I was looking at an old blog entry from back in 2002. Back then someone had the idea of doing a peer blog review. At that point the idea seemed fresh and new. Now I am not sure this idea would mean anything at all.
I will admit that when I started my blog and when blogs started to get well know, they seemed like something really important. Blogs seemed like a way to get the internet that seemed to go away as part of the Dot.Com boom. There seemed to be something special about the information you could get from blogs.
I am not sure why I keep this blog going. I like to write and it is good to have one place where I can collect my thoughts. Sad Salvation is a good place for me to collect those thoughts and share them with other people. I am no longer trying to drive traffic to my blog. If people find it okay, if they do not I am not going to worry. They can do what they want to read me, more power to them.
I am not sure what kind of response you would get to a Blog Peer Review project right now. Would you want MySpace blogs included? Would you want to include blogs where all people do are cut and paste memes? Would you exclude personal blogs? Would you only include blogs that have big reader bases? I am not sure how I would answer these questions.
Back in 1996 I remember a watching TV and seeing an "expert" talking about the future of the internet. The news reporter asked him about the future of web surfing. He said that he was not sure web surfing had a future. He said that the web was still new and we could not be sure what would happen. He was not sure that people would still be staying up all night surfing the web, going wherever links take up. It look he was right.
I am not trying to say that blogs are going away, but they are not as powerful as they were a few years ago. They seem to be left in the past some. I am not sure what I will think about blogs in the future, but they are not as important to me as they were in the past.
I started writing the State of My Heart Addresses back when I was in college. That goes back over 10 years now. The only old State of My Heart Address on line are the ones since I started to keep a blog. Here is your chance to see my old collected State of my Heart Addresses. This is a good reason for me to keep this blog going. Tomorrow you will see my State of my Heart Address for 2008.
Same Apartment. Survived a round of layoffs. Same Job. Visited Philadelphia, Chicago, Portland, Albuquerque. Visited Jeremy, Saw my friend Jeff get married. Same Car. Told a woman I had deep feeling for her and was rebuffed. Same Single status. I put up a new web page, two web logs, a group web log, and a dream log. I bought a new computer, Bought a MP3 player, bought a big hard drive for my MP3 files.
That is the short and easy version of my life. I am starting to wish I had a better way to define it.
For the first time I am putting the State Of My Heart Address on my web site. I know that at least one of the women that I write about will read this. I feel that I need to be honest when I write this. I apologies in advance if you are upset about what is written here. I cannot hold back. You can express your displeasure directly to me.
This is the last St. Valentines of my 20’s. I have drifted through the past year like I have drifted through most of the last decade. Since last Valentines Day I have not had a date, I have not kissed a woman, I have not been romantically close to anyone. It has been a year without much to it.
It is not that I am not interesting in finding a relationship. If I could find someone who was interested in me, I would try to explore that interest. Last spring there was a woman who would flirt with me all the time. I tried to figure out if she was flirting or just trying to be friendly. It took me a short time to find out that she was just trying to be friendly. I am always bad with these kinds of signs. I always tend to over read or under read things. It has been a long time since I have clearly known a woman likes me.
There was another woman who I had a crush on for a long time. It was a distance crush because we worked together. I never want to make things odd at work. Just before she left the company (remember 2001, year of the layoff) I asked her if she would ever want to go on a date. She gave the quick and polite no. Later she send me a message breaking the Unspoken Language of Women and Men. I felt no loss when she rejected me. Maybe I saw that rejection clearly a long time before that and that is why it was a distance crush.
I spent most of the past year thinking about the Unnamed Woman. For a long time I did not know what I wanted to tell her. Once I told her something, I waited to see her face to face. I saw her face to face and she did not share my feelings.
It still burns me when I read about her man problems. I tell myself I should not feel that way about her, but it is a hard thing to stop. Part of me thinks she is afraid and she will never know the possibility. I am not sure how look I will feel and think this way. I will tell her when it stops.
It is only a few months until I turn 30. It looks like I am headed there with no woman, no relationship in my life. I can easily see being here next year without having kissed a woman. I have not been close with a woman since I moved out west.
I feel old and getting older. I have pasted the age when my parents meet and married. I have gone almost a decade without a relationship. The last woman who I went on more then a few dates with should be a nun by now, literally. It has been a very long time since I messed up a chance at a relationship. I do not know if I can find a woman who is even interested in me. It feels like I am getting close to a point of no return. I am not sure what will happen when I get to that point.
