No, seriously, I still don't get a) why you're blogging, and b) why you think the name of your blog is so perfect

{You're probably also wondering why I make everything, even a title, sound like a to-do list.  Let’s just start with Item A on that list.}

Why blog?  For a very selfish reason:  I want to write more, as I mentioned before.

I mean, really, are personal blogs ever started for non-selfish reasons?  These things are basically journals with HTML coding.

Wait, that might not be true:  with a blog, you hope against long-shot hope that people actually read it.  And with journals—

I've kept a journal since I was 15.  I have all of them lined up in chronological order on a bookshelf, right beneath the shelf with non-fiction works alphabetized by author's last name.  {You may now be figuring out why I make everything sound like a to-do list, even if I don't intend that.}

Just because I keep my journals in my living room does not mean I ever want someone to actually read them.

Of course not.

If you're ever perusing for something good to read on my bookshelf, please go for Laurie Colwin or Virginia Woolf or yes, even Jane Austen.

But people reading my blog doesn't bother me at all, most likely because of the HTML coding thing that reminds me that this is on the WORLD WIDE WEB for all the WORLD to see.

Saying things in all caps sometimes makes it scarier.

And sharing my writing with others can serve as an external motivator to write more {my internal motivators need a little bit of help}.  One of those vicious cycle things but in a good way.

This is not a tangent, I promise:  I have this Kids-Thot-a-Day calendar that my Grandma and Grandpa Callahan gave me when I was in fourth grade.  Thot really is spelled like that; the calendar is for daily encouraging words, not for learning how to spell.

I've used it every year since I was 9 {with some time off for while I lived in France and England}, and reading these sayings now, as a 28-year-old—well, they may also help explain why I like to-do lists and order and pushing through hard times.

Yes, some of them speak straight to the little girl in me, and even when you're 28 {and I'm assuming 38, 48, 58...}, the little girl in you sometimes needs to be coddled and reminded how lovely she is.

But some of them...

A random sampling:

• You can't do everything at once, but you can always be doing something.
• Setting a perfect example is the perfect gift you give others.
• If at first you don't succeed, try harder!
• Next time you're alone, try thinking.
• The busy have no time for tears.
• If someone gives you a privilege, you owe them responsibility.
• Love is like money:  it must be earned.

There is one day in there, though, that is especially apropos for today:  Sharing is caring with a friend.

So I'm sharing my writing with you, which must mean I care.  And there you go, I've proven myself wrong:  I just gave a non-selfish reason for doing a blog.

I'm doing this because I care about you.

To show how much I care, I will now share a poem.  You can think it's deep or silly or whatever, but I've been writing a poem a week for the last six weeks, and it's time one of them made it out of my journal and into HTML code.

A Beginning
It starts like this:  a beep beep beep at 5:20
I wake up to find the world is already ahead of me
Out my window, I see the start of the morning:
            orange fireworks on a pink-blushed sky

(Later—in 3 hours—as I drive to work, the morning in full shine, the orange-pink is gone, replaced by a non-color haze and concrete and telephone lines.)

One bird chirps in the tree outside my window
Then takes off, headed to the fireworks show.

I turn off the alarm and take off, too.
Not to the fireworks show but to the Every Day
Which, if you look at it right, can seem explosive.