Not that it matters. I’m under the impression that there over 3,000,000,000 blogs on the web and one million more spring up each day. Of those, probably one thousand of them are worth reading, to me, and I will probably never find them. I made the numbers up, but you get the point.

And here I sit. I could have been a contender, but that would have involved me caring about the hits and the numbers and doing the side show act to draw attention and somehow that all reeks of work and ambition. And in the end I would have been “Whack –a-mole’d” anyway, because I’ll never be part of the mainstream anything. When I get too close to the herd I panic and flee, fearing I’ll be swallowed up by the general mediocrity.

If you’ve read this far you will have realized I have nothing to say of any relevance. Again. That makes 2,999,999,999 of us. Yet I keep typing, like one of those assholes at party that corners you and keeps talking and talking about his fucking angina or whatever. And that’s another thing. I have come to dislike parties. In the old days when I was single I had a reason to be at a party. I was there to work the room. Nowadays, I know who I’m going home with so I’m stuck with the shitty part of the party. The small talk.

It wouldn’t be so bad if people were more interesting and told tales of adventure, but I just don’t give a shit about the Atkins diet or Everwood, or whatever else is sapping the life blood from most people. I don’t want to hear people talking unless they have something interesting to say. Like they accidentally ate a caterpillar or something. People don’t have to be secret agents to be interesting, but most people live in a soft, wet bubble of banality. Lot’s of interesting things happen inside the bubble but they refuse to notice. They don’t have the eye or the imagination to polish up a mundane episode or anecdote and relate it with any gusto.

I’d love to be at a party one day and have a guy say to me, “I’m Phil, and I just wrote a book on the migration of American Indians in the 15th century.” That would interest me and I would engage Phil in conversation, but that’s not likely to happen in the circles in which I travel. I would be just as happy to have a guy say to me, “I’m Phil, and I just stocked my above ground pool with rainbow trout.” That works for me.

Unfortunately, what I usually get is, “I’m Phil, and I’m getting over a nasty cold.” Or, “I’m Phil…did you see the cover of the new TV Guide?”

And if given the chance, Phil will bring you down with him. His banality will eat away at you until you can get away from him, only to be cornered by another robot with tales of his high school track and field accomplishments back in 1980. It’s a slow, painful death.

Now is the point in a post where I count up the words, 517 to this point, and think about slashing 250 of them. I’ll look it over to see if it rambles (yes), look at the pacing (which is dreadful in this case) and look to see if I’ve jumped from topic to topic with no theme and no direction. This is where I would start the re-write or trash the entire post. I might pick one small phrase, for instance, “Like they accidentally ate a caterpillar or something,” and write a new post around that one line and send this one to hell. But not today.

Today I’m going to post this just as it came out, with no re-write, no pacing and no theme. If you’ve read this far I commend you and I apologize in advance, because I’m dedicating this to Phil, the guy who cornered me last Saturday night to talk about his fucking plan to landscape his yard this year. When I walked, he walked. There was no getting away from Phil. He waited OUTSIDE THE BATHROOM DOOR while I peed so he could continue to tell me about his future koi pond.

He’ll never know how close he was to a full on, Sonny Corleone beating.