Blogging about Blogging

I first became aware of blogs in 2003, when I was living in NJ and the New York Times did a piece on blogs. Upon reading, I learned that blogs are a sort of online journal and those who blog are people who have a desire to share their deepest thoughts and life events with the all of the world wide web who cared to read it. The article went on to explain that sometimes there are negative repercussions from blogging. For example, a young man with a "strict LDS upbringing" revealed his more exciting lifestyle, which his disappointed parents discovered on his blog. Or a woman who blogged juicy details about dates she went on, to the frustration of the men she was seeing.

Blogging has evolved a lot since then. It seems that currently, blogs are a way of keeping a personal (as in singular, not as in private) or family history, of interacting with a group of people, from sharing recipes to strategies to preparing for events or training for triathalons. For me, reading blogs is like reading columns in the "fun" section of the newspaper- comics, travel, food, advice, happenings, historical and economic perspectives. It's also fun to keep up with friends and their family events. I especially like reading from male voices, since I like variety. Unfortunately, there seem to be very few male bloggers out there, with the exception of having blogs exclusively for political or economic rants (not talking about you, Pete). Remember, reading blogs is supposed to be fun. Even though it's 95% of my own material, kids-only posts become tedious for me, as do congratulatory posts that guilt me into wishing I were more like someone else.

I'm not the sort of blogger who thinks this is my "online journal." I will probably get a blog book printed from my blogs, to use as a family history and photo album, but no way will you read everything here that I'm thinking about or all of the changes coming to my life. I have no need to share all of my innermost thoughts and feelings with all of Facebook or the Internet. Despite being a very open (aka Blunt) person, it's hard not to feel vulnerable about what thoughts I have written. Within minutes of posting, sometimes I worry that I've offended someone, made my family out to look too perfect or too faulty, or used poor grammar (the ultimate offense)(that's a joke). I get concerned about comments that seem to misunderstand my intentions and then wonder if I need to post again to explain what I really meant or what truly happened.

Speaking of comments, this is one of the best parts about blogging, when someone responds to a post with a comment. I read too many blogs to comment on all of them and recognize that most of my posts are probably met with a "Hmm. I have no response to that," hardly warranting a comment. When I do get a comment, it's fun for me, validation for writing, nearly as good as finding chocolate in my desk drawer that I hid from the kids and ultimately from myself. It's almost like a brief conversation with someone you might otherwise rarely or never see again. Most of the blogs I read are friends and family from different stages of life, although I enjoy reading a blog from someone I've never met, but knows a relative of mine. She's funny and real and her posts are thought-provoking. But I think I scared her out of blogging completely by commenting too often. I've never had anyone comment on my posts except for people I know or have met through the blogosphere, although it might unnerve me if I got one. That is what has prompted several people to go "private," which I respect, although I don't check those as much since I am lazy and prefer Google Reader. While I wish I had done more at the beginning to protect my family's privacy (like not used the last name anywhere on the site), I feel like there are enough blogs out there that leave mine somewhat anonymous, just another mommy blog. Which is half of the fun of it- I don't think I could handle the pressure if I knew there were lots of people actually interested in what I have to say, but I like to give them the option to read it, just the same.