Blogging

The conversation, over at Net Native.

On the day I met the woman behind Net Native, I mentioned that I don’t consider myself a “real blogger”. Immediately, she wanted to know why. I had to admit I wasn’t sure, and the question kept bothering me for the next week. What’s a real blogger?

I told her about how Chris made me this site because he missed the playlist and wanted to get me blogging, while I had hoped we’d be able to create a place where I could track and archive my artistic output. I still hope for that - an interactive timeline I can tag, illustrate, archive things in, link, and rearrange to help make sense of my twisty interdisciplinary/international artistic path. A place where it’s all kept, not only for grant application purposes, but because I have a hard time remembering what I’ve accomplished and what it all has to do with anything. And secretly, a bit of a tool to help me figure out who I am and where to go from here. You are what you do; what I’ve done is scattered and when I get sick I tend to repeat myself.

I wasn’t looking for a new project to address daily. I can hardly keep a journal. But here we are. I think we’re up over 100 posts now, and we’re a year old. That’s not exactly dedication, but I’m becoming a little more attentive. But I still don’t have the ability to change the tagline on the top illustration without bothering Chris and distracting him from his new baby.

So a few days later, when I read this Net Native post, the differences between whatever it is I’m doing here and what I consider “real blogging” were further highlighted and the question rose again.

Characteristically, this string of thoughts and musings has no focus. No purpose. I already had a vanity (fully acknowledging the two definitions of “vain”) site, and I’m not interested in marketing myself at entertainment. And if my friends really wanted to know what I thought, they’d call and ask. (Right?)
I’m not doing this because I’m under the impression that you think my opinions are interesting, and nothing’s for sale. And the thought of ex-boyfriends, past stalkers, and future employers knowing all of my thoughts and struggles is so daunting that I hardly post a fraction of the story anyway. That’s why I don’t consider myself a “real blogger”.

So what, then, is the point of publishing my thoughts here, as I clumsily cast about for meaning?

Of course a little of it is a desire for company on this road, the quest for truth. The hope, which certain occasional readers whose names begin with C sometimes indulge, that someone will come along and shine a little eloquence on the subject and make one feel a little less alone.

And perhaps more hopefully, the idea that things will come together, make sense, add up to something bigger, the sum of its parts.

That eventually there WILL be a point.

And then this will be background, an archive, visible process, and I won’t have to waste time explaining how we got there. And maybe just doing this keeps me going, keeps me moving, and keeps me accountable. Journaling helps with process and with working out ideas, but I suck at keeping them. This way there’s the guilt factor, and the occasional call from Chris asking why I haven’t posted. And maybe-just-maybe if I serendipitously, accidentally, miraculously do something awesome, then maybe we’ll be able to figure out how the heck that happened. Because honestly, at this point? Nobody else is watching.

And then, there’s the memory of one or two people who came up to me, a decade later, to tell me how this DJ set or that art song “changed their life”. I didn’t know it at the time, and that wasn’t the goal. And I wasn’t doing anything groundbreaking, just sharing some records I liked and learning how to forget to sing. I was just doing, there was no point. Sometimes, that’s my favorite thing to read in other people’s blogs. Maybe, even if I’m all wrong, something I say here can help someone else get where I don’t go faster, better, less painfully than I would have. Maybe that’s who I’m talking to now. I don’t mind that neither one of us have much to say now. You know where to find me. See you in 10 years, buddy. Or not.

(I can’t believe this has been sitting in my “drafts” since January. Sorry, my bad.)