Blogoversary

I've been having a good time with blogging since 2002.  It gave me a much healthier social outlet than what I was getting hanging out at my local bar.  It didn't replace my regular friends, it just supplemented them with virtual ones.  Also, being the first of my set to start blogging, it also made me more interesting.  I was suddenly getting input from an incredible variety of sources.  I work the blogosphere the same way I work cocktail parties:  I mingle widely and freely.  I follow links freely and love to read heart felt rants by articulate people of every stripe, color, persuasion that you can imagine.  It's fun.

I also get to hang out with some very interesting people.  Remember when we first started blogging how important blogrolls were?  I was ecstatic the first time someone added my blog to their blogroll.  I immediately reciprocated.  We were all giddy with the unmitigated joy that comes from people who have just learned to astrally project.  It was like we were in this huge virtual cocktail party where your character was the side of you that is most charming, most intellectual, never has a bad hair day, and is always impeccably dressed even if at home you're still in your boxers.  How cool is that?

I still maintain my blogroll with deliberation.  I add and drop blogs.  I add quickly and freely to remember that there was something I liked about the particular writer and to make it easy to go back.  If after a dozen or so return visits I don't get anything from the visited blog, I drop it from my list, because if the blogroll is too long, it takes me too long to visit all of the writers whom I find interesting.  Some blogs are very personal journals, and if after half a dozen or so visits without some sort of personal exchange, I remove them from my blogroll.  It's too creepy.  I feel like I'm stalking.  Likewise, some blogs function like high school cliques.  If you're not part of their imagined "A list" no one will interact with you.  Okay, bye bye.

Most of the commenters to my posts are writers whose blogs are listed in my blogroll, which I call Interesting People.  I think each of us has the potential to be the most interesting person at any particular cocktail party at which we might find ourselves.  What makes conversation interesting, however, is the give and take of divergent opinion.  Be too pedantic and no one wants to linger and listen.  Pedantic diatribes tire the eyes faster than missing a night's sleep.  Of course, each of us has the potential to be the most pedantic asshole at the cocktail party.  I hate when it's me.

Sometimes the most intelligent thing one can say is to say nothing.  I pass by some very interesting conversations about subjects about which I know nothing.  I used to get nervous when that happened until I realized I was getting a negative feeling based on an old paranoia.  I can remember finding myself in classes at college where I knew I was out of my league.  None of us like to think there are leagues we can't play in, but by the age of 30, hopefully we begin to accept the fact gracefully.  Anyone who hasn't learned that by age 60 is probably a self-absorbed, narcissistic asshole.  I'm just saying, that's all.

It's very flattering when you get attention from guys in the Bigger Leagues.  It's humbling when you see your readership numbers spike because some A-list blogger says something nice about you on the record, so to speak, by linking to you.  It leaves me feeling self-conscious for a short while.  I write best when I'm not paying attention to whom else in the room.

I've really grown in my ability to write in these past six years.  Nothing improves your writing skills like actually doing it a lot.  I don't know if I have any more to say today than I had six years ago, but I'm willing to bet that even if I'm saying nothing, I'm writing it better.  Maybe that's enough. 

Happy blogoversary to me.  Six years, 150,000 hits later, I'm still going at it, but then, who's counting?

Comments

[KathyR]

Congratulations on your blogoversary. Thanks for keeping me on your blogroll and for your kind comments today, too.

Six years? Wow!

[Peter]

Good for you for keeping at it, Houston. Mine is pretty much moribund, but I can't quite pull the plug on it, know what I mean?

[BB]

I don't comment on your blogs very often, but I check them one or two times daily. I guess there are a couple of reasons, first I value your imput. I don't always agree, but I do value it. Secondly, I am always trying to find a higher level of thoughts than I am exposed to 15 hours per day. It feels good to read something that has over five words per sentence. You said that you had improved as a writer. Writing as an expressed form is a dying animal. We all need to write more. It is a great way to express our feelings and get our creative juices flowing. I think writing even helps with our mental state. So keep writing and I'll keep reading.

Cuz

[Kathy]

I guess I'm flattered I made your interesting people list.

So how many others on your blogroll are small-minded bigoted gay-hating party-line-toting conservative bible-thumping Republicans?

Or is that just a label you like to lay on me when I disagree with you?

Happy Blogoversary Houston :-)

[Houston]

You are none of those things, although you do know all the theme songs. I chalk that up to the neighborhood you live in.

I know you've gotten me to think more seriously about some of my positions, and I hope I've returned the compliment.

[Ricky-Lava (Oh so HOT)!]

Hi there Houston. Couldn't resist stepping out of the shadows and into the light to shout from the mountain top a rich, hearty congratulations on your Anniversary! Lot's of love Sugah!