Beth's Contradictory Brain

Done?

I was talking with Nerdstar about this last night. I'm feeling like I'm pretty done with this blog. Just typing that makes me a little sad.

I've been working on cleaning up an exported version I put into Word so I can eventually print it. I'm just over halfway done and it looks like it's going to be about 1300 pages. I mostly enjoy going back and reading about the past eight or so years of our lives. There were a lot of hard times, but a lot of fun, too. And I'm so glad I have this blog where it's all documented.

For some reason I've never been great at keeping a personal journal. I have horrible handwriting, so paper is usually out. It never recovered from all the note taking in college. (I'm always sad there weren't laptops back then I could have taken notes on instead!) I also tend to write more dark and sad in a journal. I guess I find it harder to write the "what's happening" stuff just for me because, well, I know what's happening. Except, that's the thing, I won't know years from now. There are so many little things I would have completely forgotten if not for this blog.

Another thing is that in some ways I feel like facebook has replaced this blog. I like that I can get more comments and interaction there than I have here for a while now. When I started this blog, I wanted it to be a place I could put my crazy thoughts and ideas about the world out there and have conversations about them with anybody, anywhere. That never happened as much as I hoped. Although, I was also telling Nerdstar how great it is that there are still a handful of people who I've been reading from day one and still at least keep up with one way or another online.

That said, reading back on the time Nerdstar was in Iraq, this blog and the people who read and commented really helped me a lot. That still means a lot to me.

I also know that with all the changes and moves and such Nerdstar and I have been through, we're in the biggest transition of our lives right now - pregnancy. And I have no idea how much I'm going to want to keep blogging after the baby is born. And if I do, I think it would be over on 2 Bad Moms and not here. But does the world really need any more "mommy bloggers?"

Maybe I'll get better at a personal journal if I'm writing it for the baby.

Anyway. I'm not shutting the blog down. I just don't know when I'll be updating it again.

Updating Categories

For some reason that escapes me right now, I started going through old posts trying to categorize them better. I stalled out on the project, then realized I should add a couple of categories and started again. The first time I started at the oldest posts, this time I started with the newest posts.

I'm back to March of 2005 - when Iraq was freshly in the rear view mirror and the move to Kansas City was looming. It hasn't been too painful to read about some of it. There was a lot of snow in PA. Kansas City was a hard time for us, but I think that had to do with issues between Nerdstar and I maybe more than the actual location. We look back now and think KC wasn't so bad a place to live.

I'm not totally looking forward to going through the Iraq years. But that's one of the categories I realized I didn't have. The Nerdstar Updates were her writings. I'll leave them. My writings about that time will go in the new category.

What's so funny - I still didn't establish a FOOD category. Silly me. Oh well, those posts end up in the Just Life category.

Does any of this matter to anyone but me, probably not.

Blogging and Politics

What is it about this election that has everyone so uptight and angry and unable to talk about any of it? Most of the regular people bloggers I read (unlike Instapundit and Althouse) and are on my blogroll are refusing to blog about politics and don't even like reading about it on other people's blogs.

I mostly feel the same way. But I also find that it's just too important to me to not blog about.

As contentious as 2004 was. And Bush was much more reviled than either Obama or McCain. But I don't remember it making people feel the way we feel now.

What's going on? I guess I'm not asking why you're voting the way you're going to vote, or why you support who you support, but why we can't have civil conversations about all of it.

UPDATE: Ugh. My own blog denies my comments. Go figure. Here it is: I know comments can be icky sometimes - and I thank God I don't have that problem. But I still think there's something else going on with politics this time around.

Brilliant!

It shouldn't just be limited to You Tube.

Restraint

It's taking a lot of self restraint to not start blogging politics non-stop. Unfortunately, I have a feeling both sides of this contest are pretty well entrenched, and I'm not looking to fight.

All I will say is that Obama scares the hell out of me. But his more rabid followers, those who have truly imbibed the Kool Aid scare me even more. (I do not think any of my regular readers are Kool Aid drinkers.)

