Last Blog Post

Now, before you all go start preparing to sue me or picket outside my house-- relax. This isn't my last blog post. This is a post about other peoples' last blog posts.

So cool your jets... your lovely, lovely jets.

Sometimes, when I'm painfully bored, I go trolling through the seemingly infinite profiles of www.20sb.net to see who's blogging about what, who's holding a camera up in front of her face, who's posting YouTube videos and pictures of cats in septic tanks, who's being snarky and tell-it-like-it-is-y in the D.C. Metro area, who's giving profanity-laden advice to Dear Abby readers-- oh, wait, that's me.

Also, who's out there putting their nose to the grindstone and creating consistent, quality work that will improve my worldview by reading it. That's how I found some of you goobersteins. I mean, it's not like the goddamn Blog Faerie is whispering hot referral tips into my ear or rolling around on my desktop rubbing pixie-dust onto her twin sister bare midriff.

Oftentimes, when I stumble upon a blogger with an interesting and engaging profile and I click on the link to their blog I am dismayed to see a last publication date of 02/04/2008 or maybe three or four months ago. Some of them have that cold, antiseptic, marble-hued "The blog you are looking for is no longer available." or "This Blogger account has been disabled by the administrator."

The absence or removal of a blog always piques my curiosity, so much more than any one single extant post could. Sometimes, the blogger leaves a fare-thee-well message-- like one I recently stumbled onto where the last picture is of a proudly outstretched left hand bearing a shimmery engagement ring. Obviously, this blogger has wedding plans to attend to and blogging no longer fits in with her single-life routine. I get that-- but lots of times there is no good-bye message, just an ordinary-sounding final post about American Idol or a home-made macaroni and cheese recipie and I wonder-- what the fuck?

What happened?

Did the person just run out of steam? Were they out of inspiration or ideas or motivation? Were they hit by a mass transit vehicle? Did they collapse from too much froth in their mochaccino? Maybe they were arrested for running a crystal meth lab or a kiddie porn... amusement park...

While I have absolutely no statistical information to back this assertion up, I feel like maybe a reason why a significant number of bloggers give up blogging is that they've been "found out." Now, obviously, this doesn't account for bloggers who use their full and real names, have linked up their blog using the Networked Blog feature on Facebook-- I mean, they're not afraid of getting outed. It's us anonymous bloggers, or the ones who think we're anonymous. One day, most, if not all of us will get that dreaded email, or comment, or follower that lets us unequivocally know,

"I found you."

Maybe it's an ex-lover, a former or soon-to-be-former friend, a sibling, a parent (oy), or perhaps most disconcertingly, an employer. I'm sure some bloggers have said "bye-bye" to their privacy, their anonymity, their reputations, and their jobs all in a matter of minutes once the wrong person has stumbled across their blog.

Take mine, for instance. At 308 posts, (not including this one) there's a lot of shit in here that could seriously fuck me over, personally and professionally, if the wrong people found their weary way here. Is that a risk that I take by putting myself out there? Absolutely. Do I believe that people should have the privilege to express themselves freely and without identification if their words are not causing direct or indirect harm to another person? Well, obviously. Is that always the case?

No. It isn't. And I think that, more than anything, is why bloggers disappear on us.

Of course some of them just plain don't give a shit anymore and give up-- I know that. Between this blog and my last blog (oh, yeah-- I shut down a blog of mine before, too, and it's because I was almost found out, no-no style) I've been blogging for just around a year-- so maybe I'll be burned out somewhere around year three or four. I don't know-- maybe I won't get there altogether.

I don't know how "My Masonic Apron" is going to end, but I think I'm kind of okay with that (notice the confidence?) See-- when I'm writing a piece of fiction or a play (not that I've done either of those in a while) I don't know how those things are going to end either-- and yet I go through with it, and the ending, well, it always comes... and usually without much of my help. Create characters and a situation and it all comes to a head quite naturally. Certainly a blog isn't the same thing as a story or a play-- and there are outside influences at work here in terms of readers and followers and Google-snoopers, but all things end-- somehow, some way.

I just hope that, when the end comes, I'm in the driver's seat, that the end is my choice and is not made in haste to save my ass, or after it's too late.

And, more than anything, I hope I get to say goodbye.