Just One More Story

Posted by Jan Ross on November 13, 2011

There it was.

The eye glaze.

The hidden watch glance, the almost imperceptible sigh, the shifting in the seat, the beginning of the polite dismissal.

I was going into way too much detail again in my travel story-telling. But the waterfall/food/sunset/sail had been so wonderful! I had to tell every, single, tiny detail. Every.one.

Whether they wanted to hear it or not.

For years, there was audio storytelling. Family, friends, strangers in line – glancing at my shirt purchased at an exotic location oh have you been there yes, let me tell you allabouteverything in excruciating detail quickly before you can escape – most were very patient, some were actually quite interested. Perhaps in not quite that much detail, but interested.

Then the Internet came along.

Why, yes. Yes, I am approximately 5,391 years old.

The sound of a dial-up modem?

Yes. I knew it well.

I dove into the Internet with the zeal of a religious convert being baptized in a hidden creek and quickly mastered the art of web design, creating web pages for my school and my library media center, adding an online curriculum, being invited to speak at international conferences and then, when planning an Alaskan cruise I realized.

I could write about my travels on the Internet.

Blogs had not been invented yet.

Yes. 5,391 years old.

So I created web pages about my trip and had friends and family members following along as I created web pages, photos and stories about our trip as we traveled. The wonder! I spent way too many hours and way too much money on an Internet connection on the ship so I could tell about what we were doing.

Then came blogging and a personal blog, a blog for the newspaper and finally picture me slapping my forehead and a light bulb coming on over my head a travel blog.

Now I can write about those details, every single one of them. I can share the zeal, the enthusiasm, the excitement of a trip in great detail. With photos and links and even more details.

And nobody’s eyes glaze over.

Or at least.

I can’t see them if they do.