Pluperfect

The issue which I have with The Brown Recluse is content and privacy. It began as a way to extemporize my likes, loves and politics and to maintain a prescence in the blogosphere with friends and family. Where I had close to 500 friends on Facebook before I left it several years ago I now have six 'followers' here, some faithful and some simply avatars. I tried Twitter and MySpace and regularly maintained my Friendster page when that was hip but selfishness thwarted any forward movement in those virtual cesspools.

So I looked back to its inception to witness its progression. After posting pictures of the bathroom I collaged at work, clips friends sent, the snapshots of attractive people, poetry, architecture, art and design I stumbled upon and the stories I'd written and collected (curiously edited by it's subject as if in the third person) I realized that I liked The Brown Recluse. That it was a blog that I bookmarked because I liked it. It didn't need a direction but that over the four years it has a perspective, a point of view. It's current and invective, sobering and witty, playful and moribund, and most importantly it's entertaining with loads of content both common and intimate.

When I first moved into my bungalow I got a spider bite that ultimately required medical attention. It swelled grotesquesly and I welcomed the hyperbole surrounding the type of arachnid that might have caused such infection. My index finger for days was wrapped in a poultice and I was forced to operate with my other hand. I had never been bitten by a spider before and daily would unwrap the bandage and marvel at the size of my digit and the grace of Mother Nature. Of course I went online to research which sort of spider could cause this and gave in to the insistence of everyone that only one spider could be responsible. A spider not found in my area and really the six-legged subject of urban lore.

The Brown Recluse.