Although I wasn't one of the first online journalers, I do consider myself a veteran. My first entry was on December 31, 1999, because I wanted to talk about my favorite century. Little did I know at that time how much I would grow to dislike the new century. As centuries go, the twenty-first leaves a lot to be desired. And frankly, it doesn't look to me as if it's going to get better any year soon.

For several years, I wrote an entry every day without feeling I'd run out of things to say. I chronicled my reactions to 9/11 and the days afterward. I've written about my job and my family. The job has stayed the same over these years; the family has had a lot of changes. I've written strictly philosophical entries, most of them wondering why the world can't be a better place for everyone.

At some point a couple of years back, I did feel I'd run out of new things to say. I didn't want to repeat myself, so I stopped writing every day and started writing only when I was moved to do so. Sometimes whole months went by without a new entry. I felt no guilt whatsoever about this, but I missed the interactions my journal had brought into my life.

So here I am, writing more or less daily again. I won't always have anything massively interesting to add to anyone else's life, but I can always color in some of the blank spots in my own. Every day, after all, is a new day.

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Back in the old days, when we were all new at this and the word "blog" meant something entirely different, it was frowned upon for a journaler to write what was known as a "laundry-list" entry. That's an entry that is nothing more than an accounting of what happened to that person on that day. I have no such compunctions any more. In fact, sometimes when I start to write a laundry list, it takes me somewhere totally different from where I started. That's the magic of writing as exercise; you find muscles you didn't know you had.