Matt's Journal

“Every man looks upon his wood pile with a sort of affection.”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/199908-every-man-looks-upon-his-wood-pile-with-a-sort

22jan20. Well. Dang. I had a nice few paragraphs here a minute ago, on why I enjoy new software platforms like WordPress (I have a blog on blogger.com already), and on why I like to write. But WordPress has eaten them somehow. Sometimes I don’t like new software platforms. They require learning new things and they lose work and waste your time. Worst of all, most of them try to sell you something. We live in a world where we are constantly being sold things. Buy this service, buy that item. It’s American, modern life. But it is extremely annoying. Especially when it gets in the way, as it has here.

I’m not going to repeat what I wrote a while ago. I write to learn what I think. And I read a lot, maybe too much. But what else can I do? The world is interesting and reading is a primary channel to learn about it. Otherwise I’d be stuck with the knowledge I could get myself – a small amount, given the miniscule time and space slice I inhabit. I love my family and friends, but it’d be a shame to limit my knowledge of the world to what I could learn from them. So there.

This class is for “writing for publication”. My goals are slightly different – to write more, to improve my writing (so I can read it without weeping) and to increase my ability to get good ideas through writing. The interviews sound very interesting and I’ll strive to write more about what I see and hear. Merely writing about what’s in one’s head is often boring to read later…even if it does relieve pressure to write that way.

Let’s see if WordPress preserves this bit of writing this time! Yes, it’s operator error that it got lost, but a good site prevents that from happening. I’ve gotten used to it and was surprised to lose a bunch of content – whatever its value – to the bitbucket.

A bit more today. I spoke to a nice lady at the NO Convention Center. She said that it’s safe to walk there from Loyola and Julia where the bus lets off. She couldn’t believe that I would take the bus, though! She said that surely Uber wasn’t that expensive – $30. Well, but I like to walk and I like taking the bus (pollutes less and is interesting). I will try taking the bus and hope I don’t get mugged. Just because I’m native is no protection. Oh for the smells of childhood.