One-Liner Wednesday: Well, If Nothing Else I’m Truthful & Consistent

/ Ally Bean

This is trippy.

I was on Twitter reading some comments when I thought I recognized a handle from someone who’d had a blog back around 2007.

It wasn’t the same person, but it got me thinking about bloggers who were part of my daily life 12-15 years ago, so I started looking for these long-lost bloggers.

Most of their blogs were either deleted or abandoned.

However for the heck of it on one of the abandoned blogs, Chasing Daisy, I stopped to read a post, then I clicked on the comments.

There in the comment section was a comment I wrote over 12 years ago.

It’s a comment gleaned from my own personal experiences in which I talk about how people can bug you.  It’s a comment that I believe still rings true.  Yep, I said it then and I say it now:

“Just when you think that they can’t get any dumber, they do.” 

~ ~ • ~ ~

This is the brainchild of Linda G. Hill. Click on the badge to learn more & to connect with other bloggers who are doing #1LinerWeds this week.

124 thoughts on “One-Liner Wednesday: Well, If Nothing Else I’m Truthful & Consistent”

  2. Hah! Love this. Yeah, I wonder about those early days bloggers I used to enjoy reading. Some of the platforms they wrote on are gone now and I don’t even remember what they were called. I think one was a Microsoft product? There was a (lapsed) Mormon blogger on there who was just hilarious and inspired me to start writing my own blog. I wonder what ever happened to her. I can’t even remember the name of her blog but she had a brother who blogged too, and he was called the Fat Cyclist. Why can I remember that but not her blog name??? Ah memory, letting me down, once again…

    Liked by 3 people

    • Deb, I know how you feel about only remembering a few random blogs. I don’t know the lapsed Mormon blogger nor her brother. I used to enjoy reading Chubby Mama and Drunken Slugs and shylux and Stroppy Cow. And Chasing Daisy, of course. I miss those early bloggers. We were such an open and accepting group.

      Liked by 2 people

    • Rivergirl, I had other blogs before this one, too. I wonder sometimes if any of the people who read those blogs ever found this one. You’re right, one day those readers are here, next day gone forever. Kind of bittersweet.

      Liked by 2 people

      • carlystarr, I understand how you feel. I took a year off at one point– just ended blogging forever, so I thought. Then I came back to a different, more sophisticated blogworld than the one I left. It took a while to find my place in this new one. No doubt you’ll find your groove [again] soon enough.

        Liked by 1 person

    • evil, good question. If you follow the link in my post it’ll take you to the very post on which I left this comment. That post is sharing an overheard conversation in which a cashier has to explain to a customer that the “YES” button on the credit card machine means *yes* 🙄

      Liked by 1 person

  6. Just the other day I was thinking about some long lost bloggers and wondering what they’re up to these days. Some of the blogs have been taken down while a few were still up, but nothing had been posted in years…it’s kind of sad.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Jill, it was a bittersweet stroll for me to go down this particular memory lane. I’ve been blogging since 2004 so I’ve read LOTS of wonderful blogs. And so many are now just gone… with no explanation of why or where they went. 😕

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  7. I too often think about the blogs I read back in the early 2000s. I started my first blog when I was pregnant with my youngest son and he is now 11. At that time, I felt very connected to my followers and it was a different feel to blogging.

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    • teacherturnedmommy, I agree. Back when blogging was new, it was so much fun to casually check-in with your bloggy friends to see what they were up to. There were no *how-to be a blogger* guides, we just did it, stumbling forward and laughing along the way. I like my current blog and readers, but it is a different blogosphere now. More structured, more demanding.

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      • you hit the nail on the head. my old blog posts were just a conversation about life, now I sit at my computer at times and think too much about what to say and how to say it.

        Liked by 3 people

        • Yes, I do the same thing. Expectations are higher now. What I used to write for my old blog now would be considered a tweet or a silly meme. I like challenging myself to do better as a writer, so I enjoy blogging as it is now… but it’s more work than it once was.

