A couple of nights back, I excitedly told my wife that there were 10 days left in this year-long writing assignment. She smiled and said she thought I was done awhile ago already and just decided to keep on writing. I retorted, “From the mouth of my number one fan,” with a chuckle. She says we are going to have a party. I guess it will be a reveal party as few – including my love – know what I’ve been up to.
My wife is truly my number one supporter. She always has wonderful things to say about my writing and if there was a fanbase to be number one of, she would be my Kathy Bates without the sledgehammer – or in the more grueling case of the book – an ax and blowtorch.
For Julie Powell, her husband was in many ways a part of her 365-Day cooking challenge that she blogged about somewhat daily. First of all, the blog was his idea and he helped her set it up. Of course, he also partook in the food she cooked daily and it was even him, who arranged that first news interview she did that sparked greater interest in her project.
Of course, Tara is also part of the everyday of this blog just by living with me and waiting for me to join her in bed after I finish my daily post. Of course, there have been joint adventures like the RV trip or our cottage vacation so she is directly involved in this project too. I’m not saying she hasn’t been. She’s a busy employment exec who doesn’t get home until 8 PM some nights and barely stops to use the washroom, and her employees drop food on her desk to make sure she eats something.
Julie’s early follower’s ranged from coworkers to her own mother, and with blogging and food blogs in general, were a relatively nuanced undertaking back then. With podcasts and numerous blogging sites dedicated to providing writers outlets for their work, it’s no wonder many words penned throughout the interwebs underbelly go mostly unnoticed. My stats highlight the fact that although I have a handful of faithful followers and engagers in my work, my biggest fans are nude X bots.
So, in an otherwise quiet year-long blogging adventure, I am a few days from wondering, ‘What’s next?’ Take another course? Another big writing journey? Starting that book? A long, drawn-out nap?
Maybe I’ll start another band. The Revival of Leotard Larry?
The feature image for today’s post is one of my high school grad photos. These are a couple of long-time friends. We look like a band in this shot, although the only one who could play an instrument at the time was my buddy on the right who played guitar, although I hacked away at the keyboards – not unlike the Ross-atron (Friends reference). I wrote such songs as ‘I Don’t Know the Words.’ There is a video cassette somewhere that my friend’s dad recorded of the haha moment. My mom always asked me to play Richard Marx, Right Here Waiting. I didn’t play much else on my Casiotone with the tiny keys, although Hey Jude by The Beatles was another.
I spent many a lunch hour in the music room at lunch, fiddling around on the one synthesizer they had. Needless to say I was a fan of the whammy effects.