Blogging

A friend just started a new blog and it reminded me of how much I love both blogging and reading friends' blogs. I check my friends' blogs regularly and get very excited anytime one of them has an update. I find them fascinating, it's like reading a public diary. I love seeing the public face people present. With some friends I get a detailed view into their brain - thoughts and feelings that I might not normally see. With others, I see a very positive public image different that what is expressed in my day to day interaction with them. In either case, I learn new things about friends, things I would never learn chatting at a party or in an email.

And I find the process of blogging interesting as well. For me, I will having nothing to blog, nothing to blog and then suddenly the perfect blog. And it's hard to even know why something will be the 'perfect blog' in my head. It's usually something pretty mundane, but something about it just resonates. I hate coming up with the 'perfect blog' when I'm away from a computer and will be for hours. Then the blog becomes almost painful. I begin to dread the process of writing it. Over and over my brain runs through all the insightful, illustrative, witty things I want to say in hopes that I won't lose them all before I sit down at the computer. Sometimes the weight becomes so heavy, that the blog never happens. The act of writing it down becomes too much of a burden or I talk myself out of it.

And sometimes my blogs turn out great and sometimes, to reuse a word from last month, meh. Sometimes I become so enamored with my blogs that I read them over and over again, fascinated that I could have turned out something so clever and entertaining (perhaps a case of 'a face only a mother could love'). Sometimes, I get a little embarrassed about my blog and don't want to share. ( I think I have really good blog phases and not so good blog phases. I'm still in love with the Guilty Pleasure series.)

In general, I think have a blog makes me better - smarter, cooler, hipper, more cutting edge. I like saying 'I have a blog' and meaning not only that I have a blog, but that I blog regularly. Somehow, having a blog, even a blog that maybe 10 people (mostly relatives) read, makes me a part of something bigger. Somehow I put myself in line with the bloggers who do it for a living with millions of readers, they, like me, are bloggers.

Funny story, once I was conversing online with someone I had met through an internet dating site. He was an artist or designer or some nonsense, and wanted to know if I was creative. I replied no, not remotely. When that was clearly the wrong answer, I remembered my blog and directed him to it. Suddenly, it seemed I passed the creative test. My blog did make me more fascinating, cuter and more cosmopolitan. Of course, we never did meet. Somehow in the next set of emails he decided I was very narcissistic and canceled a date we had planned. (Yo buddy, if you're reading this blog, just so you know you missed out big time! Though of course my a. thinking he might be reading my blog and b. thinking he missed out, will probably only strengthen his belief in my narcissism.)

Anyhow, the weight of this blog is now off my shoulders. Thanks to all my friends for writing your blogs, I eagerly await your new posts. And thanks for reading mine!