If you read through a day's postings over on National Review's The Corner, that's the information about Obama that scares me. The World Poverty Bill, the suppression of dissent. That sort of thing. Things I'm sure 80% of his voters don't even know about. Which is also scary.

See, I just can't help myself. At least you're not here to listen to me yell at the tv!

What He Said

Your first amendment rights don't apply to my blog. I'm not going to pull quotes from it because you should read the whole thing.

Interesting he brings up Australia and how it's constitution doesn't have free speech, since I was just wondering why they were different than us.

If that entry is too serious, this one is fantasticly, smartly, funny!!

A Question

Do any of you fellow bloggers have friends in "real life" that know about your blog but don't read it? How do you feel about that?

I find it more frustrating than Nerdstar does (even taking into consideration she doesn't blog nearly as much as I do). I guess one of the things I find frustrating is getting together with friends and having to tell them stuff I've blogged about since the last time I saw them, things about work or trips or whatever. I don't mind talking about those things, but it seems like wasted conversation time.

Hmmm... I'm having a hard time explaining and not sounding weird. I've written and deleted two or three sentences.

Anyway.

I can't imagine knowing someone I know has a blog and NOT reading it. I'm nosy like that. Although, I don't google everyone I meet.

What do you think?

About blogging

Go read this post and my comment to it - that way I don't have to type it all here.

Sucks

I hate when bloggers I've really enjoyed reading because they're not like other blogs stop blogging.

I can't say I ever agreed with much of Joshua's politics, but he seems like one of the more thoughtful bloggers out there. I was fascinated by his tales of growing up. I'm sad he closed up shop.

Just One Bite is quitting as well.

They both had people they didn't want reading their blog find them.

My parents don't even own a computer, although my brother does. And it's not like I would be hard to find. But I don't worry too much about my family reading this. I've mostly tried to not blog negative things about my family.

How sad is it that anyone who's read along for the past several years might know more about my life than my parents? It's not that I don't talk to them, we call every couple of weeks, it's just that they don't get all the details all the time.

??

I had too much time on my hands this weekend, so I went blog surfing and checked out the blogrolls on some of my favorite reads, as well as a bunch of blogs from Blogher.

My question is - does reading about other people's lives through their blogs make you feel better or worse about your own life?

Reading the blogs from Blogher mostly just made me feel different - but not in a bad way, and sometimes bored with the sameness of them.

Howdy

I got a comment from one of my "lurkers" the other day and it just about made my day!

I love SiteMeter. Mostly I love seeing where people are reading from. Best I can tell, I've got lurkers in Reston, Virginia; Herndon, Virginia; Florence, Kentucky; Sunnyvale, CA - which always makes me think of Sunnydale and Buffy; Wichita, KS, and probably Dallas, TX. It's hard to tell sometimes with cities like Houston and Dallas, they could just be random folks coming through.

So, Howdy to all my lurkers :-)

Too Fast?

Maybe it's the speed of blogging that makes conversations difficult. For example, I read the post on Just One Bite I linked below. I don't have the time or energy to really think it over and write a response then. But, the next day when I do have some thoughts organized, her blog already has five newer posts. It feels like things have moved on.

I know trackback and permalinks address the technology side of the issue. But it's hard to overcome the mental/emotional aspect of it.

The irony is, one of the reasons I enjoy blogging (when I'm not being crazy) is that it gives me time to think the issue thru instead of having to be in a real time conversation and think on my feet.

Putting it out there

If/when I get another tattoo, it’s going to be the final box in a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that reads “my brain is trying to kill me.”

Maybe Nerdstar being away from home again hit harder than I thought it would. The darkness that takes over my brain sometimes really set in this week. There was a very brief period of time I tried Welbutrin. I hated it. I’d rather my brain was dark sometimes than my emotions turned off.

