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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Imagine how long 100 posts would be if I double spaced them.

In the past couple of weeks, while I’ve busied myself with youth baseball, house guests, middle school football camp, general chauffering and oh yeah, WORK; a very important anniversary has come and gone. A year and several days ago, I got a wild hair, Googled “free blog hosting” and started typing. With this brilliant witticism I was officially a blogger.

I was not someone who really read blogs. For one thing, it’s a horrible sounding word and I wanted no part of it. Blog. Blogh. Bluh-og. Sounds like a belch after you throw up. But my friend Kara said, “sometimes things you say remind me of Dooce. Don’t you love Dooce?” And I said, “Doo-what HUH?”

For the record, I am not comparing myself to the 26th most influential woman in media, and neither was Kara. I think that it was more that I tend to curse when discussing my children or something. In any case, I sat down one afternoon to see what this Dooce person was all about and thought, “Hey, instead of driving my friends and my family away with my constant rambling – I could write something everyday on the Internet.”

Um yeah. Apparently, I so can NOT write everyday. Not even every week. But that is why fives of people read this and why Blogher emails me every ten days or so to pull their ads that they don’t pay me for anyway, right? If I wrote something pithy everyday then the entire economy would fall apart because everyone would be sitting on their computers laughing instead of working hard and paying their mortgages. Or something like that.

I wasn’t really sure what my blog was going to be in the beginning – a Little Girl with Big Glasses is just how I saw myself most of my life. I've always been more a spectator than a participant. I was a fly on the wall that could make people laugh when I told them how they appeared through my eyes. Or, I could really piss them off. Either way, I amused myself. Also, the name was available, and none of the other things I thought of were. At the time I wasn’t thinking at all of what search engines might think of the name and it never occurred to me at all that I might have a whole legion of visitors who stumble upon me while searching for “little girls” or “hot girls with glasses” and my personal favorite: “little girls with big asses.”. I have to admit, it’s really those folks I write for. As I sit down at my sleek MacBook Pro, I think to myself, “Now. If I was a lonely middle school custodian with repressed issues about my mother and I was in the mood for illegal pictures of underage girls and I found little essays by a plain-looking 42 year old woman INSTEAD, what would capture my attention and keep me reading?” And then I type what I was going to type anyway. Or more often, I just open an excel spreadsheet, and forget the whole thing.

The thing has kind of stayed relatively true to my original intent of observations, essays, rantings, et al. I follow very few, like NONE, of the suggestions for creating a successful blog. I hardly ever have interesting pictures, I don’t let the reader into my personal life all that much, hell - I have an avitar where my picture belongs, I use bad words and made up words. But I entertain myself, Spanxy, a couple of friends from high school and at least two people in Cheyenne, Wyoming, so I guess it’s all good. I probably should have started when my children were toddlers and still smelled so nice that you didn’t want to beat them for waking you up in the middle of the night. They said adorable little things and took nice long naps which would have made for a lot of good material. They were extremely photogenic so I could have had days where I just posted their edible cuteness when I was lacking for words. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

So here I sit, one year later after diving in, and I’m kinda proud that I’ve kept it up this long. I am flattered when someone I didn’t know reads LGBG tells me they do and that they like it. I love the feeling of clicking ‘PUBLISH’ and watching my rambling go live. I hate when two days go by, then five, then eight with no words. It feels like I’m letting myself down.

My friend KC asked me a couple days ago how many posts I’d written. I guessed, Oh, about a hundred? And he said, “Huh. You could’ve written a book by now.”

Hmm.

My high school English teacher once wrote on the side of a paper I’d turned in, “HA! You’re an amusing writer! You may be the next Erma Bombeck!” And then a nice big fat “D- Try to stay on topic. Antigone really shouldn’t be reviewed by Erma Bombeck.” (I took it as a compliment, but would’ve preferred she call me Dave Barry.) I wonder if Erma Bombeck would’ve been writing now if she’d have even bothered to try to write a book? Or would she be another Mommy Blogger, content to post here and there about beans in noses in between loads of laundry? I also wonder if a book of unrelated essays about shit that bothers me is worth the paper it’d be printed on and I realized, that eh, probably not. Also, screw you, English Teacher. I personally would be fascinated by what Erma thinks about Antigone and her beyotchy sister.

I’m considering trying harder, making something more permanent than this. When I read back to this and this and this I can remember what I was doing and thinking and listening to when I wrote it. Well, actually first I think, "Cripes, I am a genius!" THEN I think that other stuff. But I wonder if it lost forever? After Blogger moves it to page two, is it done? Is it even worth saving? What if aliens or pirates or ninjas attack the Internet and delete all my words? If a blogger deletes in the forest did she ever really blog?

So – here’s to a year ahead. I’m not sure what it will be. I'll probably just keep driving people to baseball and football and golf, doing the laundry, buying the groceries, oh yeah going to work, and sneaking in a post or two when I can.

We’ll see. Thanks to the fives of you who’ve been along for the ride. Except for the time that the Ace Young fans attacked me, I for one, have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

4 comments:

  1. I hate it when two, five or eight days go by without you writing as well. I love your writing but I realize that sometimes life interrupts life.

    Page two is not lost either. I have many blogs that I find interesting that I've gone back to the beginning and not read anything current until I've read it all. My friend does the same thing. It took me about 3 months at work to read all of dooce.

    Keep up the good work!

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  2. Happy Blogoversary. Thanks for hitting that PUBLISH button. I so enjoy all of your ramblings!

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  3. I really like your ramblings too. I would give anything to be funny. Unfortunately, I am mostly sappy, which makes even me squirm. But it also makes me appreciate funny writers like you even more. Keep on ramblng! Happy blogoversary!

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  4. CONGRATULATIONS! A year of blogging is a long time! I think that's about 14 years in real time so this next year should be a wild ride.

    I'm so glad you decided to take the leap into blogging - you are one of the funniest people I know in real life and on paper. And personally, I look forward to anything you might write - especially a book.:)

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