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My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Blog's August Demands

Blog burst in on me in the bathroom this morning with one of its harebrained schemes.

Blog: So about August!

Me: Uh....Blog, I'm kind of in the middle of something.

Blog: Uncanny how frequently that happens isn't it?

Me: "Uncanny" was not the word I was thinking of.

Blog: Whatever, this can't wait.

Me: Okay, well then you might want to light that candle then.

Blog: So we didn't hit May's goal of 1000 hits a day....

Me: By only one day.

Blog: And I was really sweet to leave you alone while you were doing that summer school thing....

Me: Thanks...I guess.

Blog: And we just nailed 15,000 followers on your Facebook page yesterday.

Me: Yeah, that was cool.

Blog: But now that that's over, I've been thinking about August.

Me: Oh God.

Blog: Okay picture this... (pause)

Me: (pause)

Blog: (pause)

Me: (pause) Are you going to say something?

Blog: Fifty. Thousand. Hits.

Me: No.

Blog: Wait hear me out.

Me: No.

Blog: We can do this.

Me: No, I won't hear you out and we can't do this. We average 1000 hits a day. That's it. Some days it's more, but not a lot more. And we still sometimes have those lousy 850 days. You're talking about making 500 extra hits per day. You're talking about a day and a half worth of page views every single day. Your passion is compelling, Blog, but it's also useless.

Blog: Don't be such a chicken shit. Like what are you afraid of? Success?

Me: It's not possible. It can't be done. That's not fear. That's the cold ice water of lubeless anal reality.

Blog: That's your uncle talking....and mixing metaphors, apparently. Lily Sloane said the warp drive would never work. They told Han he'd never find Luke in that snowstorm OR successfully navigate an asteroid field. No one could possibly fight an agent until Neo did. No one could survive Voldemort's death spell until Harry Pott-

Me: Wh--? That's a bunch of sci-fi bullshit. It's not even real!

Blog: (Lawrence Fishburne voice) He's beginning to believe!

Me: Shut up.

Blog: Come on, Chris. If you had a bunch of sports metaphors stuffed into your brain, I'd use those. I work with what I've got. Now are you going to go to your room and cry that the target is only two meters wide and no one can hit that with proton torpedos, or are you going to pull up your big kid undies, get in your motherfucking X-wing and show that Bechdel hating, nuance-free, prehistoric douchenozzle galaxy how we do things downtown.

Me: I dunno....this seems overly ambitious. Even for you.

Blog: But you're back! You can write good shit. You don't have to teach twelve year olds how to manage their time and make flashcards. Whip out some good articles and let the hits flow.

Me: I go back to teaching at the end of the month.

Blog: Pfffft. Like one day a week. That doesn't even count as a job. That's like a cancer survivors meeting.  ....with grammar.

Me: That's kind of fucked up.

Blog: (Lawrence Fishburne voice) He's beginning to believe!

Me: Shut up! Burning Man. I won't even be here the whole month. There's no way I can do this when I'm out of it for that whole time. Days of inactivity--no social media promotion. You don't even understand how slow August usually is for this blog.

Blog: You mean like last August when you got 53,318 page views?

Me: That was because of Creepy Guy!

Blog: But you can do it. You already know that. Schedule the posts. You'll only be gone a few days. Better yet, nail it before you even leave. Write something viral. Ask a friend to promote the posts for those few days. You could totally do this. Don't be a negative Nelly Mr. Can'tdopants.

Me: It's very unlikely.

Blog: But possible.

Me: Theoretically, I guess, it's technically conceivable. Maybe.

Blog: Gee whiz, Chris, don't sound too fucking confident.

Me: I just don't want to get my hopes up.

Blog: (pause) Why on Earth not? Where else would you want them? Don't be that guy, Chris. Don't get comfortable. Don't tread fucking water making two dollars a day because you've convinced yourself you can't do any better. I'll go be someone else's blog if that's the limit of your ambition.

Me: I dunno....

Blog: Look....I'm not asking you to believe it will be easy. You're going to have a month that you will talk about for years. I just want you to believe it will be possible. Because shit, man, EVERY month should be like that. You only get one of these lives.

Me: Did you just use YOLO to try to sell me on this?

Blog: (clears throat) Maaaaaaybe. Did it work?

Me: (sighs) I'm going to regret this.

Blog: YES! FUCK YES!!! It is on like TRON!!! Look out world......or....like 50,000 of you anyway. We are going to do this thing. I didn't even have to sing Rent lyrics! There's only now...there's only this..... (Lawrence Fishburne voice) He IS beginning to believe.

Me: SHUT UP!!! God.

Blog: (pausing and sniffing) Jesus how much garlic did you eat yesterday.

6 comments:

  1. August is now... Blogust? *runsandhides*

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    1. You don't know it yet, but you've just coined the catch phrase that will take us into the future!

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  2. I REALLY don't want to get in the middle of an argument between you and Blog (and why in the world does THAT suddenly sound reasonable?), but Blog has a point. You can write good shit.

    Also, Blog? I can TOTALLY nail the Alto part of Seasons of Love. Call me if you need a singing partner. I dig show tunes. [cautiously looks around to see who's listening] And anything composed/arranged by John Rutter.

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    Replies
    1. OMG, I wish we had enough people in our chorus to do his Requiem justice! I'm getting duck bumps on my goose pimples just thinking about it!

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    2. I'm really glad I read that twice. The first kind of bumps I thought you were getting made very little sense.

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    3. Blame it on dialectic idioms? Or, you know, that people see words they want to see. LOL Either one works for me!

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