My Freshly Pressed Fifteen Minutes

So for five days, my smartphone has almost constantly displayed the little blue WordPress app icon at the top of the home screen. Notification that somebody is either following my blog, liking one of my blog posts and/or leaving a comment.  This is not my normal. This is heady stuff.

This, I realize, is probably as close as I’m going to come to my Warhol Fifteen Minutes of Fame.

I was Freshly Pressed last week.

Am I the only one who feels the guilt of baskets of wrinkled clothes awaiting ironing piling up for weeks on end when I see the phrase “Freshly Pressed”?  I really hope so…  Or – much better thought – about buying a bottle of champagne and making mimosas?  Maybe several bottles.

I got the email last week from one of the WordPress editors.  She said she had selected one of my posts to be Freshly Pressed.  She said many nice things.  Amazingly all without any sort of promise of compensation by me at a later date!  The comment that I liked best was that my writing was “off-kilter in just the best way.”  Welcome to my world…

It feels strange having followers.  I write this blog for myself.   As I told my new bff WordPress editor, for me, it’s enough to just get it “out there”.  I needed a cheaper alternative to psychotherapy.

The fact that it might also be entertaining to some individuals of questionable taste is a serious bonus.

I am not a natural writer.  My grade school, high school and college English grades will support me on this.  Possibly my kindergarden grades as well.  Oh, I did do some writing during the many years I was an IT business analyst for an insurance company.  You can only imagine – if you stay awake long enough – how fascinating my memos and emails to vendors, internal customers and programmers must have been.

For a few anxious moments in the past few days, I worried if I was up to having – gasp – nearly 200 followers.  For many of you, I know this is a modest number.  To me it’s like having 20,000 followers.  A huge number to somebody who didn’t anticipate any.

Will future posts be as delightfully charming and witty?  Will I continue to be able to entertain and amuse my devotees?  That’s sarcasm in case you didn’t recognize it…  Can I maintain being “off-kilter in just the best way”?  Can I live up to the lovely compliments that so many people have offered?  That’s not sarcasm.

Like so much of life, I have to say I have no idea.  As I get older, I’m far more comfortable than I used to be with having more questions than answers.  Actually, it’s almost a relief not to have answers.  It seems to leave more space for possibility.

So I’m just going to continue to reflect on the absurdities of aging in our youth obsessed culture and the increasing madness of a world gone catawhampus.  All in my “off-kilter” way.

Senior citizen gone wild. For fifteen minutes.

Pass the Mardi Gras beads, the mimosas and Campbell Soup!