I feel that I can stand up and say I am the loneliest many on the face of the earth. I know I am alone. Nothing has changed that in a long time. I know there are things about me that push women away. I am just looking for the woman who can look past those things. The problem is I have no idea where to look for this woman.
I am not totally without hope. I might know a single woman or two. If not, there is more to my life then just love. I think about women all the time, but there are other things that consume my life also.
I finally finished posting the First Day Project. It took me a while to put it together. All of the pictures were taken January 1, 2002. I have not seen anything on Not.So.Soft making reference to this project.
I hope that it gives people some insight to my life. I am not very good at taking pictures. I cannot capture what I see in a place. Hopefully you will be able to see what I see around my life.
I think there are two ways I can really do this. The first is to try to soclize more. I have a handful of work friends right now. I think with a little work and some social events, I can turn some of them into real friends. I need to get them away from the office. I need to set up things like poker night and movie nights. I think it is something that could be fun.
I also need to get out more in San Jose. I need to go to cultural events in the city. I need to pay attention to things going on around here. I keep on saying that San Jose is a boring city. I might not be trying hard enough. I need to try harder to get around.
I am declaring 2002 the year of simple pleasures. I think that we should all slow down and enjoy simple things.
Simple Pleasure #1
Long, Hot Showers
Every once in a while you need to take a long, hot shower. You just need to let the water wash over you. You should relax and forget about everything except for the experience of the water hitting your body. You need to be in the shower to the point just as your fingers start to prune. It is one of those perfect minutes to live in.
I feel like I should have more resolutions. I feel like there are a few more stuck in my head that I cannot get out right now. I am hoping they will fall out over the next couple of days.
I resolve to be more careful with the way I spend cash.
I have been trying be more careful about the way I spend money. I just do not seem able to be careful about the way I spend cash. Once it leaves the ATM I cannot keep track of what I am spending it on. If i want to control my money, I will have to start here. I want to keep track of the dollars I am spending out of the ATM.
Welcome to 2002. It is really the new year, I have already gone to bed and gotten up again this year. The weblog Not.So.Soft is running The First Day Project. The idea is to take pictures of the first day of this year. Here are some pictures that I took right after midnight.
There are more pictures and even a short video. I think that I am going to add more pictures, but I am not sure. It depends on how my day goes from here.
I resolve to write a letter to everyone I am in regular contact with in the next 12 months.
I used to be pretty good at writing letters to people. I was not good at writing letters to people in 2001. I fell way behind where I used to be. I do everything with e-mail and it is not the same thing. It does not have the same touch to it. There are about 24 people that I should really write letters to. My father is at the top of this list. Maybe I can re-spark correspondence with some of these people.
I resolve to finish 100 pages of a novel by the end of the year.
For a while now I have been saying that I would start writing a novel when I turn 30. I turn 30 this year. That means I have to start cracking. Making it a new year's resolution puts a little more pressure on me to do it. I know what I want to write a novel about. Now I just have to write it.
I resolve to clean up and organize my apartment and keep it until the end of 2002.
I know this does not seem like much of a resolution, but most of you have not seen my apartment. My apartment currently falls under no less then three different categories of mess.
1. Clutter - Clutter is the physical manifestation of procrastination. We build up clutter because we do not want to deal with that physical object at that moment. We do not want to take the time to do the task that will organize it in our life.
2. Disorganization - I have not been very organized since I moved into this apartment. I have not build a system to deal with things like bank statements, CD cases, books, credit card receipts, and most other things I need to keep. I have had this problem ever since I left Portland. I think that I have had "I might leave this city at any time" attitude. This had kept me from doing things like buying furniture. I am not resolved to stay in San Jose and in this apartment for another year. This means I can go out and buy things like book cases and a dresser.
3. Pack Ratting - I received a Microwave as a gift last Christmas. I still have that box in my apartment. Maybe I should be keeping the boxes of everything I buy if I had someplace to store them. I live in a studio apartment. I think I should get rid of some of these boxes now. They are just filling up my apartment.
On top of these things my apartment could use a good cleaning also. I am set to work on these things in 2002. I have already started to plan on ways I can improve these things.
