Walking backward through my mind...

The last two days I haven't been able to get on my blog. It was terrifying! It was especially terrifying considering that the only things I know about computers is how to turn them on and off....

For some reason, Blogger.com is run by Google. The reason I know that is that I've spent several hours trying to convince Google that I have a blog and should be allowed to use it through the back door--the door you go in to write...like I'm doing now.

I succeeded in getting a g-mail account, which I'll never use...and in filling out countless evaluations of the Google 'help' pages--which did not get sterling grades since nothing they said helped me find the back door to my blog in the least.

I figured out why it kept asking me for the blog's name and a password. The problem was, when I gave them the blogs name and the password it didn't recognize either. And there is no-one to talk to at Google. I searched high and low (sideways and upside) down for a PHONE #! Google apparently either doesn't want you calling them or doesn't use phones at all and is just one big main-frame with no real people anywhere.

But I know that's not true because Tim, Mimi's fiancee (how writing that 8 letter word thrills me!) used to work for Google and Tim's a real person. Now he works for LinkedIn which he has tried to explain to me several times to no avail.

Anyhow, how I got in this blog-less state was I was fooling with my 'history' on the line above the line that tells you what programs are open and succeeded in erasing it. I have a "Under the Caster Oil Tree' hickey on my whatever it's called that lets me go to things like Moviefone and MapQuest and the Huffington Post by clicking on them. (I can never remember the names of things you have on computers). And yes, my Under the Caster Oil Tree hickey IS misspelled but it did get me to the blog with one click. But it must have been searching my 'history' to do that, so by accidentially erasing my "history" hickey I confused my Under the Caster (sp) Do-hickey. Or something like that.

But then I walked backward in my mind to the day that Tracy Simmons (bless her soul) set up my blog at least four years ago because I was still Rector of St. John's. And I remember her telling me slowly and in words of one syllable how to 'sign on' to my blog. But then I remembered the name of the blog wasn't "Under the Castor Oil Tree" like I'm been typing for two days whenever Google asked me but "Castor Oil Tree" because Tracy wasn't sure I could remember more than three words. And then, still walking backwards in my mind, I remembered the password she chose for me because it was the name of something I'd never forget (though I had for the last two days).

Though we used to tell our kids to "walk backward through your mind" whenever they forgot something, I never really believed it worked. I just thought it was something you told kids to give them an experience of the futility and meaninglessness and randomness of life--a dose of Sartre before they could even read...and experience of the dark side of existentialism (though existentialism doesn't seem to have much of a 'bright side' when you think about it).

But "By God, It worked!" And here I am, back typing, which is something I do much better than deal with Google or remember the real names of the Hickeys and Do-Hickeys and Thing-a-ma-bob's on a computer.

You're not rid of me yet, Beloved. I'll be typing more stuff than you'll want to read! Depend on it!

(Merry Eve of the last Sunday of Advent....)