Sunday stuff.

Sunday morning, 7:30 a.m. The best time of the week to write. My wife is still sound asleep and I’ve taken two sips from the first cup of coffee of the day. Buddy Lee, my enormous cat, is eating his breakfast and will soon collapse at my feet for one hour, two hours; however long before my wife wakes up and I join her on the couch to read the paper. The coffee is a tad bittersweet given that in two hours I’ll have downed well over eight cups and the caffeine levels in my blood will have long-since surpassed toxic levels.

Who’s News was posted last night, by the way. It’s something different, and I hope you enjoy it.

I have to tip my hat to Leab, whose prolific blogging nature has both inspired and shamed me. This time last week I was threatening that once the semester was over, watch out: I’d be posting thousands and thousands of words per day, making Leab’s posts look like postcards. Well, I don’t know if I necessarily accomplished that, but I did better than recent weeks, which is something, I guess.

Say, it’s my anniversary. December 2004 was the first official post of the Admin Worm blog. I don’t recall exactly what day, because a couple of times since then I committed “blog suicide” and deleted everything. As a depressed person who has vowed not to commit “real” suicide, I’ve had to satiate my urge to not exist by committing “faux” suicide numerous times, ridding myself of everything that reminds me of my past, from pictures to yearbooks to elementary school memorabilia to my blog posts. Once I even deleted the Admin Worm profile altogether, but then my proprietary nature kicked in and I re-claimed it. I’ll be damned if some unworthy person was going to claim the Admin Worm moniker as their own just because I made a rash decision.

I fear that my aforementioned pal, Leab, might commit blog suicide because his writing has reflected a down mood and frustration with his writing, which are sure signs that a blog-ending act might occur. I’d like to strongly encourage him to resist the temptation. Leab, if you have to, have your wife change your password so you can't do something crazy. Leab had one post in particular that caused some consternation within his family, and last time I looked the post still remains. I recall that many months ago I posted something that I later regretted, and the reverberations sounded long afterward.

However, it was a benchmark moment in my writing “career.” It taught me several important lessons about being a writer, from changing names to protect the innocent to sticking to my strengths, or at least using a pseudonym when the urge to write something out of character strikes. My wife said something profound that day. During a conversation about the post, I defended my writing by saying “This is no more offensive than something a shock comedian like Sam Kinison or Bill Hicks would write.” My wife very calmly and correctly said “But you’re not a shock comedian.”

Touche.

Many of you might be wondering how I got the idea to start a blog in the first place. Well, long before the Admin Worm blog existed, the Admin Worm comic strip was online. Here’s a sample strip. For some reason it looks very small, but if its illegible, don't worry. It's not worth reading:

Atrocious, huh? Nonetheless, I had a surprising number of people checking out the strip on a daily basis. I also submitted it for consideration to all the major Syndicates, but since they receive an average of 3,000 submission each year and publish only two or three (not to mention their noble dedication towards keeping gems like Family Circus alive), Admin Worm did not strike them as marketable. As a friend of mine once said, "I like the strip, but the whole 'worm thing' is sort of creepy."

Actually, looking at the strip now I’m surprised how polished it looks, given that it’s pulling teeth for me to create a drawing. Art was never my forte; the worst grade I ever received in school (aside from advanced math) was art. It took me an average of three lunch hours at work to create a single strip, and towards the end it became very formulaic in that I would produce “new” cartoons by tracing characters from previous cartoons. The situations and drawings became predictable and the strips were far too wordy, and it quickly became clear it was time to bid adieu to Admin Worm, the strip.

However, a feature I added to the website towards the end was a section called Ramblings. My buddy Leab might argue who coined the phrase Ramblings, but if necessary I can produce documents proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that my website featured a section called Ramblings long before Ironic Teachings was a gleam in Leab’s eye (just messing with you, Leab). Once a week I would have my webmaster post a couple thousand words of my trademark ranting, and much to my surprise (and delight) this quickly became the most popular and rewarding part of the site.

Soon thereafter I parted company with a couple of business partners with whom I’d hatched the Admin Worm idea and hired a true webmaster. She streamlined the website and I vividly recall the unveiling; it was a proud moment in my life. The site had everything: pizzazz, color, animation, everything but heart and soul. By that time I was completely burned out on the prospect of drawing a comic strip and had decided to turn my attention to writing.

Then one day, while listening to AM 1280 The Patriot, a local right-wing talk radio station, I heard a show featuring several people who wrote various, prominent Twin Cities’ blogs. The subject of the show was “How do I get my own blog?” I grabbed a notebook preparing myself for the detailed instructions to follow, but the extent of their advice was this: Log onto http://www.blogger.com/, sign up, and you have a blog. And it’s truly just that easy. I did so that afternoon and began writing, and soon thereafter realized it was pointless paying my webmaster twenty bucks a month to maintain my cartoon site when I could blog for free and update it whenever I wanted. Thus the Admin Worm website was dissolved and the Admin Worm blog was born.

By the way, I want to take a moment to offer my sincere appreciation to the folks at Blogger. It’s true that periodically their services are frustrating; servers down, unable to load pictures, blah blah blah. I’ve had innumerable fellow bloggers complain about Blogger, but I’m loathe to slam them too much because their services are completely free, and after one year of blogging I can tell you that there appears to be no catch. An infinite number of previous posts can be saved. No advertisements have ever appeared, be they pop-up or banners. Content is not edited. Blogging seems to be the very manifestation of what the Founders had in mind when they came up with the whole Free Speech thing, and I’d put the folks at Blogger right up there with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the rest of the powdered wig crowd.

Along the way I’ve met some people who have turned out to be wonderful friends. Let me qualify that statement; I’ve never actually met any of these people, yet I feel closer to many of them than I do to my “real” friends. Something about the anonymity of blogging lends itself to total disclosure. Friends like Stacy of the now-defunct Not a Desperate Housewife blog has helped me through some truly trying times, and I hope that I provided her even a fraction of the support she lent me. Exile has provided not only words of encouragement, but he continues to churn out one articulate right-wing rant after another, making me feel considerably less guilty for leaving political writing behind several months ago. Not to mention Tu s Tin, a fellow Ecclesiastes lover like myself, and Wilhelmina who continues to surprise me with his/her dedication to making blogging a wholly unpredictable experience.

So, as I embark on Year Two of the Admin Worm blog, I make you this pledge: That I’ll do my utmost to avoid another act of Blog Suicide, and that I’ll try to write regularly despite a full-time school schedule and two part-time jobs. I’ll also keep my eyes peeled for other blogs you may find interesting, and with the help of regular commenters like Bill and Jules will provide links to bizarre news stories bolstering my contention that life is impossible and ridiculous and miraculous, and that human beings won’t recognize the gift they’ve been given until horsemen in the sky make the announcement that it’s too late.