Tuesday, September 05, 2017

Oh shit


I'm actually an inordinately shy person.  Ask my oldest friends; if they're being honest, they'll tell you what a recluse I am, left to my own devices.  Were it not for my wife, whom I met in high school, I'd probably have long ago vanished behind a shield of invisibility woven by my reluctance to be known for who I am.

And of all the things I've ever written here, some of which I'm rather proud of when I look back on them, my anger over Harvey is what's going viral.*

Damn.  No, seriously.  Damn.  Anything I say about it will sound like false regrets or fake concern or a tacit disavowal, or even false modesty.  No, I wrote it, I own it; but shit.

I really do hate attention.  As long as all it brings is people following links to that post, it'll be fine.  Maybe.  We'll see.

I just don't want to be known as the "angry guy."  Although, considering my usual behavior, I've probably earned that reputation, too.  Hell, I don't want to be "known" at all.  You can know me when I'm dead; it won't concern me then.

I only mention this because if this gets any more popular, you won't hear from me until the attention is over.  Really, I gotta tell somebody:  "viral" is my worst nightmare.

*probably a gracious exaggeration rather than a proper description.  I'm looking at my stats on blogger, and "viral" is not what I'd call it.  Actually, I hope I don't have to ever call it that.

4 comments:

  1. A lot of less worthy things go viral. Look at what Google is doodling about today.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rmj, I confess I may have contributed to the popularity of your post by sharing the link on Facebook with my friends there. I'm sorry if I was out of order. I shared because I thought yours was a most excellent post and very much to the point.

    I still haven't recovered from Katrina and the federal flood in New Orleans, and I don't even live there. The place where I grew up and lived till my mid-20s will always be dear to me. My anguish about Texas is quite real because I saw the wreckage in NO first hand, and Texas is the same, but on a larger scale.

    The First Draft bloggers organized a group to gut a house in NO under the auspices of the now defunct Acorn group (Thanks, to the perfidy of James O'Keefe), so I know what it's like to strip a house ruined by floodwaters. It's filthy work, but the house is now rebuilt, and a family lives there.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nobody's at fault, least of all you, June. And "viral" is a loose definition. Last I looked the post was in the low four figures; very high for me, but "viral" to me means at least 5 figures of viewership.

    If it hits that, I'm going into Witness Protection.

    ReplyDelete
  4. In my defense, it was a public post. :-)

    "If it hits that, I'm going into Witness Protection."

    Yeah, but who's gonna protect you?

    ReplyDelete