Four Years, Man! Four Years! Four! Years!

Four years ago, which is actually very hard to write without riffing on four score and seven years ago, I took the step from "reading other people's blogs" to "starting my own". Blogging is a funny thing, now and four years ago, with people at all points along a spectrum of understanding. From those whose lives have changed due to it, to those who say "bla-what now?"*, this form of expression is far from being one size fits all.

*When I started doing this, and my mother showed the blog to my father, he reportedly asked what he was supposed to do with it. "Read it," my mother told him.

When I first wrote, August 9, 2006 and thereafter, I had various "reasons" for it, including these:

"the chance of connecting to someone I would otherwise never meet has a certain odd appeal."

"I suffer from polishing compulsion, where I want to make every word, every sentence, that I write perfect before I continue. ... I hope that, by blogging, I'll be able to loosen up a bit."

Today, I find my own usage of the word odd rather funny, now that I have blog-friends that I e-mail to "talk" to, and would enjoy meeting for real but feel I know already. And I am now much more comfortable with the concept of "finished is a better goal than better than perfect"; I check off the latter point as well.

It's hard to believe that there are things about myself that haven't come up in the last four years and 1000+ posts, but I came up with a few extremely minor and probably boring things that I think are making their blog debut today. Without further ado, here they are:

Totally Random Things You May Not Know About Me

• When I comb my hair after I wash it, I do so with my eyes closed. There's a reason: because when I comb into a tangle, I wince, and if I see myself do it, it hurts more. Yeah, I didn't say it was a logical reason.
• I have an inexplicable fondness for the TV show Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Sunday nights at 8, there I am, soaking in the emotional manipulation and repetitive redundancy. One Sunday evening I was on the computer, and when I saw it was 8:02, I hopped up with a cry of, "I'm missing it!" and scurried into the living room to turn on the TV. I watch reruns on TVLand and CMT. I'm sure it's staged and arranged and rehearsed and I don't care (and don't want to know).
  
• When I wear shoes with laces, the laces are always coming undone. At least once a day, often more, and always the left before the right (apparently I tend to sit with the left tucked under the right, so it loosens, or that's the theory anyway). Sneakers, boots, shoes, double-knotted, doesn't matter, they gradually loosen and flap free. Does this happen to everyone?
• I have watched NASCAR on TV, by choice (though not in a few years). (My friend Pat and I agreed, many years back, that she would teach me about NASCAR while I taught her about hockey. Therefore, I became a Dale Earnhardt fan, and she "rooted" for the Bruins. Naturally.) I would venture to guess that none of my friends could say this. I'm not bragging and I'm not ashamed, but it's one of those things that I would have trouble telling someone without feeling the need to explain.

Do you have any questions that you'd like to ask? Feel free, and I may even answer!

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Off topic, but hockey fans are counting down to training camp (opens September 17th!), and here's a great fan-made video tribute to get you in the mood (assuming you're a Bruins fan):



Summer must end, which is sad, but at least it means hockey begins again.