I have a hard time not feeling like a complete loser. I’ve just spent the last year living off my girlfriend who was stationed in Iraq. I didn’t manage to get a job - the few times that I actually tried. I haven’t made a new friend in longer than I can remember. The few friends I do have live out of state. I would guess I’ve had phone conversations with them all combined less than ten times in the last year. I tried reaching out to friends I used to have and their complete lack of response really hurt at a time when life was already pretty damn hard.

It’s easy to look back and think, well, if I’d just done X. But, I didn’t do X. I feel into the waiting game.

Sometimes I get all optimistic about things. That brief optimism lead to the blog business idea. Eight weeks later it’s a pretty dead idea. I realized a few minutes ago that blogging is a lot like high school for me. I was the B average student who’s friends were all in the top ten in a class of over 500. I’ve never felt good enough, or like I really fit in. I read blogs like Gaping Void and BuzzMachine and I get what they’re saying, I love what they’re saying. But I don’t think it’s mine enough to make a living at it.

I love Nerdstar, and some days I actually know how much she loves me. But like any relationship, we have our problem days. And when my brain goes dark, those seem a million times worse.

I used to let the darkness settle in for much longer periods of time. I’m better at recognizing when it’s the darkness talking in my head versus reality. But spending a year alone means I’m also used to keeping it all in my head. Not burdening anyone else with it. To some extent that’s a good thing. But sometimes it just makes the loneliness feel that much worse.

What does that have to do with this blog? I’ve never wanted to be one of those bloggers who put all the darkness on the blog. I’ve always wanted this to be a place to put the other millions of thoughts and ideas that run thru my head out there and to talk about them. I’ve always wanted this to be a place for conversations, not monologues. Back to the high school feeling; it’s hard to see other blogs get 30 or 40 comments on pop culture and I’m not getting hardly any.

I’m still trying to hold onto my optimism for this year. We’ll know in about a week if we’re moving to KS or staying in Austin, or who knows, picking something else altogether. Eventually I’ll get a job, which will help my self esteem. Eventually we’ll have a baby.

But in the meantime, I’m feeling like a loser. So blogging might be light until there’s something better to write about.

Done

I'm done with this blog for the time being. I'll let Nerdstar do the blogging for a while - Atypical Asian Syndrome.

Nice Reminder

David is celebrating his one year blog anniversary and writes a great post that reminds me why I do this.

I can't tell you how often I'm tempted to just quit blogging. I run out of things to write about, things to care about. I get into funks and don't want this to be a depression blog. I look at my sitemeter and wonder why bother.

But David gets it right. I write this blog for the same reason I read blogs, because it's fun to read about other people's lives.

Let others see the world through your eyes.

To you, all of these things seemed perfectly commonplace... but to me (or anyone else, for that matter) they could be wildly interesting or entertaining.

Thanks, David!!

This and That

Nerdstar is laughing at me for talking to my computer, which I've done a lot in the past couple of days! As you can see, the site is back to normal, and even slightly improved. Big thanks to Jenna and Gianna! They also upgraded my version of MT - WOW. Integrated blacklist, AND now in Firefox the bold, italic, link and so forth buttons are back - woohoo! Although I was just getting good at actually typing out the stuff necessary to add links in posts.

I've been to the mall three or four of the past ten days. Way too much. After I got home last time I realized I should have taken the ipod and headphones with me - drowned out the damnably cheerful Christmas music piped into our souls. At least I'm almost done with the christmas shopping.

I'm convinced that Christmas is just ritualized mass hysteria.

I finally found a place to play poker. There's an Amature Poker League and they have a branch here in Austin that plays on Monday and Wednesday nights very near our house. And it's FREE! It's tournament style and I've played in three so far and steadily improved. I'd say there's one woman playing for every eight men. Most of the people are pretty nice. It's funny though, there are two sessions each night, six and nine. The nine o'clock one had a lot more drunk people so it was fun to watch them get beat pretty early!

