Blog On

Yesterday, Packrat asked me about why I blog. (Her questions were: What is your point of blogging? Do you want everyone to agree with you, or do you want a little lively conversation once in a while (as long as it isn’t mean spirited)? Who do you want looking at your blog?)

Although, technically my earliest posts were at the end of 2006, I didn’t really start blogging consistently or telling anyone about my blog until January of 2007, so this is right about the two year mark for me (before this blog, I had a live journal that has all been made completely private, lest I die of shame when you read the sort of idiotic things I wrote during high school and college. I can’t even read it without rolling my eyes back into my head).

Originally, I planned to only write book reviews on here, but after approximately six minutes, I found myself wanting to write about other things that were only tangentially related to books and then, whoops, things that weren’t at all related to books. Like the time the social security office told me my name was “Jansseb.”

And then people started commenting a little more frequently. I started reading more blogs and more people started reading my blog. When I said something, people would chime in to offer opinions, agree or disagree, or expand my thinking on some topic. It was fantastic.

I certainly don’t want or need everyone to agree with me (and I love that plenty of people are willing to tell me frankly that they think I’m dead wrong about college tuition or archiving email). I loved the opinons that came out on my post about homeschooling; some had me thinking “Exactly! That is why I want to homeschool!” and others made me think “Hmm, that’s a good point. I may send my kids to public school.”

In most cases, when I ask for an opinion, I don’t really even have an opinion and want to get one or I have an opinion but I want to see how it matches up against other people’s views (the other cases are when I need to prove to Bart that no one else says “root BEER” instead of “ROOT beer”).

As for who I want looking at my blog, I am happy to have basically anyone read it. I know my parents and grandparents and in-laws read it, so there won’t be any “check out this heinous snowman sweater my mother-in-law made me” posts (note: there have been no snowman sweater gifts). Although I don’t use my last name on my blog, I know that my blog comes right to the top in Google if you search for my name, so I’m aware that any future employer or library patron or professor could find me in a moment. My blog isn’t private and I have zero intentions of ever doing so, as private blogs are a thorn in my Google Reader-loving side.

I hope that what I write here is interesting to people who’ve known me for years and to people who just stumbled here by Googling “bell bottoms paris blues.” I hope that even if you don’t particularly like to read, that you won’t be bored to tears by the book reviews, and if you mainly came to read a book review, you won’t roll your eyes at my talk of LOST and 24 and North & South.

I try to respond by email to comments (if I can find an email address for you); Bart has suggested that I start responding to comments in the comment section (opinions on that?). I try to read most of the blogs that link to me.

Mostly I blog because I like to talk, I like to tell stories, and I like to write. I blog because I want to remember the books I read and enjoyed and want others to read and enjoy. I blog because it’s a fun hobby and because I like having a record of my life (that I hopefully will not be forced to roll my eyes at in two or three years).

And, I really like all you people that read and comment. Thanks.