For many years now I have seen the same Billings IP address crop up in my "blog stats" although for the life of me, I post here so rarely, I'm surprised you still bother to even check back. The last post was on January 1, 2020 the dawn of a new year that I, hilariously, thought was going to come in like a wonderful, whirlwind flash of a new day. New opportunities for lovely adventures, excitement simply in the number itself, 2020, and most importantly, the year we'd boot Trump out of the White House with a resounding "OKAY ASSHOLE, WE'VE HAD MORE THAN ENOUGH" vote. Instead it seems 2020 almost immediately started to ooze shit all over us, right off the bat, and now we're really in the thick of it.
Kobe was a dark, jolting blow, but we had no idea of the gathering storm on the horizon. Now we are all watching stunned as the slow motion train wreck of COVID-19 envelopes the world.
So back to my Billings Stalker, which is just a fun label. I've experienced a real stalker, which I've written about in these pages, so someone checking in on a public page like this, ever so occasionally, does not rise to the "stalker" level. I image you a white, conservative male in your mid 60's. Don't ask me why, although this is Montana, a republican red state. I really have no idea though and I suppose you could be some young 30-something woman. Nah, I doubt it.
It should go without saying that almost no one, and I mean a handful in a year, come across this blog and bother to even take a look. And all of those happen upon it by hitting "next" on the blog button.
But I am curious and at least I have quite a few old posts to peruse through to make up for never posting. However, judging from your visitor history, it's just "meh" for the old pages.
I wish I could claim all my writing time these days is spent working at editing my memoir, now several years in the writing, but alas, my writing is mostly work related and not very creative. Although, I do believe the practice has made me a better writer.
A few parting thoughts on the Coronavirus. One, I think half of us in the U.S. will have it, whether asymptomatic, mildly ill (that's my category) or on our death beds with it. Two, the eerie silence in town is actually not eerie at all but a nice reminder that when everyone just stops, the quiet can be comforting. Albeit a reminder that all the unpleasant noise in the world comes from us humans. Three, who knew teleworking from your own home would feel more productive, relaxing, and communal with those we work with, sending notes by email, going above and beyond the norm to serve the greater good of the organization. Four, having a daughter launch her new career in health care, in California, as the virus was launching itself on its worldwide quest is not my ideal scenario. We will, eventually, come out the other side of this a changed world. Some aspects will be for the better; at least an equal amount worse. For all its good and evil, human nature prevails.
p.s. Billings, thanks for reading.