Blog Anniversary

I've had this site for two years now. Seems like so much longer. It's too early in the morning after being up too late because of the election to be very coherent yet.

I just want to say a huge, heart felt thanks to all of my readers!! Here's to the next year of blogging bring more fun!

New Kid

How exciting!! Nerdstar decided to start her own blog!! Atypical Asian Syndrome check it out!! I've always encouraged her to write on here and we'd talked before about her getting her own site, so this is a great surprise.

Seem so strange

While it's really cool, it was also kinda weird today knowing that hundreds of people who had never read my site before would be checking it out today because of the link from Instapundit.

I write for me and then for the twenty or so people I know read on a regular basis. I've emailed or IM'd with them enough to know how they're going to take what I'm saying. I write more like a conversation with old friends on here.

So the Ani quote "You know, taken out of context I must seem so strange" was in my head all day.

1000th Entry

I guess it's appropriate that this entry will be like the 999 before it and nothing special.

After all the stress and emotion of last weekend, I've been pretty chill the last couple of days. Summer set in with a vengance. I'm one of those rare people who hate hot, sunny weather. Especially when hot and sunny means it's 95 with 90% humidity and relentless sunshine. It helps tremendously to have an a/c in my car this year. It means I might venture out before 10 pm a little more often.

Nerdstar got a chance to call the other night. She said a couple of guys in her unit have taken to sleeping in their offices instead of their trailers since the attack last weekend. She also said people are being a lot more friendly. That all makes sense to me. She's doing well.

I've still been watching programs and documentaries about D-Day, thinking about how different things are now. And it's really not our military that is different. At least, not in the makeup in the character of it's soldiers. But our enemy is completely different. That's something that always pisses me off - that our enemies are total cowards. They won't put on uniforms and fight us "face to face" as an army. They hide behind children. They lob mortars into our bases and fade into the crowd.

And I think that's what contributes a lot to the major difference between this war and WWII - the attitude of the homefront. Say what you want about propaganda, but it works and it helps. We need more of it today. But it's "oppressing" to call our enemy the enemy. Fuck that.

Anyway. My mailbox brought me cool things today. I got the 3rd season of Coupling, the 6th season of Buffy, and the only season of Firefly.

Guilted Into It

Tony asks: do you have the guts to take the honest bloggers-only quiz

1. which political party do you typically agree with? libertarian

2. which political party do you typically vote for? i mix it up

3. list the last five presidents that you voted for? Harry Browne, Dole, Bush, Dukakis - the man I've voted for has never won.

4. which party do you think is smarter about the economy? republican

5. which party do you think is smarter about domestic affairs? republican

6. do you think we should keep our troops in Iraq or pull them out? finish the job

7. who, or what country, do you think is most responsible for 9/11? OBL and Al Quaida

8. do you think we will find weapons of mass destruction in iraq? yes

9. yes or no, should the u.s. legalize marijuana? hell yes.

10. do you think the republicans stole the last presidental election? no

11. do you think bill clinton should have been impeached because of what he did with monica lewinski? no, but for lying like a dog - yes

12. do you think hillary clinton would make a good president? no

13. name a current democrat who would make a great president: none

14. name a current republican who would make a great president: bush - but I can't begin to imagine who either party will have running in '08

15. do you think that women should have the right to have an abortion? no

16. what religion are you? Christian - in a heretical sort of way

17. have you read the Bible all the way through? yes, more than once.

18. what's your favorite book? A Prayer for Owen Meany

19. who is your favorite band? none

20. who do you think you'll vote for president in the next election? Bush.

21. what website did you see this on first? tonypierce.com + busblog

Then this is a follow up set of questions:

1. Do you try to look hot when you go to the grocery store just in case someone recognizes you from your blog? HA. Forget the recognized part, I generally don't try to look hot at all.

