Evelyn, This One's for You!

I suppose I should start with a little bit of history on how I got here and where I think I'm going.

I love to write. I love to talk even more than I love to write. Aunt Blanche told me once that they couldn't send me to kindergarten on time because although I could talk like nobody's business, walking wasn't my forté. The walking part was a joke - I think.

Let's start with the lady in the subject line.

I met up with Evelyn Buck a couple of years ago at Halloween. At first glance, she's your typical 'elderly lady neighbour'- she lives in a house down the street from mine. At Halloween she was handing out your typical individually packaged chocolate bars - but she had also made some ginger cookies to share. I told her that the neighbourhood children were likely putting these cookies in their trick or treat bags, only to have them thrown out by Mom and Dad during "Candy Inspection". At the time she was sitting in a darkened corner of her front porch, armed with a cane, and flanked by an ominous animatronic skeleton. She's got a thick scottish accent, and a deep chortling laugh. Evelyn suggested that I eat one of her cookies myself if I was worried about feeding one to my son.

I did. I'm still here to talk about it - so the questionable cookies obviously weren't laced with anything sinister - just some good, old fashioned, neighbourhood friendliness. I went back last Halloween for another cookie, or three or four!

I ended up contacting Evelyn via email with a question I had about some street signs, and we struck up a 'cyber-friendship' of sorts. She mentioned that she was having a website created for her election campaign this term - and that she was experiencing some technical difficulties with her computer.

I will sheepishly admit that although politics has always interested me - it wasn't until I became a property-owner and thus a tax-payer that I thought I'd best pay attention to where my money was going. I volunteered to check out Evelyn's computer and see what the problem was, and hoped to gleam a little bit of political information out of her as well.

Talk about removing one's finger from the dyke and flooding the city! She's definitely not your typical 'elderly lady neighbour' - that's just a disguise.

You can read about Evelyn's history on her own website at www.evelynbuck.com - but suffice it to say that she's got more political experience than Carter's has liver pills! She's been involved in the politics of the town of Aurora for many moons, and has a solid understanding of how it should work and how it shouldn't work. I'm appreciative of the fact that she makes educated decisions. Who can argue with that rationale?

I wasn't able to solve her computer issue, but we quickly moved on to bigger and better things. We made some changes to her website and discovered that with my computer 'skills' (she calls them skills, I call them 'flying by the seat of my pants') and her willingness to share, that we make a great team. She cottoned on to the idea of blogging, and a whole new chapter of my life was born.

Geekish? Yes. Nerdy? Perhaps. Intellectually stimulating? Fun? ABSO-FRICKIN-LUTELY! Could I give up my day job to do this? Probably not. I like to keep one foot in the door where the money is. But this is..... I can't even finish the sentence, because this is so many things. Empowering. Fun. Creative. Fun. Stimulating. Have I mentioned fun?

I've learned more about HTML and the internet in the last three months than I believe I ever could through taking a course. The internet is a marvellous tool for teaching yourself new things.

Evelyn and I have shared many late night (nearly ALL-night, one night in early December) conversations, a few bottles of wine, a zillion ideas, and now we share a fast friendship.

The way it works lately is that Evelyn will send me what she wants posted to her blog, and I tidy it up a bit, and post it. The thoughts are her own - I'm encouraged to comment - which I do, but if I disagree, we talk about why she's right and then I post what she wants. It's her blog, afterall. I'm just the administrative monkey.

This morning Evelyn emailed me:

"I still think you should be writing your own blog."

I think maybe she's right. I find that lately I'm waking up in the night thinking "We should write this", or "I wonder what she thinks about this". Now's my chance to express my own opinions and to share them with the world.

It really is empowering, being able to just say whatever I want to, with the understanding that someone might read it. On that same note, nobody might read it. I'm compelled to write it anyway.

So there you have it. That's why I'm here. I don't know yet where I'm going, but I'm convinced that I'll get there. This one's for you, Evelyn!