Sound-blocking headphones will do fine, thank you.

The music in the restaurant was horrible. Take the worst pimba (corny Portuguese popular music, for the foreigners reading this) and play it as loud as you can with a disco beat thumping in the subwoofers. That was what was being served to us as the side dish and I wished for silence.

Fast-forward a couple of hours. The last train would be arriving at the station soon and I needed to be on it. It was drizzling, not enough to feel the drops, but just to be on the safe side I took cover in a stall in the station. While there, a group of six or seven young men come in. It's the usual Saturday night crowd at Santos: around twenty years old, jeans, sweatshirts, a hoodie here and there. A swagger in their walk that says "We're young, we're together and we're having fun". They sit on the other side of the stall.

As I wait for the train, something is amiss. Nothing's changed. The place is as quiet as it was before the group entered. Where were the usual loud and excited conversations of youth? A look at them explains it all. The conversations were there, all right, and they were certainly full of energy. I just didn't hear them because no words were spoken. All seven of them were happily gesturing with their arms in sign language.

They were deaf. That put my wish for silence in perspective.

Just don't bring up her Sarah Palin impersonation

In case you're wondering, I'm still alive.

Actually, the chances of you wondering that are very slim, either because you are not pessimistic or because you hear from me using other media, so let me start over:

In case you're wondering, this blog is still alive. The fact that nothing has been posted in almost a month is simply due to nothing happened in almost a month that would be worthy of a mention here.

Some things did happen that were not routine. I met my current boss's previous boss, who was as cool as I expected. There was a pretty fun party at the institute where I had a discussion that started with "I stopped listening to new music after the The Wall because there was nothing new left to be said" and got better with every turn it took (and it took lots and lots of turns). I gave a half hour presentation to first-year Master students that lasted for an hour and a half. Just a few hours ago I listened to Lynn Margulis talk. Plus other stuff that I can't remember right now, not to mention national and international events that could be commented upon.

So it's not a complete lack of theme that has kept me from posting; it's the lack of a theme that will inspire me to put fingers to the keyboard and hammer out a coherent and pleasing text. I guess I could write about Tina Fey's witty humour, and nerdy good looks, but I don't want to trade dignity for inspiration yet.

On the nature of blogging

I had planned on using the second post to tell you some facts about me. You know, the kind of anecdotes that, while not giving any real information, would convey some sketches of my personality. That is postponed for the moment. Instead, you get my thoughts on blogging.

This change of plans was brought by an unexpected visit to the blog (if you’re wondering whether I mean you in particular, I don’t). Someone who I hadn’t considered as a potential reader commented to me about my new blog. I was dumbfounded. This was not my intended audience.

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. Anyone with a computer and some kind of connection can come here and read everything I have written. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t cherry pick who reads what. This is stupidly obvious, but it didn’t sink in until this happened, leaving me feeling a bit exposed and wondering about what that meant to what I planned to write here.

There were two situations that concerned me. The first was that some complete stranger would read me. This must have been a side-effect of a healthy ego: the overwhelming majority of people out there couldn’t care less about my blog and me and, in the odd chance that they do, I don’t care about what they think of it.

The other problem would be that people who I know, but who I wasn’t aware knew about this place, came here. After thinking it over, I realized this was a moot point. This is the internet, after all. I’m not having a private conversation; I’m standing on a room filled with people shouting at the top of my lungs. I wouldn’t be sharing anything that I would want to keep secret from the world to begin with.

So now, with this deep thinking about the nature of blogging and my feelings about it out of the way, let’s see what comes next.

Something akin to a preface

I've been thinking: I've got lots of work to do, I barely have time to keep my social life going and I don't think this will get better in the near future. Why not go all-in and add another way to spend time in the form of a blog? Thus this website was born. If I tried to rationalize my decision, I might say that the idea has been on my mind for quite a while and that some thoughts bouncing on my head could have ended up as blog posts if only I had a place to put them. As an added bonus, chances are that I'll be moving out of the country in a few months, so if I create the blog now I avoid the cliché of the emigrant who creates a blog to keep in touch.

Now, if you are reading this, odds are that you know me personally and you're wondering why I'm writing in English. There are two answers for that. The first is that not everyone that I know and would like to visit this place speaks Portuguese. The second is that most of the time I don't like what I write in my mother language. It gets too long-winded, too pretentious. Maybe it's not much better in English, but at least I don't notice it. I'm not ruling out completely writing a few posts in Portuguese, but they will be the minority.

A note on content: I have no idea what it will be. Probably things about me. Musings, mainly. Thoughts that can't be expressed in the hundred and forty characters or less that Twitter gives me. Rants. Me. The occasional Radiohead-induced post dripping with overblown melancholy. Happy news that I want to share. Myself. Careful analysis of world events. The ups and downs of my work. I. A blog is a place where egotism reigns supreme, after all, and this theme will give me an idea for a name.

As for when I will post... Monthly, hourly, daily or twice a year. You know, the usual for a blog: whatever strikes its owner's fancy, whenever it strikes.

Until the next time, whenever that is.