Still

The great thing about getting human-readable copy out of my blog's XML backup dump file is that I can easily review some of the stuff I've written since I started the thing in March 2020; and what's even more satisfying is that I get to actually read loads of stuff I've no recollection of writing. OK, like with most of life and one's memories of it, I remember a few of the landmarks pieces I've scribbled; but they represent only a tiny fraction of the - to the date of the last backup, anyway - one thousand nine-hundred and twenty posts I've put out in the last five years.

I've been manually going through [the first five or six months of 2020, thus far] the files and trying to curate them into categories for later assembly into longer form pieces, including a miscellany of my random musings on life, the universe and everything, and collecting together the poetry I've penned thus far [this will be heavily edited and revised, as most of it was written in the moment]. A lot of the other stuff will be a diary of my and my family's pandemic experience, thoughts on photography and art; etc., etc. This could take a good while, but the material's all there to be reworked.

I started this blog with the lowest of expectations. I thought that at best it might last a week or two, but I think that by my making a commitment to its production framed in terms that would appeal to my OCD self, I kind of locked myself into a pattern and modus operandi that has fostered its continuation to the present day. It's a little like my current day-book, a diary I've only recently started - the only daily log I've ever managed to keep, thus far; where I write each day's entry in a little Moleskine-sized journal that has undated pages, which I will only date on the day, after waking. Like the blog itself, I've made it an imperative that I can't project further than the current day, and either the lack of a blog post or the presence of an undated page in my day-book will indicate that I am no longer around, or that I am sufficiently incapacitated that I can do neither. Keep you posted, until I can't...