I realize that's the second botched Shakespeare reference I've made in almost as many blog posts. Or, at least it was when I drafted this. Sorry Willy, please don't hate me. Literature mangling aside, the quote does lend itself well to the question I've asked myself since deciding to start this blog: why?
I've always been a fan of writing, and I'm the sort of person who wears her heart on her sleeve, so why haven't I ever blogged "sucessfully" before? I.e. why have at least four previous blog attempts gone by the wayside under my various pseudonyms, none of them ever more than a background and title or in the case of one, one little post, before they each were deleted? Well, here are my top 5 reasons of why I never blogged before now.
Reason # 1: Bloggers in Pop Culture
I suspect neither of the following commercial and film conversations have helped my view on blogging:
Thanks Twix, though you are a scrumptious candy bar, you have made bloggers, particularly female ones, out to be complete idiots incapable of realizing that when a guy asks her back to his apartment five seconds into their first conversation his sudden "chew it over" moment and subsequent (lame) excuse is really a flimsy facade for "please have sex with me."
[[[[[[[Excerpt from the transcript of Made of Honor (2008)]]]]]]]
Tom: Oh, God. Hide me.
Hannah: What?
Tom: It's my dad's patient coordinator...
Yeah, don't look, don't look. Don't look.
No, no. She's obsessed with me.
Yeah, she's created a website called AllThingsTom.org.
Hannah: The psycho blogger?
Tom: Yes.
Okay, come on.
Dance with me. Watch yourself.
Hannah: I think she's cute.
Tom: Oh, stop it.
I'm serious. Just keep going. Here just-
Hide me…
Her last blog was a two-page description of my face.
Blogger: Hi, Tom.
Tom: Oh, hi.
Blogger: Did you see the new blog?
Tom: Uh, no, we haven’t.
Blogger: Who’s this?
Tom: This? Well, this is my… girlfriend.
Blogger: Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone?
Tom: Because I don’t know you.
Hannah: Look, we have a really really open relationship.
Tom: Really? You know, I wanted to talk to you about that, princess.
Blogger: Princess…?
Tom: (to Hannah) I-I-I don’t wanna be with anybody but you.
Hannah: I don’t know if I’m really quite ready to make that commitment. You know my rules
(to Blogger) We’re a bit of an emotional retard.
Tom: Yeah.
Blogger: I think I need to start a new blog now.
Hannah: (after Blogger has left) That is so scary.
[[[[[[]]]]]]]
I apologize for having no video clip to illustrate this, there wasn’t one to be found on youtube. (le gasp)
This is the second media source that immediately came to my mind that makes female bloggers (pattern? I wouldn't know, I nixed my communications major a year ago...) out to be complete idiots. The blogger in Made of Honor is of the desperate and pathetic variety of idiots. It doesn't help my feeling for this clip that the woman is literally wearing the exact dress I wore in a play my Senior year of high school.
Reason #2: That word!
I hate the words blog, blogger, and blogging. I really do. The word, stripped of its connotations and denotations still makes me cringe. Some words do that for me. Blog and it’s derivatives are some of them. You may consider this a flimsy reason for not blogging before. Alone it's not enough of one. In addition to my already formed stigma against blogging, it was another hair that broke the camel's back.
Reason # 3: People in glass houses shouldn't throw things, I wouldn't live in one in the first place.
My writing is often times a reflection of who I am. I put pieces of myself into it, like horcruxes only I don't kill people or split my soul to do it. If you haven't read Harry Potter, ignore that reference. As such, I've never been one to want the whole world to see inside me. While I do wear my heart on my sleeve, there's a difference between that and what inspires my writing--the writing often comes from much deeper down.
Reason #4: Themeless and therefore pointless?
My life has no particular theme, my sense of humor isn’t always one that draws a ton of laughs, I’m lazy and impatient in one messy bunch, and I lose focus fairly easily on things. In short, I never thought a blog of mine would be very interesting, nor did I think I would I be willing (or have the attention span) to keep it up.
Reason #5: I sat and tried to think of one. One flitted by but I forgot it before I had time to jot it down. I went back and adjusted some of the previous ones and still couldn't think of a number five. So that's only four reasons. Which leads me to...
"You know Thomas Edison tried and failed nearly two-thousand times to develop the carbonized cotton-thread filament for the incandescent light bulb. When asked about it, he said 'I didn't fail, I found two-thousand ways how not to make a light bulb.' But he only needed to find one way to make it work."
-National Treasure, 2004
What was the one way I found that changed my mind about blogging? It was actually a memory, a memory of something a very dear woman once told me.
It’s funny, how one can be reminded randomly of something most would consider minute or not worth remembering, particularly from one's childhood. I find that especially true if the memories involve a loved one who is no longer with us. I suppose we hang on to even the shreds of memories with them because that’s all we have left.
My Aunt D and I once talked about diaries. I said something to the effect that while I admired Anne Frank's diary, I don't have the patience to write one myself. All of my attempts usually ended with me tearing out the few entries and pitching them. Most usually ended with my selecting a pretty journal, buying it, bringing it home, then setting it aside to collect dust. I have a box of empty journals and notebooks solely from this habit to prove my point. Sound familiar? Well, my Aunt suggested that I start typing my daily diary entries. Mind you this was back in the day when blogging and any other form of social interaction/broadcasting via the internet was strictly limited to e-mail. But her suggestion was to type my diary and save the entries in a folder on the computer. The only problem with this was my family had a public computer which sat in my parent's room. The issue was twofold. One, it lacked the privacy I preferred when storing my entries and I didn't feel like keeping a floppy disk (yes, floppy disks were around). The second issue was timing, I was a night owl (still am, time check? It's 1:11 AM) and my parents weren't. At least not both of them. There was only a limited time during the day which I could even use the computer. So the suggestion, while highly appreciated, didn't come to fruition.
Side note: Pictured is my Aunt D with me around 2 years old. I suspect our diary conversation came a little later in life; this is the only picture I have with just her and me in it. Momma and I were going through some old family albums at my Gpa's recently and came across it. It brought tears to my eyes how happy we both look.
Anyways, at least ten years down the road now, I can't help but think that blogging is the more modern version of what my dear aunt was talking about: a place to write out whatever it is I want to write about, without hand writing it. Blogging seems to take that one step further by giving you the concept of a literary third wall. Instead of just talking to myself or "my dear diary," I can envision readers whom I am talking to. It's not as strange for me to involve the potential readers (however many) as it is for me to involve an inanimate diary in an animate activity, such as cooking.
What got my gears rolling was that post I made about the Strawberry Cream Pie. That was actually my first blog post I'd made in a long time and I made it originally for a friend of mine to feature it as a guest entry on her blog. By the time I'd finished it, I located this blog I'd made months prior and revamped it. The rest is history. Literally. It's in the archives.
Verdict: to blog! I just want a new word for it. Oh well.
Signed,
RF
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