Goin' to Los Angeles...online!

Happy 2014! It has been almost seven months since I've blogged anything, and I'll tell you why...plain and simple, I took a break from writing almost anything. I have been writing for a long time, and I began to catch myself framing every experience - visual, auditory, even spiritual - like this: what would I write about that? How would I set that up on the page? Could I get others to feel what I felt/am feeling?  That is not an interesting or valuable way to go through life all the time, 100% of the time, without breaks. It becomes very self-centered, and the experience itself becomes peripheral to the dissection and what begins to feel like the marketing of the experience.

I also have another job in sales, so times is valuable. My new thing is balance in life, which for some of us is hard - we are full-tilt, sometimes crazy sons of guns. But now, after years of effort, I have learned to relax, enjoy, breathe deep, and only be crazy 75% of the time.

I wanted to rev up the blog because I am ready to write about my experiences again, which falls in line with a new column I am writing for the Los Angeles Post Examiner. They are a brand new online news site, begun after the great success of the Baltimore Post Examiner, the first online enterprise for this group of talented newspaper professionals with backgrounds at The Washington Post and the Washington Times. From my thorough review, this seems like a cool, slightly different online paper, and I am happy to be a part of it. Plus they have advertisers, which is always a good sign.

Now, I am not from L.A. I wouldn't know a Canyon Drive from a hard drive, and the only surfing I do is with this laptop I'm typing on. This is the beauty of an online job - you can be from anywhere and participate. Note: I have tried to add more "dudes" and "right on's" when emailing the editors -and  I think they are digging the vibe I am throwing down.

So, I hope you join me online and follow the column. I will do one or two political columns per week, and one humor column on the week-ends. Please share the column through Facebook or Twitter - nothing survives without support these days. If you like something, let the powers that be know, because it is a consumer-driven world, and what you value will go away of you don't lend your voice to it. Even if you disagree, share it - opposing views respectfully rendered are so important if we are ever going to get anywhere in these fragile, crazy-fast times that we live in. I will always be respectful in my work, and I will share this: I took a writing job with a very conservative online site a few months ago, and promptly quit (giving up some very nice dollars) because they were just too cutting and slanderous with their headlines: the President was slammed at every opportunity. I am not an Obama fan, but getting personal? No. Not this little lady.

So, check the column out, out and share it. The first one is here. Have a wonderful, peaceful and productive 2014, and thank you for reading the blog after a huge hiatus by yours truly!

Deirdre