30 Days Gone By...

30 days have gone by since I typed in the URL of this blog and found it still floating forlornly in cyberspace - unused, untouched, neglected after being birthed from my intentions something like five years ago. Back then, it would have been used as a platform to share my writings about the evils of capitalism and the building anxiety that we, as a species, seem to be experiencing. It was meant to give my ex-husband and I something more to share, something imbued with a bit of each other. A legacy, a child. His photographs and collages, any artwork of his that I could encourage, would accompany my writings, sharing posts as we shared our lives. Too much of our lives, I guess. I practically swallowed him whole with my intentions, with my love, until he fought back by chewing me up and spitting me out.

And You Have Failed Us was abandoned. It failed to even begin. And thirty days ago, out of curiosity, I typed in the URL and there was the title with this background image, selected by himself, still in place. Empty and waiting. I had just cobbled together my online musical debut by the seat of my pants, the whole thing a rough experiment, really. But I had put Art out into the world for everyone to experience, to judge, to share... If I could do it with music, I could do it with blogging. Even if it was just a blog about my music, another platform for promotion. But I've found random inspiration knocking on my skull, like the faery tale about the Widow and the Snail that refused to leave me alone until I wrote it down, and I've found myself writing out thoughts and ideas; musings and fiction.

It's a good feeling and a wonderful outlet, to be writing again, as I've always considered myself to be a writer. That is my primary function. I was hoping to be a published author when I was six years old, and I still hope to be at thirty-two. My early teens were spent primarily in a chair in front of a computer that anyone born in this century would goggle at in disbelief. People didn't blog then. Social media was chatrooms and email. Modems made dial tones and then raised an electronic cacophony the likes of which a 1950s imagining of a robot would make. Back in my day, blah blah blah...

Let's stay on track here. Thirty days ago I reacquainted myself with this blog, kept the title and the background, started using it to promote my music, and I've also been using it to write shit down. And based on the stats from Blogger, people seem to actually care about the shit that I'm writing. According to those stats, more and more people have been visiting this blog every day. It seems I first attracted attention to it with my music, then with sharing these posts to Google Plus, and now more than 300 people have visited this blog. It's momentum has been steadily building. It's been fun to watch and gratifying in the sense of popularity that those rising numbers can give you, like when your number of Friends, or your number of Likes, grows. It may not actually mean much. The data I get to see is hardly conclusive enough to tell me I have a Following. But it's enough to tell me people are dropping by. My art is out in the world and it's not just my music. People are reading my words. I get the sense that I am heard.

It's be cool to pretend to be all stoic-like and act like I couldn't care less and that I'm doing all of this purely for the act of creating. But the fact that this is a blog forces me to be honest with myself: I was hoping it would attract attention, and it is. Fucking cool, yo (back in my day, people used to talk like that).

So I just want to say: Thanks for stopping by. Even if you've never been to this blog before, even if this was purely a click out of curiosity for you, even if you never come back. You're not just a number to me. As ridiculous as it may be, and it certainly sound ridiculous to me, you are a contributor to a sense of validation. To a burgeoning in my sense of self-esteem. Don't judge. I'm being honest enough with you to admit that, as embarrassing as it may be, because this is my place to express myself, to be my most transparent. And thirty days have gone by and 300 people have visited my blog. Hell yeah.

In the news portion of this blog, the posting of my latest release, the alternate version of my debut EP Progress Report, as a playlist on Soundcloud has pushed the number of plays of my music on that site to over 130 in thirty days. The Lady anoNYMous on Soundcloud

And in thirty days, my Bandcamp homepage has received 198 visitors. Man, why can't two more people have visited before I wrote this post?

Thanks again, y'all. May your inner snails prove themselves resilient and determined.