I used to keep a record of what I was up to in little pocket appointment books. My dad gave me one every Christmas for many years, and I filled up a fair number of them with summaries of my works and days in tiny mouse writing.
The surviving books live in a bureau drawer and nobody will attend much to them until and unless my fifteen minutes of fame become truly remarkable. However, when I turn the pages they evoke the rhythms and even the smells of those days very clearly, in a way that Twitter and Facebook entries do not do for me. I follow the diary entries of John Quincy Adams from 200 years ago that the Massachusetts Historical Society posts on Twitter every day, but I know these entries are just faint reminders of the diary volumes that I could go visit in the museum at Quincy, if I chose to.
I am going to try to be a more consistent blogger this year, even though my laptop does not have gilt edges or the faint smell of leather and sweat.
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