Do you remember how you got into blogging in the first place?

I looked up when I started blogging--it was in September of 2005.  I have a vague recollection of sitting around bored on Labor Day Weekend and starting a blog for no other reason than I wanted to see what it was all about.  Most of my free time up until then was spent playing MMORPGs and I was looking for a change. I had always enjoyed writing, and so as a lark I started Pointless Drivel.  The name was taken from a silly little paper I wrote when I was in college.  The first college I attended.  The one I was eventually asked not to come back to.  Well, to be honest, the first of two that I was eventually asked not to come back to.

And I think it is very telling that the paper in question that I wrote was not even for a class, I had written it during class for my own amusement. I probably wrote it during Astronomy or Sociology or something.

So I had a name for my blog, Pointless Drivel.  Now I needed a name for myself, a blogging "handle".  I settled on Mr. Fabulous, which I took from my very favorite movie of all time, The Blues Brothers.  In the movie, Alan Rubin, who is known as Mr. Fabulous, plays a former member of the band who has taken a job as a maitre d' of a ritzy Chicago restaurant, whom Jake and Elwood eventually recruit back into the fold.

So I had my blog and I had my name and I was all set up on Blogger.  Now all I needed was to write a post.  And here it was:

I am secure enough in my masculinity that I can find beauty in another man. You know who I think is very good looking? That big blond carpenter guy on Clean Sweep. And Dan Marino. And I always thought country singer Colin Raye was cute too. I wonder if they all fit a particular type. Maybe I should not spend too much time analyzing this.

Wow.  I was a lot less long winded then.

I must have been really bored that weekend, because my archives show that I wrote five posts on Sept 3 and another five posts on September 4.  I posted pretty regularly during September.  I guess I got a kick out of my writing actually being published online.  Then my archives show that in October I wrote fewer posts, and fewer still in November as my interest waned.  I think I contemplated throwing in the towel more than once.  I tend to get bored easily.  I didn't post much in early December, either, but I guess the blogging bug bit me hard shortly after that because I decided to take it seriously and commit myself to it.  Since December 20, 2005, I have not missed a single day of posting.

Aside from that first post that I reproduced here, I can't go back and read my early stuff.  Yuck.  It seems awkward and amateurish now.  It took me a while to be comfortable and find my voice, I suppose.  And I guess that's how it is with all of us.

Now I can't imagine not blogging.  I spend nearly all my free time online, consumed with blogging and other ancillary activities.  I have over 500 blogs I try to keep up with.  I've made wonderful friends all over the world, many of whom I have met and many more that I haven't met that I feel as close to as if they lived next door.  Blogging has afforded me many wonderful opportunities, such as the money I have made as a Postie and the book I am currently in the process of editing, based on my flagship blog.

It's been a really great ride.  And I'm just getting warmed up!

Posted by Mr. Fabulous at 04:26 AM in Blogging | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)