Did as I Was Told

Date: March 27, 2021 ...

I was told, on several occasions, by family and friends, to start my own blog.  I suspect it might have been to get me away from the various texting channels, say Slack or Hangouts or simply email, in which I lavished on them my life observations.  Makes sense.  So I will.

I'm not sure what I'm going to write about.  But I am pretty sure that I can always find something to think about, even put it in words.  Then, perhaps, I can find and choose enough observations, stories and anecdotes that, when put together well enough, others could find fun to read.  Maybe they'll even respond. Yay!  My life could have meaning again.

 I chose the blog's name to be Martin's Almanack (martinsalmanack.blogspot.com) because "Almanack" somewhat describes what I want the blog to contain: a whole bunch of observations, stories and facts about the world around us, both current and historical, both specific and generic, sometimes short and sometimes more in depth.  That's what I'm interested in and maybe you will, too.

But, for now, let's keep it short and just settle for some Emily Dickinson:

It's all I have to bring today
This, and my heart beside
This, and my heart, and all the fields
And all the meadows wide
Be sure you count—should I forget
Some one the sum could tell
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell. 🔗

Side note: (this is a subsequent edit): since this page was written, I changed the spelling in the name/address of the blog from almanac to almanack.  Both spellings are correct.  The "ack" variant may be older and was more popular in the past, while the "ac" variant is the one that is the most common today.  This was done for technical reasons (= I screwed up a few details setting up the blog and had to reset it and then screwed up that process, too 😓).  However, now I sort-of like the archaic feel of the "ck" spelling, so perhaps I'll keep it... 😃

Note: I also liked and considered the almanach spelling, which, according to some sources, is an acceptable spelling, even in English, albeit exceedingly rare.  Or maybe not.  Eventually, I rejected it because this is the normal, common spelling of  "almanac" in French (and other languages), so people would probably understand it simply as a wrong spelling and not  the crafty allusion I would be trying to make, to the Medieval Latin origin of the word (which itself might have come from the Arabic al-manākh).

 

 

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