Rough Stone Rolling

It’s weird how music can put you in a certain mood. Right now Electric Light Orchestra is doing its work.

My wife woke me up at 5 this morning when she bounced into bed, giggling. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said, “So I read your blog. I hope I didn’t make too much noise laughing.” This is high praise coming from the Mrs. She and I have vastly different senses of humor, so I don’t try to pitch stuff like the blog to her. We’re not one of those couples I find on other sites who make comments like, “My husband and I are LOLing and ROFLing all over the place from what FourthNephite said in #23!!” There are couples in the ward I can see doing this. My wife and I are not one of them.

A month after launching the blog, I was surprised to see the site’s search results for the keyword “rough stone rolling” were #1 in both Google and Yahoo! My readership was light at the time, about 10-20 hits a day, but I was hoping it would climb based on the favorable search engine positions. Now, almost 4 months later, daily traffic rose to a still-humble (+/- )100 clicks a day, with a small group of return readers. However, my positions on the search engines for “rough stone rolling” have slipped considerably. In Google I’ve dipped to #6, and in Yahoo! I’ve plummeted to a dismal third position– on page 5!

But let me be clear here– I’m not in it for the hits (seriously is any Mormon blogger?). I started this because I was a scriptwriter in a previous life, and while I’m still happy with the career change, I simply missed writing– the storytelling, the getting it out of my system. I toyed with the idea of jotting stuff in a journal (I bought a nice leather-bound one) but never found just the right mood to lay down a suitable first passage. I also started writing a Mormon film script with a gentile friend, for the heck of it, but threw in the towel before the first draft was finished (it’s a great story, too - we’ll get back to it someday). Then right around the time I was called to be HPGL, my company (Yahoo! – ironic, isn’t it?) offered free web space to its employees. I thought, wow, this could be a cool way to throw thoughts out into the void, see if anyone stumbles on them, see if they think I’m a wack job. So far people have been merciful… but then, I’m not exactly Howard Stern.

Anyway, it’s fun.

But… *sigh*… right now it sucks to be me– a politically-conscious white male Mormon Republican with no one to vote for. The choices are narrowing and no one looks good anymore. I actually told my wife today if McCain continues being a jerk, I’m voting for Obama. She agreed. I like Mrs. Obama and believe it’s time we had a first lady named Michelle.

You know, the 21st century white male Mormon conservative American has to be the most unenviable demographic on the planet. Everyone hates you for something. It’s like getting slapped by your Mom out of the blue and you’re going, “What I do, Ma?? What I dooo??” You’re looking at the last human on Earth it’s politically correct to make fun of (the 21st century white female Mormon conservative American is up for grabs, too, as long as you stay away from her gender). What a turnaround from my Dad’s generation! Ward Cleaver has become a fascist racist sexist imperialist and June hyphenates her last name. At least in the bastion of Mormondom the only hyphenators are bitter sycophants on PBS documentaries.

This may be my last entry for at least a week. We’re flying to Maui Sunday morning and will be laying low here for 7 days (can you say “Friends & Family rate”?). It’s my first trip to Hawaii and I wanted to make it right. My eternal companion initially looked at Oahu and tours of the BYU Cultural Center and Pearl Harbor and the Don Ho Tiny Bubbles Museum. Panick-stricken, I quickly put the kibosh on that Frommer’s lovefest and said, “Look, all I want to do is lay around and swim and eat.” So, apparently the garden spot for that is Maui. The Mrs. is bringing her laptop, though, so I may sneak something on the site while I’m there. The one thing that might keep me from doing it is the idea that I’m in Maui… and I’m working on my blog.

So, may I just say:

E ku’u kumu e, mai hopohopo, ua kapa ‘ia ko’u inoa waena, ‘o ia ‘o Severe Turbulance!

(Baby, Severe Turbulance is my middle name.)

Aloha.