So, the blogging begins...

I've been secretly addicted to this medium ever since a friend of mine in high school started posting his stuff on the internet, long before the advent of myspace and blogging and all the other forums for public/anonymous communication. I never thought to apply it to myself because I was fascinated by it from a purely voyeuristic point of view. I liked knowing more about the people I know without actually having to interact with them. Am I shy, or socially awkward, or what? I think I'm mostly nosy. I also like to listen to other people's conversations when I'm at restaurants or in line at the store.

It's always revealing to see what people will say to a given audience, especially when I'm not a part of the intended audience. What do people say to each other, for example, when they're out on a first date (my favorite place to spy this is in cars next to mine at stop lights. I think I'm pretty accurate in picking out that forced smile/ job-interview chatter), when they're talking to a friend about an absent spouse (women do this most, but not exclusively), when they're not getting along with their conversational partner but have to communicate out of necessity (like when a husband and wife or mother and children are in line at the grocery store)? How do people talk to each other when they think no one else is listening? From this point of view, the appearance of the cell phone was the beginning of a new era. I know the first time I talked on a cell phone, I was definitely more interested in communicating with the people around me than the person I was calling. The phone conversation I was having went something like, "Hey mom, I'm still at Encore. K and I are going to see a movie at 10:05. Is that okay?" But the conversation I was most concerned with at the time went something like, "Hey, all you people in the bookstore, including a past boyfriend, do you see how cool I am to be talking on the PHONE in the middle of the philosophy section? Don't you think I'm COOL and technological savvy?" People used to feel self-conscious holding conversations in public with a party no one else could see. But not much of that remains. Otherwise, the Bluetooth would never have happened. We'd feel like freaks walking around like schizophrenic cyborgs unless everyone else was doing it, too. And we've done a favor for all the genuine schizophrenics because now people will just assume they're on the phone. Not that they really care....

I haven't decided whether overhearing people's conversations on cell phones counts as good (read "satisfying"--I'm not concerned with ethics at the moment) eavesdropping, because nothing really great is ever said. Just listen the next time you're out. The conversations I hear most sound sort of like the top layer of streaming audio that happens inside my own head. You know, that list of what you've done, what you still need to do, what's annoying or amusing you at the moment. The only difference, really, is that the stream is chopped into bite sized pieces by the "hey, how are you" at the beginning of the conversation and the "Hey, I'm gonna go now" at the end. So why do we keep calling, if all we're doing is using another person as an excuse to verbalize our own commonplace thoughts? Because it serves as a mirror. We see ourselves through how people react to us. And for some, cell phone conversation is a genuine vehicle for building real, two-way connections with other people. I think they're called relationships.

Blogs fall into categories, too. The blogs that fall into the social mirror category are interesting because you see the front people want you to see. Crafting a blog must be an interesting thing, because you're opening a dialogue with you're-not-sure-who. Your audience could include friends from church, people from work, even your own family(!), and you don't often open the same parts of yourself to all of those people. It takes some deliberation to decide what is appropriate for all audiences, and seeing what people come up with that fits into that category is a rich subtext to this type of blog. The actual communicating blogs are as good to read as genuine conversations are to overhear. Most of those I've seen lately have been new parents sharing the wonders of their children with an audience so captive that I can picture them without any effort at all. Grandparents read these blogs, and other doting parents do, too. And the stream of consciousness blogs are great, because a slightly less superficial level of thought appears when the thoughts have to be processed through a keyboard before they're shared.

So why am I starting a blog? Eh, I'm not really sure. Most likely, it's because I'm starting to feel a little creepy from all the one-sided communication. Sure, I still like to spy, but I'm growing up enough to see that it's a little immature. And I'm noticing that I actually TALK to people whose blogs I read, and it's getting a little weird for people to bring up subjects in casual conversation with me that I've already read about in detail. When that happens, do I respond to the piece of a story they just told directly to me, or do I interrupt them with, "yeah, yeah, I already read this part"? I'll feel less pathetic if I'm giving back in the same way I'm taking from these people. I guess I do miss having a literate audience, too, not that I don't absolutely love the interaction I have with my wonderful children (more on them later, I'm sure). I live in a sleep-induced stupor. My theory is that with your first child, the lack of sleep attacks short-term memory and word retrieval skills and the like. Then as the baby becomes a child and starts sleeping, you sleep too, and your brain regenerates. Since I've had an infant pretty much non-stop for about 5 years, that superficial layer of my brain was already wasted when baby number four came along. Instead of losing nouns, my personality itself seems to be ebbing away this time. I want to get it back. I want the chance to pass my opinions and observations through a typed filter, because they last longer that way. I have proof that they existed hours and days after the fact. And I want to prove that I still have thoughts worthy of expression. Whether that will be proven remains to be seen, but that's my motivation right now.

So let the blogging begin....