are you there, blog? it's me, hannah

At some point in 2018 I realized that I really missed blogging. I love Instagram, but it's become a 100% blog substitute and I've been missing spilling my guts on my blog. I also miss being FUNNY, which I had forgotten that I was (I WAS) and Instagram just isn't that funny most of the time. I also miss reading long form blog posts from my real life friends and not just the ones from my pretend friend. At some point in college/grad school I remember feeling a little bit sad and vulnerable once my original blog readership began to extend well beyond Eliza (my sister), Kate (my childhood friend), and Nicole Winkleman (RU STILL OUT THERE NICOLE??) but I think that it's safe to say that my readership has dwindled back to early 2000s levels after a healthy dose of neglect. Thank you to Eliza and Kate who are still reading (AND POSTING!) after all these years, and who have both stuck with the original URLs that were inspired by their high school nicknames.

SPEAKING OF ALL THESE YEARS: my very first blog post was published almost exactly 17 years ago on January 16th, 2002. It is the longest I've ever held onto a habit! Please excuse me for the 18 month hiatus I took after Ralph was born. Those were dark days! Robbie started traveling Monday through Thursday when Ralph was still an infant, and that plus having an extra kid around just changed a lot of my habits, perspective, desires... everything really. I don't mind the travel like I used to—I have some coping mechanisms, which I'll likely delve into in future posts—but being alone most nights has made it very easy for me to get stuck in bed scrolling my phone rather than being a contributor. I've become a lurker! The very thing I used to scorn!

Most importantly, I would like to retain the moral superiority of someone who joined Blogger pre-Google acquisition and used to have to manually embed comment windows in my blog HTML, so I guess I need to continue to maintain my presence here rather than reminisce about the good old days of blogging in my parents' family room.

Anyway, while I think about what I'm going to write about I'll just leave you with a 5:40 minute summary of 2018, which has been conveniently captured by the 1 Second Everyday app. Which, incidentally, was first introduced to me by Kate and Eliza. Moral of the story: STICK WITH KATE AND ELIZA.