Before Weblogs

I was blogging before weblogs. Not terribly surprising, that. I'd been e-mailing comments and ruminations to friends and acquaintances via e-mail, listservs, and newsgroups for a decade before I ever put up my first webpage and that was Fall 1995, nearly 11 years ago.

Before that I was a newspaper reporter in high school, college, and even "real life." And I grew up with the personal columns of both my father and his father, both of them newspapermen, both of them editorialists.

It wasn't until May 2001, however, that I finally tried to be disciplined enough to write / update a personal online journal on a regular basis. As it turned out, my start on "RPJournal" was less than two months before Jeremy passed away. Sure enough, I had a lot to write about. Interesting how that worked out. Another example of why I tell people, "Serendipity follows me around like a little dog."

Looking back, I see:

My postings were fairly regular until the end of April 2002, at which point -- you guessed it -- I acquired the psycho con artist roommate from hell. It took me two more years (until August 2004) to recover enough to tell that story and to begin talking in more detail about my life with Naoyuki, then:

(a) I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Not the end of the world, by any means, but a heavy psychologically blow on top of everything else that had gone on in the previous three years; and...

(b) Just a month later it became clear that I was definitely not on the same page as the library administration at the institution I'd grown to love and cherish and that it was time for me to depart, quickly, and...

(c) As I'd expected, just nine months later Naoyuki and I were leaving Michigan for another state so that he could begin his career as a physician / scientist.

In other words, a lot to process, a lot to catch up with.

But that was then.

Now it is June 2006 and we're in suburban Buffalo, where Naoyuki has a great job at one of the nation's leading cancer hospitals. We found a lovely home in a beautiful neighborhood with bright, friendly neighbors. And after many discouraging months of looking, I've finally found employment that I enjoy and that holds the promise of being gainful.

Time, in other words, to go back to the nutritionist. To go back to the gym. To go back to blogging. I wish I could say "no more gaps" or "shorter gaps" but history suggests such optimism may be unwarranted. On the other hand, we make our own history, so who knows?