Happy Birthday, Blog
Sixteen years ago today, I started a Blogger called Bklyn Bulging. It was a primarily a moblog with photos and text composed and uploaded from my Treo 600.1
Not surprisingly, the first post featured my cat.
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It felt like magic to instantly share images and thoughts from wherever I was at the moment. Blogging pushed all kinds of creative and nerd buttons within me. I loved it.
2004 was also the midst of a tough time in my life and I was in a very introspective place, trying to figure out how I got to where I was and where I could go next. The blog, along with the journaling I’d been doing for years, was a way to help myself sort the situation. Sharing what I saw around me and connecting it to other things on my mind and in my heart was, if nothing else, therapeutic.
(Public Service Announcement: actual official therapy from a professional was immensely helpful too. If you’re struggling and you think you need to talk to someone, do not hesitate like I did for too many years. Just please go try it.)
Blogging was also a way for me to continue to practice writing for an audience again. Peeling, the wonderful NYC Asian-American theater collective I was a member of, had recently gone defunct, closing the only public outlet I had for writing.
At the time, I hadn’t made any films yet but very badly wanted to get started. Bklyn Blggng helped keep those muscles working while I taught myself how to write and direct short films. Writing begets more writing, in my experience.
![](https://i0.wp.com/jpchan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/dscn7432.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&ssl=1)
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In the next installment of this series, I’ll cover more of the journey back to blogging. But today I just wanna wish the blog HBD and reflect a bit on the passage of sixteen years.
The hoodie’s still in good shape.
1In 2020, we clearly recognize this as social media, but in 2004 it was a pretty rare thing. And I remind you young whippersnappers that when Twitter got started, they were known as a microblogging service.