The Problem With 'Blogs'

Here's the trouble with blogs. Who's the audience?

I mean, I can't complain about my job if I'm going to someday let the address of my blog slip through my lips while I'm there. Not that there isn't a book I could write about the wackiness at my job, but isn't that all of us, really? Who wants to read about that, anyway? If you want to experience a job sucking, most of us just have to get in the car on Monday morning and drive to our own.

I'm usually a lot more fun than this. Let's start again.

I can't bitch about my life at home, because I intend to give out this blog address to people I actually know in real life. None of them would believe me if I complain about the husband, because he is, in all honesty, nothing to complain about and they all know it. What he's still doing with a snarky troublemaker like me is a mystery, truly.

You can bet that I'll be injecting talk about Dance Dance Revolution, and either celebrating or complaining about songs I can and can't pass. For many of you, this will be a paragraph to skip over while you shake your head indulgently at a 32 year old woman who spends hours and hours every week bouncing up and down on top of a padded mat in her own living room. Better for the floor to be padded than the walls, but there are no guarantees.

However, I have secrets. Don't we all, really? It's hard to remember all that if you plan to hand out your URL to people you have to look in the eye. I guess I'll have to though, especially when you consider why I would choose to contribute to the noise to signal ratio here on the internet in the first place.

This brings me to another point, actually...why start a blog right now, this very second. Well, for starters, as I am a modern, digital girl, everyone assumes I already have one, and I don't. I did actually keep one a couple of years ago that degenerated into the same two posts over and over: "I hate the people at my job" and "I hate the people who drive around me". Not very interesting, really. Sort of a whiny bitch sort of vibe to it, and nothing anyone who has to actually know me in real life should have to put up with.

The real reason to start a blog right now is that someone we've known for several years just moved out of town. (And by 'just', I actually mean, 'at roughly 1:00 p.m. today'.) A couple of years ago, another friend took a job out of town and had to leave, and at the end of last summer, a third friend of mine moved away to be closer to family, and I've struggled to keep in touch because I suck at making telephone calls and every email I open up sits there staring at me, blank, with its hand on its hip and its toe tapping impatiently for me to be witty or heartfelt or something.

Okay, so emails don't tap their toes. I used to be exceedingly good at them, though. Met my husband that way, although pretty much anyone who's likely to read this will already know that story, so why bore everyone again?

However, perhaps if I get a blog (although I don't really like that overused term, but what can you do?) then I can sweet-talk those fine, out-of-town friends into getting one, and we can stay connected in some small way by reading whatever it is that comes out when we're faced with the Big Scary Blank Text Field.

Is that so wrong, really?