          Liked by 1 person

      • It’s sad when a blogger you once followed disappears and you don’t know why. I’ve had six blogs over the past 20 years and four are still there. Once a year I try to leave a note on them so the platform they are on doesn’t delete them and to direct the lone soul who might be actually be wondering where I went how to find my current blog.

        Liked by 3 people

        • Oh Jean, that’s so kind of you to do that. I deleted my old blogs after about a year of me explaining where I went. I know that if you go to the Wayback Machine, a search engine for internet archives, you can sometimes find an old blog/blogger. I didn’t do that here because that seemed too sad to me. Good-bye is good-bye, I guess.

          Liked by 1 person

    • Laurie, I know exactly how you feel. When I spotted my name in the comments under this long ago post, I shuddered wondering what I’d said. But in this case, I was spot on then, spot on now. Lucked out, I did.

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  9. There are a few bloggers who I do wonder about. And commenters. After a while, when other platforms came on, like Twitter, FB, and Instagram (but most especially FB), lots of people left blogging. It was too time-consuming. The other platforms are quicker–easy in, easy out.

    I like the slow unwinding of blogging. The time and space to really say something.

    Liked by 2 people

    • nance, you know I agree with you. Blogging has a depth and passion to it that FB et al can never approach. FB is more about reactions [emotions] & stirring the pot than processing + understanding your life. There’s a place in this world for both [I guess] but like you said: I like the slow unwinding of blogging. The time and space to really say something.

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    • nancy, I have no answer, but you’re onto something. People do *seem* less intelligent every year. Is that me getting older and wiser or them getting duller?

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      • A few quotes for you to savor about stupid people:

        “If he were any more stupid, he’d have to be watered twice a week.”

        “If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you’d get change.”

        “If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean.”

        “It’s hard to believe he beat out 1,000,000 other sperm.”

        “One neuron short of a synapse.”

        “Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; he only gargled.”

        “Takes him 2 hours to watch ’60-minutes’.”

        “The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.”

        Liked by 3 people

          • Tough call. On the one hand, I wouldn’t like to lose any of my smarts. On the other hand, people’s expectations would drop.

            BTW: I finally updated my Blog List on SLTW to include you and 7 others. Procrastination = my keynote!

            Liked by 1 person

  13. Great line and proof some things never change
    Recently I started looking up some old bloggers who are MIA.It’s nice when they leave some sort of closing post, but most just wander off. Some whom you “know” after connecting for some time, you do hope they are OK and doing well. Bittersweet is right.
    The blogging world is so different now – once a little neighborhood – much more “professional’ and so many businesses have appeared seemingly thinking blogs are necessary like a FB page. WP is happy to encourage that and commerce now with so many of their “new” features aimed at businesses. Gives a whole different tone/mood – less conversational? Anyway how much fun to stumble across your previous self.

    Liked by 2 people

    • philmouse, my decision to look for some bloggers who I used to know was spontaneous. I had no idea that I’d end up finding myself from years ago, nor that I’d become wistful in the process.

      I agree that blogging has changed. Like you I see it in the tone/mood of newer blogs, and I see it in blogs dedicated to just one narrow niche. While I may enjoy what that blogger has to say occasionally, I cannot keep talking about the same thing over & over again. Variety and spontaneity are what I look for in personal blogging. I suppose that preference comes from having started blogging so long ago. 🤔

      Liked by 2 people

  16. If I could remember the names of some of the blogs I followed back in the day I’d go searching, but blog names are like book and song titles – they do not linger in my brain for some reason.
    Sad, how we seem to keep getting dumber. I hope we wise up before the fall of 2020. Oh, and could we just vote now and get it over with? Two years of campaigning is two years too much.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Carol, I remembered a few of the blog names, but I take your point. There are so many blogs I’d like to find, but who knows what they were called. I remember the blogger’s stories, but not the blog names.

      I like your idea about voting now. If people don’t know already that The Donald is corrupt, compromised, and cruel, then no amount of further information is going to change that. This election will have nothing to do with politics– and everything to do with morality. So let’s get on with it.

