Beginning

Good Lord, I’m starting a blog. Now what have I gone and done?

I don’t even know where to begin. I guess embarrassing confessions are as good a place as any. Here goes…

Have you ever seen the movie Julie and Julia? I’ve watched it five times, and the most recent time I borrowed it from the library and considered it an honor to pay the hefty late fee when I lost it in the back seat of my car for over a week. Which is to say, I really like that movie. [Confession #1. More to come.]

Anyway, if you’ve seen the movie, you know that Julie Powell turns her obsession with Julia Child into a blog, in which she chronicles the mishaps and victories that occur while cooking her way through The Art of French Cooking in 365 days. I love this idea. As I was watching Julie and Julia for the fifth time recently, I had already begun working on this blog, and I wondered if I could do anything similarly productive with my obsession with Flannery O’Connor. (If you aren’t familiar with Flannery O’Connor, don’t worry. I hope to remedy that.)

If Julie cooked recipes and by doing so made something useful of her fondness for Julia, could I not do something similar with Flannery?

But upon further reflection, I realized that if I hoped to “cook” my way through Flannery O’Conner’s short stories, I was in for a perilous journey. Yes, Julie had to overcome her fear of eggs, but I would have to steal someone’s wooden leg. Yes, Julie had to endure a season of aspics, but I would have to run away with a special needs girl. And, although Julie admittedly had to overcome many obstacles to stay true to her goal, I would have to suffer a variety of gruesome deaths (shot by a gang of Misfits, gored by a bull, death by baptism, to name a few).

So scratch that.

Really, as I begin this blog all I’m interested in is keeping a record. There are happenings I don’t want to forget, ideas that require processing.

Does the world need another blog, I ask myself? The answer is almost certainly “no.” And yet here I am, sitting at the computer and typing this sentence, placing a comma and then a period at the end—here.

Honestly, I’m a little embarrassed to have entered that ever-widening circle of those who call themselves “bloggers.” There is a certain level of self-absorption that it seems you can’t escape, the same lingering stench that hovers about Facebook and Twitter, smelling of platitudes and faux leather. Does the world really need to know my thoughts about God, or the fact that I sometimes wonder what it would be like to go on a date with Flannery O’Connor? [Awkward confession #2. Many more to come.]

But ultimately I am not the one to decide whether you give your time to this blog. I’m not forcing anyone to read. I wanted to write, so I am. And maybe that’s commendable. If you want to read, please do and please comment.

For readers, here are a few promises I make to you:

1. I will try to be honest.

2. I will quote Flannery. A lot.

3. I will try not to make myself too seriously. I hope you don’t take me too seriously either. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t want to waste your time with trite blather. That means I edit and revise and try not to say things I don’t mean. But ultimately whatever I write will have a mixture of wisdom and folly in it.

Anyway, I haven’t yet quoted Flannery. How’s this:

“Of course I offer all my critical opinions on long sticks that can be jerked back at once because I really seldom know what I’m talking about.”

Good thinking, Flan Flan.