I always snickered at people who forgot to delete their "hello world" post.
Bettridge's law prevents me from asking if a 51-year-old woman can pick up a personal blogging habit she dropped during the last millennium.
Hi, I’m Eve.
Part of me is a little aghast that I’m doing this.
I have a nice personal site, a Substack I share with my dear friend Sarah D. Bunting, a shop I own with my husband, a pet sitting business with a website I really need to update, and a side hustle operating a short term rental in a 114-year-old loft I bought in downtown Indianapolis (I use the place to visit my family for several weeks out of the year, the rest of the time I host out-of-town guests) that needs constant work and renovations.
What I should be doing is simplifying, right? Hanging out with my own two dogs and cat, doing my day job, reading one of these “book” things I keep hearing about. So what the hell is this.
All I can say is that in recent months, I’ve felt a strong nostalgic attraction to the personal blogging days of my relative youth, back when a certain riot encouraging wannabe despot was just a rich guy with cameos in 54 and Celebrity (same year!), before cell phones were widely available, and before social media existed. Back then, I’d sit down at my desk in my tiny studio on Fulton between Broderick and Baker and just type out what I was thinking. Did anyone read it? Bill Paxton’s character in one of my favorite movies answers that question quite nicely.
Am I capable of never asking and not caring, after decades of having my career hinge in large part on “traffic,” and my dog brain set to salivate mode by even a single “like”? That’s a great question, perhaps answered by how many of you are here because I asked you, somewhat frantically, to come.
Great, so what’s this all about?
I think I’m going to try to operate this like I would any other blog in the late 1990s/early aughts: what I’m mulling or obsessed with, cool stuff I’ve seen, and everything else rattling around in my head that doesn’t fit in any of the other buckets in my life. Who knows, I might get sick of this (or you might), it might feel like just one more thing or something that I can’t justify since it doesn’t have a clear endgame. But I want to give this a shot, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 18,811 days on this planet is that far more of my regrets are centered around ideas I had that I didn’t try, than ideas I had, tried at, and failed.
We’ll see how it goes. I’d love it if you’d come with me, but totally get it if you don’t. I love you anyway.
— Eve Batey
Nov. 23, 2022