There are only so many occasions to do a thing for the first time, and when you hit my age (as Tom Leher said, "When Mozart was my age, he'd been dead thirty years"), the number of available first-time activities is smaller than you might wish - some because you've already done them, and others because you no longer have the ability or chutzpa to try.
Thank God for the Net. It provides everyone, and in this case me, with a feast of new things to try. So here goes a blog. My first time. First words. Feels silly. The way I titled this entry is the way if feels to write these words, the way if felt as a kid up on the diving board, afraid to dive in and afraid not to, worried about the belly flop, worried about the laughs, but knowing that you were going to launch yourself with whatever grace you could muster.
So here's to first times. Thinking about people who started blogging a few years ago, without the excuse of a school exercise, reminds me of earlier thoughts about the first people to do other strange things - eat a lobster, try bungee-jumping, put a stud through your tongue.
But as soon as I press the enter key (or whatever other means this software has for posting an entry), the deed is done. Another first time. Feels good. Now if I can only stop feeling so self-counscious, maybe I'll be able to get back up on the diving board. Because a second time is almost as rare as the first.
