When Brown Road Chronicles was at its peak back in late 2013 before I took my fourteen month-long sabbatical, I had a long list of BILFs. This list was an extraordinary compilation of BILFs culled from many intensive years of blogging, liking, reading, and commenting. Sometimes even just a quick glance at a blogger’s avatar and I instantly knew that they’d be a strong candidate for my list of BILFs. More importantly, a timely, well thought out blog post or comment, full of voluptuous and shapely words that exemplified years of writing experience was sure to get a blogger on my list of BILFs.
So, what had once been a short list of BILFs when I had first started blogging had over time grown into a long list of about seventy-five BILFs.
What was I going to do with all these BILFs? I could barely keep track of all of them. I felt overwhelmed.
Several times I tried condensing my list of BILFs. But it was challenging and complicated because once you’ve determined a blogger is a BILF it’s difficult to just scratch them off of a list.
Plus these were all BILFs who wrote words that were fresh and polished and sexy. These were BILFs who wrote words that exuded sophistication and competency. These were BILFs who were no doubt seasoned and mature, full of deep metaphors and profound thoughts and humor.
Especially humor. Because, although a blogger can dress their site up with lots of fancy imagery, a good sense of humor is one of the primary means of becoming one of my BILFs.
But something had to give.
One day I dug down deep and found the strength. I fired up WordPress and sorted through the long list of BILFs, hour after hour, contemplating whether each was really still a BILF or if I was hanging on to old memories, remembering old posts, focusing on days gone past. Some of the BILFs had long since abandoned their sites, given up, stopped trying. Those were the simplest BILFs to say goodbye to. They weren’t BILFs anymore and they were easy to cross off the list, although there were a select number of these inactive BILFs who were my very first BILFs and who I decided should always remain.
Then there were the BILFs who were still around but who just didn’t have the same appeal as when we had first met. They had become old and stale and boring and with some clarity of thought I was able to determine that they were no longer BILFs either and they were removed from my list. It was a long process but I was able to narrow the list from about seventy-five BILFs down to about fifty BILFs.
That’s about how many BILFs I have now, approximately fifty. I have met a few new BILFs since I reopened Brown Road Chronicles at the beginning of the year and I am looking forward to getting to know those BILFs better. But on a recent scan through those original fifty or so BILFs I discovered that only about twenty, at best, are still active. Perhaps it’s time to sort through the list of BILFs again.
Now let’s be frank here, in this widespread community of talent there’s certainly no shortage of BILFs. And now that I’m back at this on a pretty steady basis, I’d definitely like to discover some new BILFs.
So here’s your job.
If you’re a regular here, you should have a good read on my personality and sense of humor. In the comments section, please recommend one or two of your BILFs… bloggers that you like to follow… that you think I might like to follow as well.
I’ll take a look and perhaps they’ll become one of my BILFs too.
My Bloggers I Like to Follow….
What did you think I was talking about?!?
The Brown Road Chronicles 
I must be on it surly.
A lot of changes have happen since you were off.
I even have a new blog.
https://poetscornerblog.wordpress.com/
Harry, of course you are still on my list!!
Go to my bosom buddy blogroll. Lots of great bloggers there!
Maybe you’d like to check out the Friday Fictioneers. There is some talent there, funny, creative. My must reads, include Ohm Sweet Ohm, The Write Transition, and The Green Study. And BRC, of course. Good luck on your quest for new BILF’s.
I’ve heard of this Ohm Sweet Ohm person before. Will have to take a look! Thanks! I follow Green too! Might have found her through you way back when.
Back in the good old days? Ha! Yeah, do check out Allan’s blog. He is a talented writer, photog, and finder of all things interesting on the interwebs. Plus, I met him in real life when my husband and I visited San Francisco and he took us on a backstage tour of the Golden Gate Bridge. He’s a pretty awesome guy.
I think we travel in the same circles, but here are two that I am not sure are on your list: Ross Murray and Ned Hickson. Based on my impression of you, what you all have in common is that you are funny, creative people, nice guys, and good husbands and father’s who love your wives and children.
I do follow Ross. He’s great! Funny, smart, very entertaining!
I typed that on my phone, which auto-corrected “fathers” to “father’s.” I hate auto-correct.
Great, now I suppose I have to pretend that I noticed it was wrong!
Have you met Mark at Exile on Pain Street? Good range of writing, humor and just a guy dealing with modern manhood in NJ. And best blog name.
I need to do the purge too.
I’m very glad you’re back. I see we run in many of the same circles – Ross and Honie are at the top of my list. I would also definitely recommend Bill at Pinklightsabre’s Blog (pinklightsabre.com). Terrific writing there. I’ve also been following a couple of blogs that pull essays from around the internet, Longreads (longreads.com) and Brevity (brevity.wordpress.com) just to help me up my writing game.
I was going to suggest Ned Hickson too. And Exile on Pain Street (Mark).
I hear you on purging the list. I did that last year, got rid of so many bloggers who SWORE they were finished. One in particular SAID he was done forever. (You may have heard of him…he once wrote about an old barn coat and owned a few goats….) Then he suddenly came back after being gone for an ETERNITY and dammit, just today I realized I had to refollow the asshole. God!
Ok, so I just checked my list and I’m following 79 bloggers but about half have apparently been sucked into the wordpress blackhole of dead blogs. Maybe I need to purge again. Sigh.
Here’s the hard part. I left for a while and when I came back lots of familiar faces were there like I’d never really been gone. I have blogs in my subscriptions that I don’t want to delete because I think maybe, hopefully they’ll come back someday.
If they have deleted their blog without keeping the WP code they will have to start another, who knows where to find the code, I do 🙂
haha! Me too. I still follow my blog buddy Julie from Go Jules Go (she hasn’t blogged since last June) and The Good Greatsby and B-man, who has two kids under the age of 3 now so I think he’ll probably never come back. But none of them ever wrote a “goodbye” post so I hold out hope.
LOL!! Only the best can come out of retirement, right?!?
So glad you’re back. You’re one of my BILF’s and I was sad to see you go. I’ve let my blog go, and so if I’m no longer on your list, no worries. I’ll be jumpstarting it again soon. I need to go through my list of BILFs and do what you did. I’m going to take the suggestions mentioned above and check out these other blogs as well. Welcome back to the blogging world. Glad you’re here again. 🙂
Awww, thanks! What a nice welcome back. The time away was good. I’m refreshed and raring to go again! Maybe you will too one of these days.
I am glad you are back – can’t wait for a song to pop up. We seem to travel in the same blog orbit. I love Don of all Trades – he wrote a few good posts about Ferguson and writes about his kids and enforcing the rules with common sense… it’s all good. I still have my calendar 🙂
No songs in the cue yet Clay, but I’m sure something will come up! Glad you remembered the calendar! Loved that post!!