation, just kind of shrugged.

“This had just become ‘normal’ for him,” she said.

The animal-control people on the show, and the people in the room with me (Chris), announced their disgust (rightfully) with this supposedly-cat-loving man, scolding him for his neglect.

But at least twice, I said out loud, “I feel sorry for the guy.”

But what I didn’t say aloud was that–in at least some small way–I am this guy.

Now, it might be true that when we had moved all my crap earlier that day, it was just regular old dust and shedded cat hair that covered most of my possessions, (as opposed to actual dead cats).

And when I had to give away my kitty to a family friend before the move, I think she (the cat) was in perfectly healthy condition. (“Think,” because I hadn’t taken her to the vet since…ever. Okay, procrastination will be covered in a separate post. Later.)

But, would a healthy person who keeps her home orderly and in control ever have to admit this? :

A couple of years ago, I found a small turd–produced by an unidentified source–on the middle of the floor in my house. And after a few seconds of concern, I scooped it up, threw it in the trash, and then pretended that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

My brain, at this time, recognized the factual information that something or someone had pooped in my house, and that the thing was not the cat.

Appropriate action(s):

• call Animal Control?
• call a friend or family member to help search the house to locate source of said feces?
• go to store and purchase live trap?

Good news: any of these answers qualify as correct.

And yet.

Reasons appropriate actions were not taken:

• wasn’t sure if the impoverished Illinois county I lived in even had Animal Control.
• family members lived out of town; friends in the area were busy putting kids to bed.
• probably also had graduate paper to write or entire novel to read by next day.
• no local store at which to purchase said trap (nor money with which to purchase it)

Consequences:

• Being greeted unexpectedly–a full day or two later–by a live, mid-sized possum in my living room. At 9 p.m. on a Friday night, when I was sitting on the couch, eating popcorn and watching True Blood.

Imagine the look on my face, (and the noises I made), as I bounced and scampered across the room, alternately trying to get a look at the thing (to make sure it was still there/that I was not hallucinating) and to get the hell away from it.

Imagine the sound of my voice when I called my landlord– and then, when he wasn’t home, my friend Emily, who had to talk me down and try to convince me to throw a laundry basket over the vile thing (which, by this point, was eating out of the cat’s bowl).

(The landlord, eventually, came over with a broom and got the possum outside. He did not, however, do anything to make sure the house was properly protected from future animal intrusions, meaning this would not be the last visit from a woodland creature to my living room.)

The moral of this story is that, thankfully, while I was not actually hoarding possums (oh God, please don’t let that be a future episode on TLC), I can relate to feeling so overwhelmed, and so unable to solve problems, that the problems themselves–ranging from too much clutter, to inertia and stuck-ness and helplessness in the face of being alone–just become the “normal.”

The other moral is that if you find an unidentified turd on your carpeted stairs and you don’t actually do anything about it, it’s probably time to–among other things–let go of the crafting materials you’re not using. (Do you really think Martha Stewart, for one, would live among opossum?)

As you might know from having read my post about our potentially questionable choice of wedding venue, “C-NOR” (Chris Norton) and I got married a few weeks back. (Yay! Oh, and, btw for my loyal readers: I decided to stick with my last name. So, all that neurosis over punctuation was totally worth it.)

So now I live in Iowa, and not only am I out of the Forgotonia region proper, but I’m actually in something of  a metropolitan area now. (They have bookstores here! And coffee shops! Giddiness abounds!)

So should I keep a blog about life in the “rural Midwest”? I’m not in a rural area anymore. But I was for more than 30 years, and I consider my having grown up on a farm and in a small town to be a defining factor of who I am.

Should I keep the name and just blog about whatever I want to, (with a clickable explanation at the top that says “about the name”)? Or, if change it altogether and create a new URL/address/place for you to bookmark, will I lose you because I already went from Blogger to WordPress (and sometimes debate going back to ye olde Blogger stomping grounds)?

With so many good blogs out there to read, not to mention websites and newspapers and magazines and all the other things competing for our attention, what will make it worth your time to keep coming back? Why should I keep up a blog at all?

I guess the answer will be that if I feel like I have something to say, I will try to get myself to just say it, and hopefully it will be entertaining or valuable to you, too.