home esoterica Feature Articles by binnallFeature Articles by binnall Original binnallofamerica.com Audio the United States of Esoterica merchandise contact

Lesley

Grey Matter

5.8.7

Two Years of Grey Matters

I have now been writing Grey Matters for two years! I can’t believe it, those two years just whizzed by.

Last year at the one year anniversary, I shared with you how I almost said no when Tim asked if I wanted to write a weekly column, but I overcame my lack of confidence in my writing and gave it a try. I also shared with you that I was really glad that I had.

I am still really glad that I did.

Some weeks I feel a little uninspired, but most weeks I have no problem coming up with a topic. There is almost always something going on in the news or on c2c.

The previous year provided tons of great stuff to think about, the end of Serpo, the Gary McKinnon saga, that time Hoagland and Noory pissed me off by saying unkind things about ufology and more recently the Symington confession. I have purposely tried to not write about the skeptics too often. I don’t mean real skeptics, I mean the people who have one goal in life, to prove that people who believe in ufos are crazy or in it for the money. Mostly, I don’t want to give them any attention and second, they are just too easy to pick on, but I have probably done at least a couple of those type of articles too.

The fact that I overcame my fear of rejection and started writing Grey Matters also opened the door to give me more confidence to write other things. First there was c2c rewind and short articles on my blog, then last year my article was accepted to be published in The Book of Thoth: Wisdom of the Ages book, which should be out sometime this year. Finally, there is my new monthly column Beyond the Dial, in UFO Magazine. Without Grey Matters I wouldn’t have tried any of those things, so Grey Matters and BOA are really important and precious to me.

When I say BOA, I mean Tim because he is a dear friend, but I also mean everyone who hangs out at the BoA forum, theusofe.com. There are very few message boards you can hang out at where everyone is so nice, even when they don’t agree with you. It was at theusofe that I met Robert Meek, he was a pillar of support for me when my sister passed away last October, having been through the same thing himself. Aside from Robert I have met many other wonderful people there too. I think we are all like a family there, totally different personalities and yet we all love (or at least like) each other. That doesn’t mean that we don’t like new members either, we are always happy to have a new voice join in.

When my internet was out last week, I really had full realization of how important having that social interaction at BOA, my blog and a couple of other places is. I felt friendless, maybe because I am. I have friends, but not that I really hang out with very often and really nobody who listens to c2c or really cares whether or not a ufo was hovering over O’Hare. I spend way more time with my internet friends and most of the time enjoy their company a lot more. Perhaps that gives the answer to why I have always been so attracted to the ufo/c2c group of people, because maybe they are really the only people I truly fit in with, without being “the odd one.”

It doesn’t matter though, I haven’t had any problem with being “the odd one” for years, but it is nice to occasionally talk with people who don’t think I am odd, or at least not for the same reasons.

So here I go into year three. I hope that my writing is improving with each year, because really I was never a writer. I was a history major. I always despised English class and stupidly only ever did enough to get through it. Strangely enough, after what I just said, I have always enjoyed writing, just not the technical aspects of it. I remind myself that most writers that I consider great, always had an editor, because probably they were not too keen on the technical aspects of it either. Nonetheless, I do really, truly hope my writing has improved over the past two years and will continue to do so.

I look forward to the upcoming year of GM! One can never tell what strange stories may pop up during the year, but there are sure to be at least a few new and interesting ones. Who knows what Hoagland or Noory might say that will set me off on some sort of rant, or how I may have to defend Noory after he has set others off on a rant? You never can tell what will happen and if you could, life would be completely boring.

  • Check out Lesley's Blog HERE
  • Discuss "Grey Matters" @ theusofe HERE