2. Are the photos you post Photoshopped or otherwise altered? Nope

3. Do you like it when creeps or dorks email you? as empty as my email is, sure.

4. Do you lie in your blog? not usually

5. Are you passive-aggressive in your blog? i'm sometimes tempted to be.

6. Do you ever threaten to quit writing so people will tell you not to stop? Nope.

7. Are you in therapy? If not, should you be? If so, is it helping? No, maybe, don't think it would help.

8. Do you delete mean comments? Do you fake nice ones? No, wow - now there's an idea.

9. Have you ever rubbed one out while reading a blog? How about after? No and no

10. If your readers knew you in person, would they like you more or like you less? hopefully more

11. Do you have a job? not currently

12. If someone offered you a decent salary to blog full-time without restrictions, would you do it? absolutely

13. Which blogger do you want to meet in real life? It'd be cool to meet everyone on my blogroll

14. How many bloggers have you made out with? 0 - Nerdstar wouldn't let me.

15. Do you usually act like you have more money or less money than you really have? Considering how poor I am, I probably act like I have more money than I do.

16. Does your family read your blog? no

17. How old is your blog? about two and a half

18. Do you get more than 1000 pageviews per day? Do you care? no, yes, sometimes.

19. Do you have another secret blog in which you write about being depressed, slutty, or a liar? no, I don't really see the point in that.

20. Have you ever given another blogger money for his/her writing? no, I'm pretty sure they all have more money than I do, most certainly have better jobs.

21. Do you report the money you earn from your blog on your taxes? I wouldn't if I earned any.

22. Is blogging narcissistic? only in the best kind of way

23. Do you feel guilty when you don't post for a long time? yeah

24. Do you like John Mayer? no but Nerdstar does.

25. Do you have enemies? I don't have enough readers to have enemies

26. Are you lonely? very

27. Why bother? because I can

Burned Out?

Tony says you know you're burned out when:

heres when you will experience "blogger burnout":

if your blog feels more like a "have to" instead of a "get to" youre writing about the wrong things.

Maybe I am burned out. Too many days 7 and 8 apply around here. Or maybe I just having nothing in my head for a change. Which trust me, would be a big change. But there's also nothing going on externally either. The only conversation I've had since having lunch with a friend on Thurdsay is when Nerdstar called me today. The last few days have had me cutting the grass in our tiny backyard with the weedeater, cleaning the house, and washing my car. Not a hell of a lot of excitiment there.

Maybe that's when I should follow Tony's lead and make shit up!

I've got a couple of things scheduled this week that I'm actually excited about. But I try not to write about things until they happen.

New Design

WOOHOOO!!! I am so excited about this new look! It makes me look smarter. I love the double image of the title - subtle, perfect brain graphic, great fonts - the one thing I asked for. It's all amazing.

Gianna and Jenna - I can't thank you enough!! The cookies are in the mail.

Spring Cleaning Help

Sort of. I love my little blog, but I have to admit that as blogs go, it's not a very pretty one. So I'm putting out a call for help. I'd love a cool banner, maybe a little redesign. I have no design skills whatsoever.

I'll bake you cookies, send you your favorite dvd, just help me make this look better...

anyone?

We and Them

I've been thinking this week about how in the mid to late 90s, when the internet, and vitual reality, and The Matrix, first really came on the scene. There was all this talk about all of us individuals sitting in our dark little rooms plugged into our computers and totally unplugged from the real world.

But with the advent of blogs I've seen a real change. It's all personal. And that's a very good thing.

As a lesbian or a Christian or whatever, I've always believed that the only way to change someone's views, stereotpyes and perceptions of lesbians or Christians is if they get to know me and I don't exactly fit those views, stereotypes and perceptions. It has to be on an individual basis. Same for me, if I don't know any people who are pretty different from me, then I can depersonalize those types of people and see them as - well - them. And we all know what "we" can do to "them".

Blogs have the ability to bring a lot of "we" into conversations with a lot of "them". That's the value of reading someone write about a lot of topics over a period of time, I'm more likely to find something we have in common, which makes them a little less "them".