      Liked by 2 people

    • Laura, I was amazed to find this comment and that it’s still relevant. It’s a fact, Jack. I’m pretty much the same person I was back when I started blogging, BUT I’m a better writer now and I’m much more aware of how nuanced all conversations can be. That’s what I’ve learned from blogging.

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  18. I tried to track down some bloggers that dropped off the end of the world with no success. One went to Instagram (I don’t have an account so I didn’t see her). I wished she would have posted a goodbye but then again maybe she didn’t know it when she posted her last post.

    Liked by 2 people

  20. Your wisdom definitely stands the test of time Ally. And I love the synchronicity of your checking out old blogs. Just the other day I discovered some old bookmarked folders on my laptop and one of them was a blog roll of my favorites from eons ago. I’ve slowly been working my way through them, trying to hunt down those still writing. Definitely a trip down memory lane!

    Liked by 2 people

    • Deborah, oh your trip down memory lane sounds wonderful. A list of blog names will help you find the bloggers– and that’s cool. I remembered a few blogs in the moment, but most of those names are lost in the mists of time for me.

      Liked by 2 people

  21. Yeah. #4 Daughter worked at a bookstore and would come home talking about customers who wanted a book; couldn’t remember the title or the author, but it had a yellow cover. Or they wanted some book written in a foreign language “in the original English”.

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  22. I’ve been feeling the same way–wondering about disappeared blog friends and commenters. I really feel like I establish a relationship and then without a word, they go away. I enjoy blogging, and it definitely helps me process my emotions and the events of my life.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Margaret, I know how you feel. I wonder about some of my bloggy friends, too. They either disappear or [even worse] I see them comment elsewhere and realize they’ve dropped me entirely. It’s difficult to not get your feelings hurt when you think you’ve established a friendship.

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    • L. Marie, it’s weird to think back on how former bloggers shared their joys and insights, then realize those people are gone from your life completely. I learned some great lessons, but all I can do now is thank them in my thoughts and prayers. Maybe that’s as it should be?

      Liked by 2 people

    • Joni, I’ve always known that what I put out there stays forever, and I know that I haven’t always expressed myself clearly, but it’s odd to trip over your past self so unexpectedly. Fun, too– as in this case.

      Liked by 2 people

      • True. I wasn’t even aware of blogging back then. I was mulling over what makes bloggers just completely quit. I’ve only been blogging two years now, just once a week, and several of the bloggers I followed and enjoyed, said they were taking a sabbatical and then never came back. Perhaps they thought their writing efforts were better directed towards writing a book. Or they got too busy with Real Life. Or they died in a car accident, or got a horrible diagnosis, etc. You wonder. Or maybe they realized they were too obsessed with blogging and quit cold turkey. I followed several people who blogged daily (I often wondered how they did that), and then just quit – maybe it’s like an addiction. I find once a week is a nice balance, fun but not too obsessive – at least it works for me. I have ideas for lots of posts, but only so much time to devote to here, as much as I might enjoy it. As for Dumb, well today the deck cleaning guys finally came to clean the deck (when summer is more than half over), and the owner of the company, asked me where the water tap was – well it would be right there, like, right beside the hose? I didn’t like him he gave me the quote way back in the spring, but I felt so sorry for his two workers who were nice, that they had such a boss, that I gave them some watermelon and peaches for their lunch break.

        Liked by 1 person

        • You said it with: “fun but not too obsessive.” That’s exactly how I want to maintain this blog. I’m here a once or twice a week and that’s perfect for who I am and what I do. Daily? That’d be just too much for me– or my readers. 😉

          You are a kind person to give your deck cleaners fruit for their lunch. They might not be the brightest bunch but you’ve ensured that they’re healthy!

