Yep, that’s the story with me and shawnbakken.net. I love telling stories and I love elaborating on said stories, including all sorts of juicy details, but when it comes to writing stuff down on paper (or typing on keyboard—using a pencil on my computer monitor gets messy after a while), those details can scare me off a little. I can tell a story in ten minutes, easy, but when it comes to blog entries, I might stop after an hour and be halfway done if I’m lucky. That’s how ridiculous I can get when it comes to fleshing out stories.
I usually lean toward something like “I saw water pouring from the faucet, then felt a warm sensation in my bladder as it released, the leg of my khakis beginning to adhere to my inner leg with moisture and a massive flood of shame rolled over my body” instead of just “I peed my pants.” And that’s not a story, it’s just a random example. Yep, just a random example.
So unless the situation demands it, I might want to rein myself in a little. If I ever get into another car crash (God forbid), I’ll take the extra time to talk about the intricate details, especially if it prevents other people from getting smooshed in their own cars. That was a big deal; that deserved a long entry. If something isn’t as big of a deal, I might want to at least leave out the part about the khakis adhering to my leg, which is still just a totally random example.
That would make it less of a chronological and emotional investment. That would also probably include cutting back on some of the editing, which could be painful for me: the Grammar Police can go fuck themselves, but when it comes to word choice and phrasing, I’m the guy at the firing range who’s willing to stay until closing time, blowing hundreds on ammunition until I hit the bullseye.
And besides, it could be enlightening for the readers as well. I’ll admit that there have been a few times I opted not to write anything because it was late at night and I thought no one would get the chance to read it, but seriously, am I writing this blog to enlighten the masses? Well, sometimes. Sometimes the world needs a reminder that Joe Bastianich is a total douchebag. Plus I’m sure the number of people who had ever pondered the existence of an entire cookbook devoted to cooking goat testicles increased exponentially. But for the most part, the blog entries are essentially a type of self-satisfaction. And if you can connect to the Internet with your phone, a type of self-satisfaction you can get in the middle of a department store without being arrested.
And I think that’s enough for now. Given that I’m trying to loosen my standards a little, I’ll do a quick spell-check, then let this entry stand as it is. Plus I may even go back sometime and finish writing some old blog entries that got started and never made it past… there were a lot of details I was going to add that would have taken me a long time to write, so I ended up bailing on them entirely. They might be entertaining, they might be enlightening or they might be worthless and merely take up space on the Interwebs (like there isn’t enough worthless shit out there already). But fear not: if nothing else, I promise that none of those stories involve goat testicles.
