At this very moment, I am doing A Very Scary Thing.
I am writing a blog entry.
“Why is that scary?” you might ask. “You write every day! You Tweet! You comment on LiveJournal!”
“That’s different,” I might respond. “That is responding to someone. I know there’s a person on the other end reading my words, and I know I don’t sound totally stupid. Or… if I do, it’s only 140 characters of teh dumb.”
I think my phobia of blogging stems from three distinct stimuli:
1. I really loved Meg Cabot’s blog in high school.
2. I was a geek in first grade.
3. Blog entries, other than Book Bloggers Get Blogged, are about myself and not about a friend, acquaintance, or fictional character.
When I was sixteen, I thought Meg Cabot was the coolest, funniest, savviest, most insightful person alive. I mean, let’s face it, she still is. All-American Girl and Princess in Love still make me laugh out loud every time I read them, and that really speaks to their lasting humor, considering how often I reread books.
I think what I admired — and still admire, and now envy — most about Meg’s blogging is her way of making her own life read like a hilarious, engaging story. I have that ability in person, I think… I hope… maybe… but I psych myself out when it comes to blogging. I get great blog ideas in the shower every day (as a Digital Age baby is wont to do) and I open up Wordpress and look at the blank textbox and freeze up.
November 2006
I am once again setting myself the goal of blogging more like Meg Cabot. Or, actually, more like the Princess Diaries books. Maybe it will help me to develop talent for writing. Or at least give me some material about which to crappily write. Whichever.
Although I’ve gotta say, in general, I find people who blog about “What happened to me today” to be completely ridiculous, because, I hate to tell them, people generally really don’t care about what you did today. Like my roommate, for instance, who updates her Livejournal about four times a day and writes about how she… sat at her desk, writing on LJ.
Four years later, I still think that’s true, and that is the reason for my Blog Stimuli #1: Meg Cabot Is Cool. When she blogs about her day, she’s able to make me care and laugh and envy and think. Of course, part of that stems from the fact that her days seem to be pretty fascinating — she gets to wear a tiara, for pete’s sake! She knows Judy Blume! She gets TV channels!
I realize that many blogs’ format is to include aspects of daily life along with a hook (and Meg’s hook is simply, “I Am Meg Cabot”), but… I don’t know. Even blogs that I find fascinating have some sort of hook, a reason why I pay attention — and it’s rarely the actual blog portion.
Foodblogs?
I like the pictures. Food is really pretty, especially macarons, which are the benchmark of a good foodblog.
Sleep Talkin’ Man?
…Does anyone read the little italics after what Man has Sleep-Talked? I don’t. I just read the bits about how kittens have TOO MANY WHISKERS, TOO MANY WHISKERS!
The authors whose blogs I enjoy intimidate me for a different reason, however. They are more closely related to my Blog Phobia Stimuli #2: I Was A Geek In First Grade.
Actually, to be more honest, I was a geek from age one onward. But first grade is really the impetus of my blogosphereophobia. (It’s a real word. It is. Swear.)
In first grade, my elementary school hired a Music Appreciation teacher who seemed to completely miss the part of her teacher certification in which she should have been informed that first graders are six years old, do not generally have musical training, and listen to things like Mary-Kate & Ashley’s Brother For Sale or I, Grover. Sometime in October, she gave us the assignment of writing an original Christmas carol.
Because we totally knew how to compose music.
Because we were absolutely not six years old.
So I went home and I worked and I worked and I wrote out some lyrics about ornaments, and I brought my song to school.
Every time I sit down to write a blog entry, I feel like I’m wearing my pink leggings and sitting on the too-big piano bench, being made to try to play the piano and sing an original Christmas carol in front of my pantsuit-clad, spiral-permed music teacher and twenty-two other kids who already tease me every day.
The teacher started laughing halfway through the first verse of my song and told me I was murdering her piano, which really should have been expected as I had never touched one before in my entire life, but the worst part was not the teacher belittling me. It was the reactions of my classmates. Three or four kids laughed at me back, but most everyone else just sat on the floor, watching the glowing lights in their Lite-Up shoes. On the one hand, it’s awesome that probably no one else remembers the moment of my mortification, but on the other, it would have been really nice to have just one kid stand up and say, “Hey! You never taught us piano, lady! You can’t laugh at us for not knowing how to play!”
This would never have happened in a first grade Music Appreciation classroom, but it’s the emotion that counts. My fear of blogging is less about sounding stupid and boring, and more about not sounding like anything at all.
That feeling is what segues into Blogosphereophobia Stimuli #3: I Am Not A Fictional Character.
I love writing about fictional characters.
I would hope that this is somewhat obvious, at this point.
Ever since I discovered that I was allowed to create my own characters, it’s been my passion, but more than that, it’s the discovery of someone else’s life, motivations, and experiences that fascinates me. It’s why I studied History, Journalism, and Creative Writing in college. It’s why I enjoyed interviewing popstars for Tommy2.net and why I liked transcribing long, rambling recollections of WWII vets for PBS. Listening to the conversations around me was my favorite part of being a barista in New York City, and the one part of being a college admission counselor that really suited me was speaking one-on-one with really great, interesting prospective students.
But I already know me!
So, to make my Blogosphereophobia less severe, tell me: Who are you? What do you like reading blogs about? How did you stumble across my little blog, and what do you want to know about me?
My dad likes to tell the story of when he took me to a garage sale when I was about two and I picked up a discarded pricetag from the ground, held it up in the air, jumped up and down, and yelled, “LOOK! I GOT A TICKET TO RIDE!”