Hi there. It’s good to see you. I visited FOG this morning for the first time in a long while and I actually smiled when I saw the dopey fish staring at me. Some things never change.

Well, that’s not true. Even the fish has changed over the years. Did you know it was originally dark orange and had a spiky mohawk? Of course you didn’t. Even my longest readers (I didn’t say oldest–you’re welcome, Draliman) only date back to sometime after the switch to WordPress in 2010. My goldfish and I were on Blogger for a year or so before we moved here where we were read by absolutely no one. At one point in its long career, the goldfish was even a bluefish.

Even the fish changes. That’s the nature of life. But, the good news is, it has always been the same basic shape. The outline of the fish, its fins, dopey (yet somehow attitudey) eyes and somewhat disgruntled mouth have essentially been the same since I drew the sucker in aught-8 or ‘9. The fish is a classic and I couldn’t deviate too far from it now even if I wanted to, which I don’t since it still makes me smile.

Is that how you think of me? As a fish? Is that what you picture in your head when you think of Fish of Gold? Even though I know what I look like, it’s essentially what I picture when I think of blogging. It has been my constant blogging companion and outward persona for nigh on a decade.

When I think of blogging, I also think of y’all out there in your own personal bubbles. Some of you have tiny faces in squares, some of you don’t. Whatever is in your square doesn’t matter since, when I think of you, I think of your words, not your person. I don’t know you through the sparkle in your eyes or your smile, but I know you through your words.

You know me through my words, too. I would say, if you read this blog, you know me better than at least half of the people I know in the world, e.g., all of my coworkers. I only have two coworkers that know the first thing about me and neither of them know that I blog.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been waging a very anticlimactic battle of sorts to keep this place all to ourselves. They installed an internet tracker on my work computer, so I haven’t visited at all from there. I’m terrified that the asshole, control freak IT guy in New Jersey will see FOG on a list and become a reader. He’s not worthy. I want to keep this place safe, anonymous and unknown, which means I can no longer visit from work.

That’s only part of the reason for my continued absence though. Another part is… wait for it, because it will be quite unexpected coming from me… the other part is socializing! Yes, I’ve been doing that. I told you about how my friend from Oregon visited two weeks ago. Well, last weekend, one of my oldest friends came to visit from Boston.

As always happens with old friends, we did math. As I sat there drinking in the middle of the day with my best friend, my Boston friend and our dogs, we figured out that I’ve known my best friend, who I also met in Boston, for 21 years and I’ve known the friend who visited for 20. Since my oldest friend in Detroit died a few years ago, these two ladies together make up my oldest continual friendships. They were both there for the finale of Monster #2 and the aftermath. They were some of the few friends I had who took my side over his. They are my oldest friends.

So, that’s where I’ve been. As far as I know, no friends from afar are visiting this weekend, so I have the place all to myself. While the introvert in me is thrilled to not have social obligations, the other part of me is sad that I have no real reason to leave the house this weekend.

In other news, while thinking of things I can do at work besides working and not internetting, I’ve had an itch to pick up the dusty old series The Dwarf Making Sweet, Sweet Love To The Skeleton again. I really need to come up with a more succinct title. I’ve missed my characters. I left them all alone. What kind of a person creates a world from scratch and abandons it? I honestly don’t even remember what’s happening in their universe. Maybe one of these years, I’ll actually have a completed work of fiction. One can dream.

It also occurred to me that instead of playing stupid useless games on my phone on breaks from work, I could use that same technology to read and perchance even write blog posts while at work. Derp. I’m a little slow sometimes.

Perhaps you’ll be seeing more from me during the week, or maybe I’ll just stick to this haphazard weekend posting schedule that I’ve been forced into by circumstance. I’m not much of a planner, so we’ll just play it by ear.

In any event, I miss you all. What’s going on with you?