I am dragged, screaming, into the 21st century

If you’re reading this, it’s because you want to. That’s my only consolation.

Blogging. I hate the idea for multiple reasons. One, I am a paper and ink girl. I have literally dozens of journals that have seen me through the past 23 years. Flipping through them, feeling the paper, deciphering the scrawl, is a warm and tactile experience. I’m afraid this e-journaling will be cold and impersonal in comparison. Worse, I’m afraid it will be terribly convenient, and I’ll like it.

Also, blogging - along with Facebook and MySpace – seems like the worst kind of egotistical self-gratification. Pages devoted to self: thoughts, experiences, angst. All this seems like it should be decently relegated to, say, a shelf’s worth of journals. Or at least a friend who is armed with a good cup of coffee to compensate for the boredom of listening. But now I find myself thousands of miles away, and I was never that good at coffee dates to begin with. The clincher, I suppose, is this: this isn’t forced on any one. If you’re reading this, it’s because you want to.

So, here’s the blog. Stories about travel, which for me, always eventually seems to be about finding home. Granted, the travel may be to the other side of town, or home may turn out to be a small dirt road on a backwater sub-tropical island, but travel and home nonetheless.