          Liked by 1 person

          • Oh I think your readers would enjoy a DAILY blog from you Ally, but you have to have a life too! Deck Guy Owner annoyed me as he said the quote had gone up from a few years ago because minimum age was up. He was here one hour and charged me $210 plus HST, and he did it all by himself, with a pressure washer, not a bad profit. I think I was in the wrong business. I need to buy a pressure washer Now his two helpers had to work hard because they had to scrub the mildew off the siding on the north side of the house where it was a mess because of all the rain, and it was hot as hell, that’s why they got fruit. I offered snacks to all my kitchen reno workers too. I remember when I was working, sometimes the only good part of the shift was if a patient or family brought you some homemade treat. I remember having to work one Thanksgiving and a patient brought me some pumpkin pie and butter tarts. Just paying it forward….

            Liked by 1 person

            • It’s amazing how much any home maintenance project, small or large, can cost. I’m thankful that we can still do some of the projects ourselves, but not all of them, that’s for sure. *cha-ching*

              I like your pay it forward approach. It’s amazing how generosity from one stranger to the next can spread like a virus of goodness.

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  26. hahah – very funny line – and some things never change – like dumbness – ha
    also – fun to explore back and see abandoned blogs and your chiming in –
    I sometimes wonder WHAT our current WP blogs will look like in 15 years??
    also – in my mind – 2007 does not feel that long ago but then in other ways it feels so long ago (and I love when someone says they are so “2000 and late” – not sure what it means to them – – but I take it as being a little stuck in that ending part of 00 decade -)

    Liked by 2 people

  27. okay –
    so I went to the Chasing Daisies old blog and read it –

    “Customer, trying to use his debit card: I gotta push “English”? “Spanish” shouldn’t be an option. If they can’t speak no English, they ain’t got no business being here. Where’s the “yes” button at?

    Cashier: It’s the button that says “yes” on it.”

    hahah
    and it was more the bias and anger that jumped out form the example –

    Liked by 2 people

    • If memory serves, Chasing Daisy used a lot of humorous items she picked up elsewhere, like we’d RT in Twitter today. She was a supportive person who told me I needed to start a blog, in fact. Yes, she put the idea in my head, oh yes she did.

      Liked by 1 person

      • how fun that she put the idea there – and I did read the other comment where you shared how you put some thought into the blog posts (as opposed to the simpler ones back then – which as you noted were more like what folks would tweet today) anyhow, I appreciate when bloggers put a bit of thought into their posts. even if they are short and succinct – you can tell when someone has pondered a bit –

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    • Judy, you’re are right. Sometimes it’s almost beyond my comprehension as to how some people can be as clueless about logic/facts/reality as they are. Yet there they are in front of me, by cracky.

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    • Betsy, I was truly amazed by how I ended up where I did and what I found. Yes, I’m sad that so many of those early bloggers are long gone. We were a fun group, if I do say so myself.

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  30. It’s like you’re watching me! And thank all things holy you agree with me!!!!!

    *faints*

    p.s. Makes me wish I hadn’t deleted my old blogs, too, so I could look back at what peeps said!

    Liked by 1 person

  31. I remember saying to my colleagues about my students when I was teaching, “They must have taken a DUMB pill.” I’d hate to be teaching nowadays.

    These days I can write dumb things and delete them before they expose my ignorance – haha!

    Liked by 2 people

    • marian, I like your dumb pill idea. Maybe that explains it all? I know what you mean about writing dumb things then deleting them. So much easier to do that now with computers than when we used manual typewriters with carbon paper. 😑

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  32. Wow – back in 2007, blogging was nowhere on my radar and I was in a totally different head space. I was working full time and training up to 20-25 hours a week as an Ironman athlete. Things change 😏

    Liked by 3 people

    • Joanne, I can see why blogging wasn’t part of your world back then. You were busy elsewhere. Blogging back then was more like Twitter today, but the people were like the good bloggers today– smart and fun and just a little wacko. Without their support I wouldn’t be here today.

      Liked by 1 person

  34. I love your sense of humor and your tenacity! I can’t believe you found a comment from more than 12 years ago…or maybe I can.

