I’ve only been a blogger for a short time, and I am finding that I enjoy reading blogs more than I do writing them.
Maybe it’s because I am not as clever as I thought I was, and when I re-read my posts I am usually disappointed. Either it’s not funny when I thought it was, or I wandered off the point somewhere in the middle and never got back to it, thus making the whole thing look like a 7th-grade essay, or I just didn’t find the words to say what I meant. I used to have a great vocabulary, but I lost it gradually after coming to the realization that a lot of people had no idea what I was talking about. I started speaking in plain English, and gradually forgot all the big words. See, I don’t even have a big word meaning “big words.” But I used to.
Now that I’m writing on the internet — I should say now that there IS an internet — plain English is not that important. People can look up anything they want — even get it translated from some other language into English. Plain English, if they want. So I don’t have to talk down. I could use all the polysyllabic verbiage and circumlocutory constructions I wanted. But now plain is the only way I can talk. So my blogging is a little, um, boring.
On the other hand, I have read hundreds of other peoples’ blogs, and they are funny, intelligent, well-researched AND they freely use big words that I understand but can never think of when I want to. They are also poetic, god damn them, and dirty, god bless them. Yes, sex blogging: How I love it. The filthy details of randy midwestern housewives’ masturbatory fantasies, and how they become my masturbatory fantasies.
I have noticed that all blogs are written by 30-year-old women. This, I suppose, should not surprise anyone. Who writes diaries? Who are the diarists in your life? Girls, then later women. Enter blogging. Wow! Diaries that others can read, but they are just as private as any journal under lock and key because no one knows who you really are!! So you can keep your secrets while you reveal them. And you can lie about your exciting life and your dates with Brad Pitt or Gwyneth Paltrow and hey — it might be true.
But back to 30-year-old women. OK, they aren’t the only bloggers, but they might be half of all bloggers. When do they find the time to put together these witty, sexy, smart rants? It takes me a week to write five paragraphs, and they are knocking out daily posts, while they raise three children alone, hold down a full-time job, attend law school, read voraciously and pursue two or three potential boyfriends, all of which activity shows up instantly in their blogs. I am ready to submit. Women are truly superior beings. I get it. I humbly request to serve at your feet.
And now, because I read more than I write, I feel like I have all these new acquaintances, people who know me, and I know them, and we chat a little every few days, and we get each others’ jokes, and we are concerned for each others’ emotional and physical health. If someone posts pictures I study them as if they are of my sister’s wedding, and comment on them as if anyone gives a shit what I think of them. Some of the 30-year-old women have man-trouble, and I am right there with my wise advice, which is about as useful as tits on a bull, and I fervently hope no one takes it seriously, or I could have some real liability, but I feel like it’s OK to give advice and if I have a breakthrough maybe I will even ask for some, too, because, you know, I feel like you are all my pals.
Except that you’re not my pals, really, and we really don’t know each other, and I only think I know who I am dealing with because I have — in many cases — accepted more or less at face value who each of my blogging buddies says (s)he is. And this makes me pathetic, I guess. Not that I don’t have any friends in real life. I have lots. Ok, two. But still, I know they would go to the mat for me. How many of you would do that? All right, then.