Come closer and I’ll confess something and share a piece of me that is less than flattering.

Sometimes I can be a snob.

That side doesn’t come out often and when it does it is generally attached to one thing, vocabulary.

I get a little crazy when people try to populate a discussion with big words that they clearly do not understand.

It is not my finest trait but it is mine and I own it.

I try to make a point not to let it serve as my sole judge of who a person is, but sometimes it is almost all I have got.

Have You Been Defenestrated Lately?

That quote above is awesome and a significant part of why I write and will always do so and it ties in nicely with our topic.

Defenestrate is one of my favorite words and it is not uncommon for me to work it into conversation.

de·fen·es·trate
dēˈfenəˌstrāt/
verb
1.
rare
throw (someone) out of a window.
“she had made up her mind that the woman had been defenestrated, although the official verdict had been suicide”
2.
informal
remove or dismiss (someone) from a position of power or authority.
“the overwhelming view is that he should be defenestrated before the next election”

You might wonder if I have actually defenestrated anyone and the answer is why yes, I have.

Way back in days of yore when I was a silly college lad we engaged in all sorts of crazy antics, some of them included defenestrating people but only from a first floor window.

They even managed to defenestrate me but being someone with foresight I had already placed a mattress under the window.

*******

Given the current election cycle, I have probably talked about defenestrating people more than 1,983,322 times.

Hell, I used it today when my computer overheated, but I didn’t actually defenestrate my computer or people.

But let’s circle back to my confession and my snobby attitude towards how some people misuse words.

You might ask if I am some kind of grammar nazi let me assure you I am not.

I am a rule breaker and a color outside the lines kind of man.

Sometimes I double space after periods and laugh about doing so, but I won’t populate my external dialogue with a series of words I read in a dictionary because I am trying to impress people.

I ain’t no lexicon peacock.

I am just an average Joe who loves words and feels better when my message is easily understood.

Misuse of words isn’t a criminal offense, but it does lead to misunderstanding and I prefer to avoid those.

I’ll readily confess that when Google accused me of being a whore I thought about shutting this place down.

The accusation pissed me off because this place has never been about selling out ads, sponsorships or trying to turn it into my primary source of income.

Well, that is not entirely true, I have had hopes it would lead to a monster book deal or that some patron of the arts decided they would pay old Jack Steiner to do nothing but write all day long.

But there was never a focus on trying to convince every brand out there to let me promote their products for them.

Anyhoo, the idea behind shutting down was to tell Google STFU and remember to try not to be evil but the reality is they wouldn’t have noticed if I was gone.

It would have been meaningless and I would have been just one more blogger who hung up their keyboard.

Why You Can’t Shut Your Blog Down

I couldn’t shut this down because I hate the idea of losing chunks of history.

Posts like My Daughter’s Favorite Book, I Had A Dream and The Search For Absolution are just a few of those that have meaning for me.

It would be a shame to lose them and something I would regret doing and given I teach my children not to make big decisions when angry it would be hypocritical for me to ignore my own advice.

Blogging is harder for me than it used to be and I can’t figure out why.

Can’t decide if it is because the engagement is lower than ever or if I am pulled in too many different directions.

It is not because it is hard to write because the words come when I call and given the right mood I can pump out 10,000 words in a hurry.

Might be that I am not convinced the quality is living up to the standard I want or maybe it is all of these things.

Regardless of it being tougher than it once was, I am still having fun and that is a significant part of why I won’t board it up and shut it down.

But there is no doubt the primary reason is there is too much life tied up and invested in this place.

It is my personal Hall of Records and the place I sometimes use as my Fortress Of Solitude.

And it is worth mentioning I have always thought I need to put in at least 20-25 years before I can truly think of giving it up.

Since I am more than halfway to 25 it is not inconceivable (and I do know what that word means) that I might just go for it and see what happens.

Got something like 10,000 posts now, no reason not to double or quadruple it.

Stick around and lets see what happens/

My good friend Doc Google sent me a Dear John Letter today that left me scratching my head.

I looked at the words below and wondered how it happened. after all of the love we have shared, all of the good times and the life we have built together

After all of the love we have shared, all of the good times and the life we have built together you send me a note accusing me of having engaged in some unnatural torrid love affair.

Unnatural outbound links from http://www.thejackb.com/ violate Google Webmaster Guidelines

Dear Google,

You break my heart with the lack of trust and frankly the lack of evidence or proof here.

To the best of my knowledge I haven’t been running around with any of those trampy, skanky or slutty links.

Granted I have been known to frequent some of the less savory parts of the net but I did it for science, for research and for art.

I am a writer and a man in search of good stories to share.

If you are going to accuse me of these things at least tell me what you think I did wrong and with who.

I can’t read your mind.

When Google Accuses Bloggers Of Having Affairs

Google, I’d tell you to relax and say you suggest you tone down the hysteria but I can’t get you to take my calls, respond to my texts or even get coffee.

Our friends say it is because you’re concerned we’ll just end up in bed and you’ll forget to be angry with me but I can’t accept that.

Can’t accept it because I don’t know why you are angry and I am not sure if you need to be. I think there must be a misunderstanding.

Remember that night you heard me singing “I have loved you like a baby?”

That is a line from Seven Bridges Road by The Eagles.

I wasn’t talking to anyone, I was just singing along with the guys.

Sure, my voice sucks and it is a joke to think I can harmonize with others but that is not a reason to break up with me.

What Can I Do?

Google, after all these years you ought to know I try hard to make you happy. I am not condescending or patronizing

I am not condescending or patronizing. I don’t just listen to you speak, I hear you. I do my best to anticipate your needs but if there is a problem I can’t fix it without your help.

Can’t make things better if I don’t know more details about what you are upset about and why.

If you really don’t care about having a future and have reached that place where nothing I say or do matters, you need to tell me.

But I don’t think we are there yet and I am willing to work on things to try to fix it.

All I ask is that you meet me half way and give me some more details so that I can do something about this.

C’mon baby, give me something and I’ll whisper those soft HTML commands you so love to hear.

Signed with all of my love and a bit of confusion,

Jack

There is something about The Ecstasy Of Gold from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly soundtrack that touches me.

Today it set off an echo of thoughts and ideas in my head that reminds me about a place in my heart I locked up a while ago.

These thoughts pinballing around my head have caused some ideas to shake loose and fall off of the shelves where I had placed them.

The time has come to dust them off and do more than say I’ll tend to them one day.

They live in gardens that have been forgotten and are overgrown with weeds and things that obscure the beauty inside.

Write With Your Heart

I haven’t done a good job of writing with my heart for a while now.

Haven’t followed the rules of the blog by sharing the deep, dark and personal stuff the way I used to do it.

Sure you can say I have been busy and distracted and that this is why I haven’t but it is not entirely true.

I got tired of feeling like I was getting beat up and beat down about a variety of things so I just stopped writing about them.

You might ask if that means I didn’t follow through with my mantra to live your dreams and not dream you life and the answer would be no.

I never gave up on it, but I did stop writing about some of it.

Stopped putting pen to paper or hand to keyboard because of that aforementioned beating.

That twenty-something I used to be long ago would have never done that. He would have screamed at the world that he could take whatever was dished out and then proved it by taking it.

I can still take whatever comes but I no longer need to prove it to anyone so I figured it was time for a different approach.

But I made a mistake by not writing the same way, made a mistake by pulling back farther than I should have.

Time to get drunk on writing again and dive back into the stories I used to write. That sentence would read better if it was “The Stories I Write.”

It is time to write with the heart again.