I’m learning that necessity will make us cross the personal lines we long ago established – and swore by – when shit goes sideways. In my case – it is the concept of the BLOG. The word itself strikes me as something you get sucked into and end up dying in after losing your compass while camping – and to me, the practice suggests that you are the kind of person who actually thinks that the world might care what you have to say.
(Here’s a tip for a happy and fulfilling life: the World does not care what you have to say, and you really shouldn’t need it to in order to be happy or fulfilled. And if you do need it to hear you, you are likely screwed sideways. For one, in the vast sea of humanity, neither you – nor me – is likely clever enough to come up with anything particularly insightful that anyone wants to hear. And for two – even if you can come up with a new and interesting opinion, it will be drowned out in the massive noise that is the internet, what with the meme vomiting and excess of “food porn” and out-of-context quotes from Ghandi and MLK jr. This should be something we get used to: most times, you can’t even get your friends or relatives to listen to what you say – even though you are standing right in front of them and using the same air to form human speech.)
But like I said – necessity and extreme circumstances are amazing forces for change – making you embrace things, or do things, that 48 hours before you would have sneered at or vowed never to do. Like that time during a blizzard where I gave in and actually drank a Shock Top, because there was nothing else left in the fridge.
But I surrender, and will now BLOG. Why?
Well – I’m bored.
I am currently writing from an Ikea dungeon of solitude in Evere, not far from NATO and directly under the departure path from BRU (so at least I can watch airplanes take off if I get stuck on how to phrase something.) And said Ikea dungeon is on the outskirts of the World’s Largest Exporter and Importer of Jihadi ISIS fighters – a fact which I learned all of about 5 days after arriving here. (Europe and it’s different cultures! So exciting!)
The Paris attack was 13 days ago – and those of us in the other version of France are now in Day 3 of the Great Imminent Attack on Brussels, which is something we hope to look back on and laugh at, versus directly experience while at a cafe next week. The Authorities here aren’t exactly what I would call transparent, but they keep issuing stern warnings and sending soldiers to stand outside of every major freaking intersection or building, warning us all that Salah Abdesalem (more on him later) is on the loose with a bunch of his friends, and that the risk is real. I honestly don’t doubt it – no one in power would shut down a major city just for the hell of it, not when the sales tax revenue gets cut off as well.
So Brussels is, for all intents and purposes, closed for business. Which gives this place a very weird feel: the sun is shining for the first time in days. I can see people walking around outside, and streetcars and buses running past, but I have no idea where they are going: my office is closed, the center city is shut down, and if you need to buy toilet paper right now, you are likely shit out of luck. No pun intended. Honest.
So I am bored. Hence why we are doing this BLOG thing.
If I don’t end up slowly losing interest in this activity – like I have on about ten million other personal initiatives, projects, and people – then eventually, I will try and offer the opinions of a Moderate Republican observing his Country from all the way over in Waffle Land. If I do lose interest – or this really proves to suck as a BLOG – then let’s all just pretend this didn’t ever happen, and we can go back to the much easier routine of posting smart ass commentary and pictures on Facebook (or – Le Book Du Face).
And that’s that for now. We will get on to a larger discussion of Islamic Terrorism and the Failures of European Leadership a little later – since I have violated the internal rule of BLOGGING, I might as well go all in, and pontificate at anyone who stumbles across this later. But for now – I am going to take a break – come to terms with the fact that I now have a BLOG (that word will always be capitalized from now on), and hang my head in shame that I finally gave in.
Good news is – there is one Pub still open that can help me with that.
stuckinthemiddle 