mighty forces

Ghosts

I always thought that as I got older, my circle of friends would widen. How wrong that turned out to be. Some of the people who have made their way out of my life I miss greatly, and others I wish I could forget. (Who knew that I would end up looking at “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and think, “If that really worked, it would be great.”)

And isn’t it always the second group of people who spring up, unbidden, at the strangest and most unpredictable times? Technology just makes things worse. Old e-mails, voice mails, scanned photos you forgot about – they appear suddenly and scream, “Deal with this, bub. Thought you were past it, huh? Fat chance, chump.”

How is it that inanimate objects can be so mean?

Do words still mean things?

Is the era of the personal weblog over? Seems like everything these days is topic-specific: politics, media, celebrities, cooking and food, etc. Does anyone write a popular, interesting site with a mix of personal and public information anymore? In thinking about this new site, I’m struggling with these questions, in ways that I didn’t when I started “words mean things” back in 2000.