Distractions, boredom and a new URL

It’s been almost two years since I moved from Belfast, Maine to Houston. During this period I have spent most of my time trying to become acclimated to my new surroundings. When you come to live in a city so expansive in its geography, it’s kind of hard to figure out where in Houston you want to be. There’s the Heights, Montrose, the Galleria, Downtown, the Medical Center, the Museum District, and the list goes on. Each area mentioned is large enough in size and population to be its own city. And if you were to isolate the Medical Center by itself, you would have the ninth largest city in the United States.

Needless to say, getting lost in Houston is very easy to do. But I’ve gotten to where I now have a general sense of what direction I’m going in whereas before I couldn’t tell east from west or north from south.

The distraction of trying to become comfortable with a new job and a new place to live unfortunately doesn’t contribute to getting much writing done. But I’ve become comfortable in my new apartment, and have a screen to my sliding glass door that lets in a good supply of fresh air. I hung a three foot long wind chime just above my patio door that creates the perfect background noise for reading a book, or for sitting down to write.

While lost in distraction these past few years, I’ve spent more time watching TV than I normally would. Becomes a habit that’s hard to break sometimes. But I can only take so much mindless absorption before I’m completely bored. A couple of weeks ago I decided to turn off the television and become reacquainted with my thoughts.

First thing I thought I’d do was dust off my blogsite and bring it up to date. That’s when I learned Blogger made a switch in its formatting, and as such, I couldn’t log into my site. Tried everything I could think of and spent hours trying out different suggestions I found by researching the internet. Even sent Blogger a couple of nasty emails to which I have yet to receive a response. Finally I gave up and recreated my blog by switching to a new URL.

Unburned Pieces of the Mind still shows up under http://dog1net.blogspot.com/. However, I can’t post to it anymore. So I copied the source code and recreated my blog that now uses the following URL: http://www.slcunningham.com. The next hurdle to overcome is with getting everyone linked to my old site to hitch up to my new site. Why Blogger had to make something relatively simple and easy to use so extremely difficult and frustrating is beyond me.

Anyway, getting late. We had a good line storm that came through this morning with lots of rain, lightening and thunder. It’s a little on the cool side tonight but the sky is a dark cobalt blue . Think I’ll grab a Linda Ronstadt cd and take a drive through downtown. On a night like this, all the buildings will be perfectly lit up against the sky. After driving down Smith Street, I’ll head over to the Pie House on Kirby and sit myself down to a cup of coffee and a big slice of egg-custard pie.

By S. L. Cunningham