When you add in the fact that blogs also cross all geographic boundries, it becomes and even better thing. When Iraqis and Iranians and Chinese and Japanese and Korean and Australian and American bloggers are reading each other, communicating with one another, seeing a real, honest look at every day life for each other, it can only change things for the better.

Again, why blog?

From Just One Bite: A friend who is an analyst in the Internet industry discussed bloggers with me recently over wine: what motivates them? Why do they start? Why do they keep blogging? He didn't know I was one, at first, but then I showed him J1B. Then there was more wine, some browsing, some drunken typing, and we made a list. So, what the hell... I give you:

35 Imagined Answers to "Why Do You Blog?"

Me - #6, 12, 19, 20, 22, 26, 34, 35 - in no particular order.

Update:

In a mostly related post, Ryan writes about blogging as a hobby - like coin collecting, and not taking ourselves too seriously.

Pity Party

Have you ever gone days without talking to anyone other than the waitress where you had lunch, or the cashier at the store you shopped at? I have rather a lot lately. I could do it indefinitely due to current circumstances. Usually, after a day or two, I'll pick up the phone and call someone just to have even a short conversation in order to feel normal and even remotely connected to the rest of the world, not just the world in my head.

Most of my interaction with the few friends I have is done thru email or IMs. Two of the four people I communicate with on a regular basis, other than my parents and Nerdstar, live outside the U.S.

So this blog is important to me in terms of feeling connected. I know I have a handful of regular readers, and appreciate that more than you can imagine. But, as I've said before on here, it's too hard feeling like I'm talking to an empty room when there are no comments here. It just makes me feel more isolated.

I hate even writing about this. But what's the point of this site if I can't be honest?

Blog Uses

I was having dinner with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago and he mentioned how hard it can be to meet girls. (A sentiment I can completely understand and that's why I thank God for Nerdstar.) Anyway. I told him he should start a blog called Boy Needs Girl or something like that and I bet he'd have a date in no time. He didn't think "needs" was the word he was looking for. Anyway. I was amused to read this nice story on Gaping Void about boy meets girl.

(hi Eric! the email I sent a couple of weeks ago got bounced back.)

Would you?

As I've said too many times, I read about a hundred web blogs a day. Especially on work days the phones don't ring very much.

I just had a thought that I'm not sure I'd read my blog if it wasn't mine and I ran across it on a bored Friday afternoon.

It's hard to say exactly why I like the blogs I like because they're so diverse. But mostly it comes to great writing about interesting things. Two things I know I don't like are posts about dreams and about being depressed. I try to avoid those here.

Anyway.

Seriously, would you read your blog if you didn't write it??

Future of Blogs?

Blogs that offer too much of the author, and the author alone, are vulnerable to other blogs that cream-skim them, and other blogs, thereby offering the superior product. The question is not who can write the best stuff, but who can collect on the best stuff, and comment on it most effectively. Really smart people are not always used to these terms of competition, I might add. The future of blogging lies in the hands of those who recognize the intellectual and literary division of labor.

My first take on this is that I don't really agree with it. The two blogs I love to read the most are Lileks (who isn't really a blog, but a fantastic writer) and Michele's ASmallVictory. Because it's not just about the links, it's knowing the person behind the links, can I trust their linkage, their take on things, their commentary on those links. And call me a heretic, but I'm finding myself bored with Instapundit because it's more links than commentary. Maybe I'm just favoring the literary side of the division of labor over the intellectual (or is it the other way around, I'm not sure I can tell.) Maybe I'm not clear on what the best stuff is. Is it news stories from "real news outlets" that us bloggers collect and comment on? I don't need the news collected for me. And I don't think anyone can compete with Lucianne for that. I'm looking for interesting takes on things by interesting people.

While I think things like Carnival of the Vanities and the new Carnival of the Capitalists are usefull, if that's all there was to blogging (a nice set of linkage with no personality behind it), I'd stop reading.