    When I began blogging, I connected the blog to Twitter and Facebook. I have since closed my Twitter account or maybe I’m just logged out. Every once in a while, they send me an email to tell me they miss me. Isn’t that nice? Hahaha! I am logged out of FB and don’t connect my blog to it anymore. I never joined Instagram. WP is all I can handle. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • Robin, I was surprised to find my comment. I don’t remember writing it, but there is was… waiting for me.

      Twitter misses you? Oh you are a lucky duck for them to send you that email. 🙄 I’m on Twitter but I manually tweet links to this blog thereby allowing me to maintain the illusion that I’m in charge.

      I think that we all eventually find the social media that works for us– and that changes as we do. I feel comfortable here in WP so I stay.

      Liked by 1 person

  36. The year I started on WP, I also started blogging at Patch.com in my local (Wyandotte, Michigan) Patch. We had a Facebook group dedicated to nationwide Patch bloggers. We’d post our latest posts there and chit chat with one another – it was a wonderful group. Then AOL sold Patch and Hale Communications bought Patch and proceeded to reduce their staff immediately, so instead of an editor at each individual Patch, they had one person do regional groups (many states and cities). Dramatically different and our “Community Engagement Specialist” who was assigned to oversee all of us lost her job as well. We all rebelled and the group fell apart. I continue to blog there but their platform is not really conducive to lots of pictures as resizing or cropping the pics does not work out so well, so I don’t post there each time I post in WP. I got some valuable pointers while in the group from bloggers who had been at it for decades.

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    • linda, I don’t anything about Patch. I missed that entirely. I can see how as the system changed for the worse the group fell apart. I started on Blogger, went to Typepad, then moved to WP. I like it here well enough to stay, plus the thought of learning a new platform makes me tired. I like to blog to keep my brain clicking, but clicking because I’m writing not because I have to learn new html hoops to jump through. 🤨

      Liked by 1 person

      • I went to Patch, which is a hyperlocal newspaper, after my friend/neighbor who encouraged me to start this blog, suggested I write there too. She worked in nearby Wyandotte, which is kind of a cosmopolitan city as it’s right on the Detroit River and they have a lot of events which encourages their residents and those who work in that city to join together with a small-town atmosphere for parades, fireworks, and once a month they have bands, street vendors and the main street shuts down for the evening (they call it Third Friday Fun). She said “everyone who lives or works in Wyandotte reads ‘the Patch'” so I joined it. The FB group was fun and the one in charge of all the bloggers wrote me an e-mail about a month into the gig and said “might I make some suggestions to you about your blog?” I had what I thought was my own style – one paragraph (albeit a long paragraph), a one-word headline and very occasionally a picture, sometimes no picture. I used a digital camera with 4X zoom back then – if you look at my earliest posts, you’ll see a very tiny photo. I would think up the one-word title and that sometimes took a while to get it tailored to the post. She told me my posts were not visually appealing and she had checked out my actual blog site and very snarkily said “I had hoped you used a different format there.” I didn’t like her condescending attitude and was miffed. She said I should take it to heart. I said “what about my personal style which is what I had been aiming for?” She said “I’m only offering my advice – been doing this for years.” OK, so I decided to take her advice. The bloggers in the group each had their own blogs and we never critiqued one another’s post, just read them and commented and it was like here at WP, a little blogging family. Good thing it was before I started interacting with bloggers on WP in late 2017, as I’d have never kept up. Their posting format is hampered by the idiotic photo restrictions. If I can crop the picture, I’ll do it – if not, and it is necessary to make the post flow, then I won’t post there at all that day as I don’t have time to re-work the post and fiddle with each picture too. They want every word in the headline initial capped – it looks odd to me. And you have to have a subheading and your content is not screened, you just post. I don’t like learning new platforms … it was bad enough getting used to Gutenberg which I’m comfortable with now and should learn some more of its features. I spend too much time in front of a screen as it is, and Gutenberg posts may look good to e-mail subscribers and those just viewing the post on screen, but the justification, underlining and color block format or colored font is lost in Reader, so I wonder why I bother sometimes? They’ve not perfected the slideshow so Shelley has abandoned it for now as she likes doing slideshows. And she lost some content while using G initially, but she hosts her own blog so we figured that was the reason. We were troubleshooting G initially.

