The Trials and Tribulations of the Everyday Blogger

Despite being shut out of Internet service the night before last, I had not given it a second thought late last night when I returned home from an out of town conference again. Arriving after midnight, I simply expected the usual: that I’d sit down, compose my post for today, click the “Publish” button on Blogspot, and put the thing—and myself—to bed for the night.

Wrong. Apparently, we are slated for reruns today—a déjà vu rehash of yesterday’s experience. My apologies in advance for not meeting you over your morning cup of coffee (if that’s what you are accustomed to doing).

I’m beginning to feel a little like the proverbial mailman—you know, the one who, through rain and heat and gloom of night, never fails to deliver the day’s messages. Only, this time, again, I became a no-show.

What’s up with this? Blogging certainly does have its rough spots. On top of the daily challenge of conquering the battle with the blank page—writer’s block, anyone?—there are all sorts of candidates for what could ail the budding blogger. Everything from appropriate nitpickiness of correctly sourcing material to fear of reader reaction—or worse, no reader to react at all—is prepared to demonize the unsuspecting blogger.

With the time approaching one thirty in the morning when I made that unfortunate discovery about my lack of service, my only recourse in that scenario was to save my draft post in my old, trusty version of Microsoft Word and put it—and myself—to bed.

With the rising of the sun (hopefully promising a new day), the saga was not yet over. Those flashing lights on the magical black box that somehow connects me to the rest of the world online told me there was a problem with my connection. Double-checking that via that dinosaur device known as the telephone confirmed the bad news. A voice-mail-jail encounter of the interminable kind finally informed me that service would not be provided until, at the earliest, two o'clock. (Translation for you east coasters: that's dinnertime.)

Thankfully, a chance glance at those telltale lights later in the morning told me I might have a window of opportunity: it appeared my Internet server had once again gotten the problem fixed.

No matter how pleased I am to be back up and connected...again...reruns on experiences like this have given me the kind of wake up call that reminds me that nothing, including the Internet and what keeps it running, is infallible.

Perhaps there is a tendency to believe that those things that are so new and modern could not possibly be riddled with errors.

Surprise. They still can be.

Who knows—we may be seeing the same show again tomorrow night.

But by then, you’ll have gotten the routine down pat.