More on Why

There are a lot of great comments on my earlier post about bloggers and why we put it all out there. And while it’s easy to say there are as many reasons as there are bloggers. I think there’s probably a common factor, even if I don’t have a solid idea what that factor is. Are the reasons we read blogs the same reasons we write blogs? Does everyone who gets sucked into reading blogs eventually end up with one of their own?

I blog because I’m opinionated and arrogant enough to think as many people as possible should know what those opinions are. Nerdstar has always told me I should start a Beth Is God Network. I don’t think I’m quite that bad.

So is it all about ego? I don’t really think so. Sure, we all hope to have thousands of readers a day, but we start with a handful and never have any guarantee there will be more. Most of us who have been doing it for any length of time find we’d do it if every reader we had stopped reading. Even on days I’ve been convinced I’m my only reader, I had to put stuff out there anyway.

Rush talks often about the reason people get into politics is because they truly believe they have the ideas and abilities to really make a difference. For the most part I believe that’s a true statement. I think it also comes pretty close to the reason a lot of people blog. We believe our ideas can make a difference and this is the easiest forum we’ve found to put those ideas out there. For us it’s not enough to tell our loved ones, friends, co-workers, we want a broader audience.

I read blogs because I find myself at a place in life where I don’t have any friends to hang out with and talk to. I’ve got friends out of town and overseas, but not here in Austin. So I really get into the sense of community among bloggers. Like Rob, the people I do talk to on a daily basis at work just don’t like the same topics of conversation I do. And blogs are a conversation. The greatest thing about them, ok second greatest behind the fantastic writing that’s done day after day after day, is the comments readers post.

Even more I read blogs because I am a voyeur at heart. If I’m taking a walk at night and can see in someone’s windows, I’ll always look in and see what I can see. The people whose writing I read every day have become a part of my internal conversation. I can picture Michele watching the Yankess/Red Sox game. I think about Rob starting up a new business. I see a new RX8 and think of Glenn. Nerdstar and I talk about food and I wonder what Cyn cooked for dinner. The ferry tragedy happens in NYC and I think of Rossi. And on and on and on.

It’ll be cool to see what the state of the blogoshere is in another three years!

Blog = Home or Crack?

How weird is it that when I have my blog up on a computer screen it's like a whole little self contained world? I look at the screen and it brings up the feeling of "being home". The blog entries are my little house, and then I look over at my blogroll and see all my neighbors. (damn I'm getting sentimental and girly)

I don't know what makes bloggers become bloggers, but we are some addicted people from what I can tell. And it hasn't even taken that long, really, for us to become this way. I don't think there are more than a handful of blogs over three years old, and there are tons under two years old. Just two years for this crazy incestuous mess called the blogosphere to develop, for the addiction to kick in, and the filter of "how the hell do I blog about THAT and how soon can I get to my computer" has taken over our brains.

Maybe home is the wrong image - maybe blogs really are the new crack. Are we all just masochistic exhibitionists that got sucked into by our voyeurism? We start out reading a couple of good blogs - looking in their windows every so often, then we go by more often. That window leads to others and pretty soon we have to have a window of our own.

What really differentiates bloggers from nonbloggers? It doesn't matter what kind of blogger you are, political, business, entertainment, personal - we're all the same. We are all compelled to take the contents of our brains and put them out there for any one in the world to read. Because with Google, it really could be anyone in the world.

I don't know. I just know I'm damn happy to be a blogger.

So much to do

As you know, this is a busy week for me. I've actually had work to do at work and then going home and packing (and watching a little tv) every night. We're getting closer to done packing, but I think tonight will be a long one. Fortunately, there's nothing good on tv tonight to distract us!

I'm very ready to be in a nice clean place and to have everything in place. The movers show up between 10 and noon tomorrow, then we'll spend a few hours unpacking. There's a brand new Cheesecake Factory in Austin and that's where we're headed tomorrow night - my mouth can't wait!!

Sunday we drive to Dallas to pick Ramen up from my parents' house and drive back.