The first post! Well, sort of

“As long as you have something to write and an audience eager to hear what you have to say, you can start a blog.”

A cold shiver of dread shot through my system.

Oh no! Does that mean I can’t start a blog? I had one for years, was that wrong?! Did I break the blogging rules? Did I miss the seminar where I learn how to manifest an audience before I even start writing? Dangit, I knew something was missing from my calendar in April. I was so proud of how organized I was!

Well shucks, you are reading this so it’s too late now.

corrects clothing *

Ahem.

Welcome to my blog! I totally have readers, they’re.. over there. No not there, -there-. It’s fine, I’ll show you later. But, now that you are here, I should introduce myself!

You can call me Elle. I’m not anonymous -per se-, but I do prefer to be a bit discreet with my pure unadulterated identity – mostly because I have had a personal blog running between 2005 (livejournal, man) and 2018… and I do experience the paralyzing existential dread of being ridiculed for whatever I touch or express interests in for no particular reason as none of my interests are noteworthy really, this possibly being grounded in my traumatic childhood experiences of being an odd kid in a neurotypical world – but.. we’re… working on it?

I by working on it I mean, like, actually working on it. Not getting paid of course – but the mental sweat, blood and tears are being squished out of my soul every day. It’s a journey, really! I would have started a travel blog but mental trip.. “aids” are illegal in my country, so here we are with just a personal one.

A lovely picture of our puglet when he was little, just for good measure

Anyway, I prefer to be a little bit mystical, let a touch of secrecy surround my little dwelling on this internet. I can write silly stuff on here and wrestle the angst-bear and hold it down long enough to click on the post-button, which is not possible if I can see my own face along with the text. If I do, I will start questioning everything and promptly be eaten by the bear. Terrible for SEO.

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Shortly before I realized I must have missed the seminar where I learn how to manifest an audience before starting the blog, I had a conversation with my husband. A conversation I’ve had about two times a year since 2018 when I kind of let the whole blogging thing slip for real.

“Hey. Starting a new blog, is that a bad idea in 2024? With all the AI horrors rolling out unbeknownst to most people around the world, scraping robots throwing themselves over human made content (and to be completely fair, a lot of robot made content as well that’s out there already) to “learn” how to emulate humanity? Clickbait??”

My husband Smith is my eternal enabler, and I’m so thankful for it.

“No honey, I’d say, if it makes you happy, do it!“

“But drugs make people happy as well, not all things that make you happy is good for you!“

Smith just stared at me for a few seconds like he usually does when I’m being facetious.

“You know what I mean.”

“You know what I mean as well!“

“I don’t think you will get hunted down by human-eating robots because you have a blog in 2024. If we’re dying for AI-reasons, there’s for sure worse problems out there already.“

He scrolls silently and thoughtfully through the website he was reading when I interrupted him. “Can AI kill us all?” rolls past in bold letters.

The other times we’ve had this conversation, we had like, life crippling and world-setting-on-fires-adjacent kind of events around us, which kind of harshed my vibes.

But this time? Well, fuck it. If we’re dying anyways, might as well blog about it, right! The robots must have something to parse when we’re all gone, all the cat memes won’t do on their own, not to mention all the por..

So! Here I find myself, in 2024 (and now 2026!), starting a personal blog again. We’ll see how we fare this time.

Crippling existential dread and all.

Welcome!