Like a great many other people, I once thought that the nauseating bum-jiggling dance that is more commonly referred to as ‘twerking’ was an absolute breeze to replicate but having seen endless, uploaded, epic fail videos of people trying their damnedest, some with spectacularly, mortifying results and having once even attempted it myself with the outcome of looking like I was having some kind of seizure, I can conclude that simply ‘jerking’ is not the quite the same as ‘twerking’. It is actually quite difficult to master.
So, it would seem, is this blogging lark and I’m beginning to think that launching my blog, ahead of actually spending time learning HOW to use it, will perhaps turn out to be another in a long line of ‘hasty decisions’ and one that required significantly more research, not to be mistaken for endless procrastination, which I appreciate is a common characteristic with many writers.
I had somewhat overlooked or failed to anticipate the technical capability required for such an undertaking in complete favour of my desire to get on with the ‘easy bit’, waxing lyrical and sharing my observations with my intended audience and despite a former career in IT, which admittedly, mostly consisted of me sending smart arse emails and bossing a few very capable technicians around, I can hardly profess to being an expert or a bit of a whizz kid. In fact my technical abilities could quite easily be put to complete shame by my three year old niece, who is already quite adept at using an iPhone, an Android device and the TV and DVD player. When it comes to using any such touch screen device, I may as well be wearing boxing gloves or have hands resembling those utterly, useless grabbing claws found on the cuddly toy machines at funfairs, I am seemingly technologically-dyspraxic and my husband is forever having to save me from a classic case of digital-disorientation. The SatNav is quite possibly the worst of them all, it unconditionally hates me and deliberately misinterprets absolutely everything I try to enter into it’s parochial and prejudiced fields. I type ‘France’ and it suggests ‘Saint Kitts and Nevis’.
Add to that, that I have very little idea about plugins, themes, widgets or CSS and therefore it is rather unsurprising that I find myself stumbling along blindly and also not surprising why there are indeed so many blogs about ‘how to start a blog’. Thank goodness for my very patient and long suffering brother who is an absolute oracle when it comes to understanding all things web based, his help and keen detective work when issues have arisen have been invaluable.
Of course, I have looked at various tutorials and on line forums in a quest to better inform myself and I have tried my very best to concentrate and absorb the information made available to me, but I just don’t have the attention span to fully do it justice.
I am a creative person, prone to flights of fantasy and easily distracted. I am not really equipped to ‘reading the manual’ or taking things very seriously, I am more generally accustomed to ‘winging it’ at every given opportunity and for one reason or another I find that my mind wanders very easily. This is very probably why I have never learnt how to play the piano, the violin, a guitar or even the tambourine. If I couldn’t just pick it up and instantly play like a maestro or musical savant, I immediately lost interest. I’m amazed that I actually ever learnt how to drive and pass my driving test. It was hard and required enormous amounts of concentration when there were so many other distractions.
Once, in very, very slow moving traffic, I tapped the back of a brand new BMW because I was busy admiring a pair of shoes being worn by a young lady who was walking on the path alongside my car and I returned my attentions to the road just a fraction too late to notice the illuminated stop lights in front of me. Myself and the BMW driver had to pull over at a convenient spot and inspect the cars for damage and I must admit that I told a ‘little white lie’ and said that I was momentarily distracted by an ‘unsupervised child’ who was running around on the path and I was fearful that they might run into the road. I thought this made me sound like a much more conscientious and sensible driver than someone who is thinking “Oooohhhhh, pretty shoes”…THWUNK. Thankfully there was no damage to either of our vehicles and after a perfectly courteous and pleasant exchange, we went on our respective ways.
Some weeks later, I was back ended by an enormous tractor that almost wrote off my Honda S2000 (yes, I completely agree it is a rather strange and frightening choice of car for someone who is not actually that adept at driving!). I was stationary at a roundabout, at the front of the queue, when this big arse tractor decided to start moving. The sound of this huge metal beast practically mounting my tiny car was deafening and terrifying, as was the subsequent sound of my male passenger (my body building stepson) who swiftly exited the car and bellowed a continuous stream of rather choice expletives at said driver of tractor. To be fair, the tractor driver was probably more shaken than we were, hardly surprising when you take into account that he hadn’t even seen us….right there… in front of him……in a gleaming silver car!
Anyway, the point I was trying to make, was that initially when I told my friends and family about this incident, they of course assumed that somehow this accident was my doing. They were entirely unprepared for the fact that it might not actually have been my fault, so well known is my propensity for distraction and attracting mishaps. As far as they were concerned, it stood to reason that I somehow was to blame for the fact that I was sitting in traffic and a bloody great big, ugly tractor had decided to try and drive through me. I think one of my colleagues even assumed that I had reversed into the tractor. Who…. Me???
What followed was endless months of inconvenience at the hands of my completely farcical insurance company, not to mention the rather unpleasant experience of having to drive a Vauxhall Insignia which was like trying to steer a barge (because my ‘like for like’ insurance policy guaranteed me a ‘similar 2.0 litre car’ whilst my Honda was off the road….. similar???? really????) and all the while having to endure endless repetitions of “I hear someone smashed your back doors in” by countless male colleagues who obviously thought they were the first person to utter such a witty and original remark. Guys, please, if your microscopic brain has managed to come up with that line, then believe me…..you are certainly not the first!
But, yes, it is true that I am easily distracted and fickle and I fly headlong into projects with endless initial enthusiasm but sometimes with very little preparation, occasionally falling at the first hurdle and never very stylishly at that!
Never the less, my blog is now active following a few ‘technical difficulties’ and it is my intention to update it each week with any random, nonsense that I see fit.
Until the next time.
Thanks for reading
The Virtual Recluse
I never doubted your rendition of said tractor account in the slightest! And this is the first I’ve ever heard of the BMW incident 😀 I look forward to more revelations ….xxx
Ahhh that’s my baby writing this, that is. I love and I can’t wait for the next installment. XxxxX