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        • You said my exact reason for not trying Guttenberg: “I don’t have time to re-work the post and fiddle with each picture too.” I’ve even gone so far as to tell the Happiness Wonks this, but they hedge and obfuscate not admitting that the new editor is going to be nothing but trouble for me. There’s something hinky about WP foisting Guttenberg on us. Somehow they’re going to get more out of it than we are. I certainly didn’t ask for this change yet they insist on it. 🤨

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          • And, just like I have been telling Shelley, after she abandoned it, (though she bravely ventured forth before most of us did), WP keeps tweaking how you enhance your text or photos – one day the button for aligning the text or photos is in one place, the next day the drop down menu is totally different. I’ve noticed it this past few days since I have posted more than normal. I’m frustrated by it and Windows 10 as well. I greatly resent Microsoft foisting Windows 10 on us – I saw nothing wrong with Windows 7 and understand Windows 10 is still a bit buggy. There was a virus issue just last week and they could barely patch it quickly enough. I had an epic fail with my Windows 7 laptop when a critical update messed up my disk and I lost the ability to remote into work.
            So instead of upgrading to Windows 10 smoothly, to keep a backup computer for my job, I’ll need to have it repaired at a computer shop before installing Windows 10. Sigh.

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  37. Yep, still correct. By the way, I’ve been seeing your comments around the blogosphere for years and years, which is probably why I started following you this time around… (oh and the content of your blog, of course!)

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    • Val, interesting. I remember when blogging was new thing one of the suggestions for gaining readership was to comment everywhere. The idea was people would find you after they read your comments– and I guess it worked! Thanks for telling me this, it’s made my day❣️

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  38. I think this all the time at work: “Just when you think that they can’t get any dumber, they do.” Can’t say it openly though 😉
    Some bloggers I connected with in my early days have fallen off the radar and I often wonder about them. Most left hints that blogging was a low priority for them as they became more involved in their families or careers so I don’t worry about them, just wonder and miss them. One blogger I often think and worry about has very serious health problems from Lyme Disease. I used to send her cards, but last time I wrote to her, the letter came back to me.

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  41. Hi Ally! I’m just getting caught up on my blog reading after my vacation and saw this post. It made ME wonder about all those bloggers that I used to read and whatever happened to them. Trouble is, I can’t remember many of the names. But many of the women were GREAT writers (probably way better than I am!) but for whatever reason (time, money, commitment, life?) they are no longer blogging. Meanwhile, there are others (like us?) who stick at it through thick or thin. I’ve not blogged as long as you (I first started in 2007) but I’ve only changed my name once. And I took down that old site completely so it isn’t even accessible any more. Hmmm….? Now I’m thinking I might try to hunt down some of those former bloggers just for fun! ~Kathy

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    • Kathy, I didn’t start my day intending to go looking for long ago bloggers, but once I started I kept going until I couldn’t remember anymore names. It’s a shame so many bloggers & their blogs are gone because like you said they were great writers. I had other blogs before this one, but when I ended them I deleted them completely so if anyone is looking for me I suppose I’ll never know.

      Thanks for stopping by to comment. Let me know what happens if you find anyone from way back when. Could be a great story in there.

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  42. I know what you mean about wondering where some bloggers went. Once in awhile I find an old post of mine with their gravatar or a comment they left, and try to see if they are still blogging. Sometimes yes, but most times not. Just today a favorite, who hadn’t blogged in quite some time, got back on with a new post. So you never know. 🙂

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    • Barbara, it’s odd when you realize that someone you really liked is just gone. Like that, never to be seen again. But like you said, occasionally someone comes back and it’s great.

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    • katie, once I got thinking about some of those people, I missed them. We had such silly fun back then as we stumbled around the blogosphere, learning as we went.

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