The Blog, How I Love It So

I thought I would just drop a quick note on why and how I love the blog. When I was little I was the consummate snooper. I loved to see what everyone in my family got in the mail. I was forever looking in closets and behind closed doors. Trying to overhear phone conversations, looking through keyholes, listening at grates, you name it, I did it. I couldn't help myself. I think my driving curiosity was a mix of a desire to understand the world and all human relationships as well as a need to know as much as possible about the environment around me so that I could gain some sense of predictability. My mom had a wicked temper and a hidden drinking problem so despite lots of routines and general good vibes at home, there was a certain amount of unpredictability and randomness that can freak out a small person.

Anyway, enough self-justification. Suffice it to say that I loved and still love, glimpsing the secret inner lives of others. And I still have a strong desire to understand the world, both physical and metaphysical. Add to that my inability to work on anything for longer than 10 minutes, my desire for instant gratification, a streak of "look at me, look at me. See me, hear me." And there you have it, an instant recipe for blog love.

I like to look at the blogger blogs of note and often one blog leads me to another and another. It is like a treasure hunt of spying, a plethora of posting, a multitude of media. I am having a ball.

There is a strange tension in writing actual posts. Once I get past the fact that I only have twenty minutes while I am awake and both the girls are asleep and that every second I send typing away on this computer is time not spent doing yoga, reading a book, or having a quality conversation with friends or family. After all that, I still have to reign in my impulse to spew everything, personal, political, politically incorrect. While I would have done this in the past, and have been known to shout out expletives during particularly obtuse lectures in graduate school, or to tell everyone at a party in a loud voice about some crush I had or about how some well-known ecologist was an obnoxious a-hole, I'm trying to adjust more to the realities of life as an adult without completely squashing my own personality and the joy of sharing.

So reading blogs is a joy and an adventure. Writing my own blog is a fun exercise in creativity and restraint. So here's to blogs in all their diversity and diversions!!

P.S. I used to wonder why anyone would enable posting on their blogs. I would see the random stuff that strangers would post and think, "who needs that crap? Why would anyone let anyone else write stuff on THEIR blog? Get your own blog darn it." Now that I have comments enabled on my blog, and no one ever comments, for me, it is about getting some voice crying back from the wilderness. Some sense that someone out there somewhere is actually reading what you are writing and has a thought about it. But then again, that's probably not the case. The mighty girl website has a tagline that says, "Famous Among Dozens." That's probably true for most of us!

O.k. I'm going to go a read a book now. Maybe tomorrow I'll do some yoga.

good night.