I'm STILL Not Dead! (After Four Years of Blogging!)

Do you know where you were exactly four years ago?

I do. I was sitting on my couch in Buenos Aires, writing my very first "THEME FOR GREAT CITIES" blog post.

Title: "I'm Not Dead!"

Subject: The Young and the Restless star Jeanne Cooper, who had just won her very first Daytime Emmy Award -- Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series -- for her role as Katherine Chancellor. (How fitting is it that tonight, June 23, the 39th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards will be presented in Los Angeles at the Beverly Hilton Hotel?) Upon accepting the grand prize, Cooper, then 79, got onstage and announced, "I bet you thought I had died."

I'm happy to report, she hasn't yet. And neither have I.

Launching a blog was something I never thought about doing until a few days earlier when I was talking to a French artist whom I met through an Argentine ex. It was almost two years since I'd left behind my former professional life in New York City, and I hadn't written anything besides the odd email and the occasional status update on Facebook, which I had joined only a few months earlier (on February 11, 2008, to be exact). Impressed by my strong opinions and convictions about everything from music to movies to TV to books to art to sex and the city of Buenos Aires, he convinced me to leap into the world of blogging and see where it would carry me.

I figured it would be a good way to get back into the game and perhaps even learn how to write the kind of autobiographical time and place-based narrative and anecdotal non-fiction at which David Sedaris excels and perhaps I could to. I'm glad I took that leap of faith. Doing so helped me rediscover the joy of writing while giving me a forum for sharing my ideas and experiences and documenting my life. To be completely honest, though, I never expected to be still doing it four years later.

But isn't that the greatest beauty in life: the unexpected? Four years ago, if anyone had told me I'd land in Australia for more than a holiday, I would have guessed in Sydney, not in Melbourne. And Asia was not even bubbling under my bucket list of places I had to visit. Now here I am -- in Bangkok, of all places.

Who knows what the next four years will bring? Who know what today, tomorrow, next week will hold? But if I'm still not dead, one thing is certain: You'll be able to read all about it here.

Simple Minds "Theme for Great Cities"