Longtime readers will recall that this aversion to BLS was hardly the standard in the good old days. Who remembers the day I wrote about Ricky Rubio? I assume this detail surprises nobody. This type of writing is a natural entry point for any aspiring writer, who separates blog from personal diary by the razor-thin margin of an unregulated "publish" button. For me, the early days were always more about writing than the writing, or any notion of being a writer, so pretty much anything I finished got published. Those TOA posts were always a bit too chummy with the audience, detailing critical news such as my attendance at irrelevant local events or offering earnest "analysis" of books that no one outside the author's hostages had ever been motivated to finish. Like most bloggers, I slowly shifted away from these posts in a bid to demonstrate my increasing seriousness toward Writing. If I ever found myself wandering back toward BLS - notably with "Tales of Two Cities", also with "Proper Corona Admin" - then I built a framework I could use to connect the mundane to the significant.
And yet, why not get back to my roots every once in a while, maybe have a look around the old stomping grounds? I went to a standup show over the weekend where the comic talked about the strange realization that you could still be anonymous despite being on TV, then transitioned into a story about how he was anticipating a trip back to his hometown just for the recognition. I think we can all benefit from something like that every once in a while. They say not to forget where you came from but perhaps the better advice would be to remind yourself every once in a while. It might be especially important for those who can relate to my current state, where I am trying to write some challenging things yet finding the difficulty level discourages the consistent effort required of good writing. Over seven years ago, I posted something I wrote about tipping. If you'd told me then about some of the stuff I'd be trying to write now, I probably would have converted TOA to a podcast.
Endnotes
All that said, I suppose it's obvious by now that I'm currently working on a classic serving of BLS. Why else would I write this post now? The upcoming post, hopefully coming sometime this week to an email inbox near you, will fall neatly into the esteemed category "unnecessary analysis of recent sports news by an unqualified writer". In other words, for a day TOA will be twice as good as ESPN.
