four months

Warning: this post will be a bit self-involved. You're probably used to that, though, arent you.

Okay, officially I started 6 months and 16 days ago. But in the first week I wrote two empty posts, then nothing for over two months. Then one day, George Bush announced that he was in favor of teaching Intelligent Design in the classroom. I was floored, and so I ranted. It was August 7, and it was that day when I started blogging.

And I've managed to keep it up more or less everyday since then. It's fun. I like it. The other week Coturnix was redoing his blogroll, and I shamelessly asked if I was to be on it. He graciously said yes, then asked me which Catagory I wanted to be in.
??!!
This set off a kind of existential crisis which I'm still trying to work through. What the hell am I doing here. The one friend that I could get to read my blog said it was "kind of ranty". Yeeeeessss. I suppose it is. Is that a bad thing? I dont know. I dont think so though.

So what is it that I'm doing here?
A few weeks ago there was a bit of drama/crisis/theatre at the Reverend's, during which I described blogs as being "streetcorner discussions". I think that sums the state of things up pretty well. Imagine if everybody went around speaking their thoughts out loud. Occassionally someone might comment about something you said. Perhaps groups would form at stop lights and bus stops, everyone exchanging a few thoughts before moving on. Famous people would draw more crowds, but while more people would listen to them, fewer people would discuss things with them. Does this sound like the blogosphere, perhaps? (And why, when I think of The City, do I think of New York City, though I've only been there a couple of times?)
Anyway, as a night-working, daytime-child-rearing guy who sleeps when he can and sees his wife mainly on weekends, I deeply appreciate that Streetcorner. As an Art Major who's spent the last 10 years with almost no creative outlet, blogging has been a godsend. As a former compulsive letter-writer who simply ran out of time to write detailed letters that elicited little similar response, comments (any comments) are manna - because it means somebody out there is actually responding. Conversation, almost.

Better, in a certain way. I long ago read and immediately appreciated Kurt Vonnegut's line that he "looked much smarter on paper than he actually was". Hey! I thought, that's me! That thing where, in real life, you think of the perfect thing to say 15 minutes later, is easier to overcome in the blogosphere, where "conversations" take place one post at a time at the speed of your fingers.

So what is it that I'm doing here? Again.

It's a real mixed bag, isnt it. Sometimes I just share something interesting (like this), sometimes it'll be something disturbing (like this), and sometimes it'll be something that's really pissing me off (like this). Commentary ranges from simple posting to full-scale multi-paragraph ranting to occassional forays into fictional satiric scenarios (these are rare, and usually leave me exhausted and abed for several days).
I'm still having trouble with the balance between posting and commenting and reading. Lately I've been leaning too far in the commenting direction (not that there's a lot of evidence of that, I know), and reading too many "random" blogs (I love that button), but I have had almost nothing coherent to say on my own. Balance is a tough act. I feel like I'm trying to learn to ride a bicycle with an ear infection.

Wait. Have I figured out what I'm doing here yet? Yeah, maybe.

I'm having fun.


addendum:
I've noticed that half the things I do, see and hear now get filtered through a kind of process that asks "how would this blog?"