7ToF: There and back again

1. Since Doug (see below) and I are both post-covid, we have 2-3 months of immunity. It's the only good thing about the experience. And since our kids both work in hospitals, they were able to get the first dose of the vaccine fairly early. So we decided to take the risk and get together for the week after Christmas. It was wonderful. We drove south to a rental house and did our best to isolate there-- we went for walks and hikes, and there were a couple of rounds of golf (not me), but other than that and trips to the grocery store, we didn't go out. We got take-out or cooked for ourselves, and played games and watched movies (all three extended edition LOTR movies--not kidding--it took all week.)

I feel somewhat bad about this, because there are so many millions of people in the entire world who weren't able to meet with their family or get away for a vacation this year. But not bad enough to not do it. Mea culpa.

2. I was an internet early adopter. My first experience with email, online forums, and bulletin boards was in 1985 when I started a job in Research Triangle Park, NC, with a company that was on ARPAnet. I loved it--I loved the job, I loved the proto-Internet. Within months after being hired as a technical editor, I had moved onto their IT team. 

3. I'm telling you this to explain why I've never been forthcoming with personal info here in this blog. Back in those days, you weren't supposed to reveal your true identity online. I remember being told that you should never reveal your name and your birthdate, because that would pretty much hand your identity to anyone with nefarious intent. So when I finally signed up for Facebook, I used a fake birthdate and insisted that my kids do the same, which eventually caused all kinds of problems with their age restrictions and had to be sorted out by their tech support, back when you could still get to FB's tech support. 

4. Anyway. For the first fifteen years I was online, everybody had screen names and avatars and personas. You lived with the vague fear that a serial murderer was going to figure out where you lived and come after you and your family. All these years later, it's a hard habit to drop. I tried to stop using fake blog names for my family members a few years ago, but it just felt wrong.

But you know, it's 2021. Now it's considered poor form to use a fake persona on social media, because how are people going to trust you if they don't know who you are? And to my surprise, I'm finding that I agree. So, I'm trying again. My husband isn't Dean, he's Doug. And our kids are Melanie (Mel) and Sam-- although now that they are 30 and 23, respectively, they don't show up here all that often anymore.  We really do exist, and we live in Northwest Montana, where we moved in 1992 (still can't quite bring myself to say exactly where, but most of you know anyway). I haven't made as big a deal of hiding my own name, but I'm Barb. Just in case you were wondering.

5. The other thing that has changed since I started blogging (in 2003!!) is--well, blogging. No one does it anymore. Of all the blogs I followed religiously back in the early 2010s, only one is regularly updated anymore, and she has a team of people helping her create content. The others have either quit or moved on to podcasting or Instagram Live or something similar. But I don't want to do 90-second takes on Instagram Live (and lord knows I don't want to have to look at myself on camera), I want to write. So I'm still here, and even though I've (obviously) not been posting much recently, I don't really want to quit. 

6. I did seriously consider quitting, because it feels like I'm just setting myself up for irrelevance, and we've already talked about that. Yup, I'm still blogging, and I use proper punctuation in my texts, and I like my 1980s hairstyle, too. But I still have things I want to write about. I know I took kind of a long break over the past few months, but honestly, I just didn't know what to say. In fact, I had planned on posting earlier this week, but then things kind of went to hell, and it felt wrong to ignore it, but what was I going to say that a million Twitter users hadn't already said? 

7. So I'm considering a lot of things-- like pre-writing a series of posts on a particular topic, or changing up the whole thing with a new name and a new look, and maybe I will do both of those things. But for the time being, nothing is changing. Which begs the question of why exactly I'm going on and on here, but you know, I needed to catch you up after weeks of not posting. 

Hope you had a lovely and renewing holiday season, because good lord, things are already off to a crazy start. See you next week.