10:48 am | 10 November 2004 | blog-referential entry

I've been thinking for a long time about why I do this, this 'blog' shit, for real. This isn't an intro to my 'I quit! Forever!' entry or anything, so don't worry--I just want to explore a bit.

1. The practice is unbeatable. All appearances aside, I am an actual writer, and even though I muster up the loosest of diction in this little enterprise, the fact that I have to come up with some creative expression every day is practice you can't buy in stores. I've been doing this for a little over two years, and no joke, I get every single other writing task in my life accomplished around 40% faster than before, or more easily, maybe. So if you need to use writing at all in your life, I recommend it. Although:

2. It's not 'blogging' anymore, per se. We know 'blog' comes from 'weblog,' and though they had several guises at first, I still think of like Captain's Logs or whatever, where it'd be a record-keeping list or diary form (I'm on Diaryland, for chrissakes*) of goings-on. Mine started kinda that way, but the sense-of-audience thing grew really fast, but did me a service, in a way, since it's more challenging to explain my day-to-day in a way that is clear and interesting (or baffling and annoying, more likely) to an outsider, than to have one of those blogs that's crammed with insider info or is, literally, a diary that happens to be in online media and not crammed between box spring and mattress. This does give me the fascinating ability to refer back to what I was thinking exactly one year ago, but it's not about that, procedurally.

3. I got to evolve a personal style. I'm sure only three of you like reading it, and the rest of you merely sift through it like crappy mixed nuts in search of God knows what, but I'm so comfortable in this mix of hyperbolic description, cursing, and frantic sentence construction, that I doubt I'll ever be able to go back to straight writing, seriously.

4. My skin got a whole lot thicker. The weirdness of the internet, the disingenuousness of it, means you can't ever take anything truly seriously. I've sure crammed my foot in my mouth when it comes to other people (or, more realistically, their sites). There's a weird expectation about what you're producing that doesn't always jive with what you want to be writing--back in January I wrote something fairly dense and serious, which elicited a decidedly uncomplimentary response that, had I let it, could have floored me. This was in a life-period where friends were calling every day and making me promise not to kill myself, seriously. You can't think all this braggadocio is honest, can you? Do you? But I'm off track. What I mean is: You learn to consider the source. Does this Jon fellow give a crap about thoughtful, considered writing? No, he prefers loose and funny and curseful. There's nothing wrong with that. I like reading that. I find poop hilarious. But the point, the point, is the different-strokes thing. I have probably offended or annoyed every one of my readers. Here, I shrug, literally, at my desk. I'm not out to win fans with this shit, folks. I'm out to keep it real. Motherfucking real.

5. Purely anthropologically, here's what's bound to elicit the most response on a blog: Political stances, bold statements, funny pictures, pictures of ladies, pictures of boobs, stories that people can say "Oh when I did that, it was--" People either want what's relatable or what's novel, and nothing in between. There's a weird political system to it, as well. I've gotten in deep shit for deleting people from my LiveJournal friends list, which I've done not because I was angry or unfriendly with the person, but because their blogs are boring. Seriously, I don't give a shit about poetry slam score calculation, and if that's all your posts are, then I will talk to you some other time, my man. You make-a my scrolly finger hurt.

6. Mostly I am done with appearance-only bullshit. I've been cruising thisaway for quite some time and while I've still got kinks in my spars, I've set my speed to "cruise." How exhausting is it to go around in an imitation of what you think should be done, or what you think people want? I am impatient and often bossy. I experience rapid mood changes and put too much caring into the Other People bucket, to the detriment of the Claude Pail. But I'm largely over scrambling after this justified existence, and that means even in my stupid online life, too, bro. This entry over at UDvCLM is hot-headed and brash, but, in an extreme and cartoonishly hyperbolic way, that's really how I feel. I'm over it! And those of you who love writing your endless politico-babble: Go nuts! I'm just bored! That's okay!

7. I am rambly and pointless. I write entries where I allow myself to wander all over the map, like an insane troubadour with a smashed lute and a drinking problem. And so I end this entry, which has no of the funny, but I don't care. It's MY BLOG! MINE! clm.

* Speaking of which, I have no complaints about Diaryland. I cut my HTML teeth up on this bitch and the service it provides, for the novice or casual blogger, is unparalleled. LJ is cool and all, but there's something so charmingly Mom & Pop Shop about DL that I give it limitless props.