When in doubt, look behind you

I was having trouble coming up with a blog idea for today, but I’m serious about wanting to post when I say I’m gonna post, and then I got to thinking. What better way to come up with an idea than to look back at the last six years and see what I was blogging about this time of year? Let’s go on an adventure, friends.

In 2006 all of the April posts are Various Ramblings. Remember those? I’ll give you a snippet. For context (if there can be any) this is written from the perspective of my psychologist while I’m in a mental asylum:

(Bri is handing out invitations)

Bri: Come to my party! BYOPB (Bring Your Own Phone Book)

(Why she is having a party is beyond me, reader, and that goes for the bringing your own phone book part too)

(Bri skips along the hallways, holding her new Bling-Bling Barbie)

Tom(a long-term patient): Is that you, Marge? I’m comin’ to ya, honey! I’m a’comin’, honeeeeeeeeey!

Bri: Oh, dear, sweet Frankfurt! Oh, Cometh to thee! Cometh! COMETH!!

Tom: I shall, my lovely Marge! I shall!

(At this point we drag Bri away before they grab hands and jump off the balcony together)

(Bri and I now enter another doctor’s offive where she is tested and interviewed to monitor her progress)

So that happened. I tried to explain my Various Ramblings series to Quinn before writing this blog, and I found that I just couldn’t do it. There is no consistent thread other than my utter insanity.

Then we hop to 2007, where, interestingly enough, I’m still doing various ramblings. Take this excerpt from the end of a relatively normal blog:

Hey! Where am I? I’m not supposed to be in a blog! My place is in Various Ramblings!!

What the…?

Hey- you’re not insane Bri! You’re normal Bri! I can’t argue with you! I can’t freak you out! This sucks.

Er, sorry. I dunno why you’re here… how strange. Um… I dunno what to do to put you back…

Oh. Well, since I’m here, do you want to argue with me?

Uh… about what?

THE PHANTOM OF PAPERCLIPS

Um… ok?

Dangit. You don’t react. I guess I’ll have to try…

Don’t. Even. Go there.

Ooooh… I see I’ve touched a nerve. Why won’t you let me say–

*submits blog and ruins the escaped alter-ego’s plan to make her look bad*

Also from April of 2007, two very bizarre transcripts of conversations between me and my friends and a music video my brother made for some Red Hot Chili Peppers contest I starred in.

Moving on to 2008, during which I was at the end of my sophomore year. The only thing I posted in April was a blog post mocking those old MySpace chain bulletins about people being murdered if they didn’t pass on said chain bulletins. It’s actually not a bad post, although I take myself a little too seriously. But wow. Do you guys remember when MySpace was a thing?

April 2009 is significantly less fun. It was the end of my junior year of high school, which was one of the roughest times of my life. There were a couple random posts by my old contributors like Scarface, Flamingo, and my brother, and then there was this post. If you didn’t click the link, it’s the post I wrote right before I started going to therapy. So that’s… fun. It was really interesting to stumble across that because I had been pretending on my blog for so long to be ok, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. That seems like so long ago, but it’s only been four years. Geez. That month I also posted a blog about my American Idol predictions, Scarface blogged a lot about sports, and a friend made a list of the ten books you should never read. For the record, I disagree with 1, 3, and 9 in particular.

Which brings us to April 2010, the 3/4 mark for my Bri 2.0 series. There are a lot of posts from that month (one a day, obviously), so here are the highlights:

-A poetry then and now comparison of my work (that seems to be a common theme of mine)

-Eugenia (the book has changed so much since then, but remember when I posted new installments every week? That was fun! I should do something like that again)

-My first kissiversary (3 years)

-Random book and music reviews

-The Owl City concert my mom took me to

-Prom reflections

Overall it was a little bit of a confusing month for me, but my blogs were getting longer and more in depth. I’ve gotten really used to this portion of my blogging because I drew on so much of it for my thesis novel, so there aren’t really any surprises here.

April 2011 was the end of my freshman year in college. In April I was posting the final videos from my time in Budapest with my speech team, I was still posting Eugenia (I think this is the month I finished, actually), I had just started making TheseFolk videos, I wrote letters to my past and future selves, and I posted a series of blogs on cowardice in dating. It was quite a controversial few days, if I remember correctly. By the end of freshman year I was starting to figure a lot of things out about myself and the world around me, and April really made that clear.

Which brings us to last year. 2012 was kind of a weird year for me. In April I posted more TheseFolk videos, the channel now a year old; I had my Rome recap videos; I blogged about how annoyed I was with a particular professor who shall not be named; I was posting “season 2” of Cooking with Gandalf; I reviewed my first impressions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and I had just finished writing my 8th novel. It’s funny how things change, but how they also stay the same.

This was fun, this retrospective journey into the bowels of Bri’s Own World. We’ll have to do this again sometime.