Thanks, all.

I had not thought about it, but yeah, if a person were a popular-blogger, how would you respond to or even READ all the comments? It would be a full-time job.

And I also think - there'd be the whole "ratings" thing becoming an issue. Like - some television shows are good and clever and interesting early in their runs, then they become popular and there's pressure to "Stay new" or please the advertisers or generate even bigger rankings or bigger press...and that leads to the downfall of a lot of quality. You might say, it's the Paris Hilton-izing effect: you're so desperate to keep your name in the media that you're willing to get out of a Town Car sans panties, just to get that press mention...

So today's post: why I blogged, and why I blog now.

I started blogging, I guess, because I saw other people doing it and it sounded fun. I've always liked to share what I know, or what I've found, or what I do. But, right now, particularly where I am now, I don't have a lot of "meatspace" (to use the charming word coined by some IT sorts) contacts who are interested in the craft end of my life. Oh, there are people in my department who will tell me something I've made looks "cool" (and then ask me if I made it), and there's one woman who regularly violates my personal space if I'm wearing something fluffy or fuzzy (She likes to "pet" fluffy fabrics. I should probably take the leftover Fun Fur I have hanging around and make her a "worry square" to keep in her office so she has something to pet). But if I started talking about how I had to change needles to get gauge or how I altered the pattern to turn the bobbles into eyelets, their eyes would start to glaze over. (Just as mine would were some guys to start discussing taxidermy or renovation of vintage motorcycles).

And that's the reason I keep blogging: the fact that there are people out there, most of whom I've never met, who understand. Who get what I mean when I say I hate making bobbles, or who understand the sense of accomplishment of turning a sock heel (even if you've already done it 80 times before, it still feels kind of like magic). Or whom I can imagine nodding or chuckling when I talk about Jasper Fforde, or Alexander McCall Smith, or the old Ealing Studios comedies. The people who catch the subtle Simpsons references I sometimes am compelled to slip in, or who understand that sometimes you can watch a cooking show (like Paula Deen) even though you'd never make any of the dishes they prepare.

I also continue to blog because, frankly, I like to write. I mean, I like to write in a more free-form format. The sort of "technical" writing I do - journal articles and grant reports and even laboratory exercises - well, they're kind of buttoned-up. You can't slip in words like "spangly" or "triumvirate" and get away with it, usually. You kind of have to check your humor - and your tendency to adopt stylistic elements of books you've read - at the door. (They also don't tend to like emdashes, which I use a lot. Or even, sometimes, semicolons and a lot of comma-phrases are kind of suspect.) So there's something kind of freeing about the blog - I can just sit down and let the words flow without putting on my "professor hat" or "researcher hat." (Once, someone who knew me - outside of campus - discovered I had my Ph.D. and he asked me, "would you rather I called you 'Dr. [Lastname]'?" And I said no, that I was 'Dr. [Lastname]' all week long, that I'd rather just be Erica on weekends...)

Another thing about the blog - it is kind of a form of therapy. I write as much for myself - no, really, MORE for myself - than I do for other people. (The fact that other people want to read and comment is just a bonus). I have tried off and on to keep paper journals over the years, and generally I go about 3 weeks and then stop. Part of it is, quite literally, the physical effort of writing - I have some wrist problems that writing exacerbates and I also have such a death-grip on the pen, usually, that my hand fatigues pretty fast. So I burn out quickly. The other thing is, somehow, it's easier to make time to write while sitting at the computer - when I'm already online, already doing something writing-related - than to take time at home, and go dig out the journal, and make sure I have a pen with enough ink (somehow, it seems I always grab the pen that's on its last drops of ink). And so it just seems simpler, somehow, to keep the journal electronically.

Anyway. Form of therapy. I know I've wrestled through some problems and issues on here. I know I've expressed stuff that I'd be frankly embarrassed if any of my colleagues read it (as far as I can determine - as long as no one's using an anonymizer - they don't). I hope the final assessment is that I'm fairly resilient, and what problems I have are considerably less than what some other people have. But I do have problems and for me one way of working through them is to write about them and think about them and draw them to some kind of, if not conclusion, some kind of detente. But the blog provides me a place to wrestle those things out, to figure out how I deal with the difficulties of life.

I also like having the blog for the very simple fact that I can easily access the archives (and that's one reason why I'm reluctant to move to New Blogger - apparently the archives, in some cases, don't make it, and especially those of people with a lot of posts.) It helps me to look back at, say, previous Augusts, and see that I was in a funk then too - it's easier, somehow, when I can chalk it up to a cyclical yearly thing, or allergies, or something like that. Instead of feeling like, "what fresh Hell is this?" and asking myself if I'm going crazy, for real, this time.

The main reason, though, is that I like the connection. As much as I use the blog as a place for navel-gazing, I think one of the reasons I keep doing it is that I know I have other people reading - people who understand, or who offer advice, or who laugh at my jokes. As much as I make a big facade of "not needing people" and being this big independent person, I am, and have to a certain extent always have been, a pretty lonely person. Part of it is that I'm not often around people in my immediate life ("meatspace," again) who share my interests and enthusiasms. Part of it is that I often feel - rightly or wrongly - that I impose on people's time, that they'd rather spend that time with their family, or their other friends, or something. But with the blog - to use another bad Internet analogy - it's an opt-in system. You can read if you want to. If my posts are too long, to boring, too negative, too frivolous, too navel-gazy, not enough pictures, whatever, you can skip them. Commenting is also an opt-in system (though as I said yesterday, I do cherish what comments I get). It's a form of interaction (of sorts) where I don't have to ask myself, "am I imposing on their time" because you are choosing to read...

And I like the idea of having readers out there. I'm interested in the fact that I have readers in California or Virginia or Texas or Wisconsin or even Germany (and maybe even further afield than that...). I'm interested in what they have to say in the way of comments. And I have to admit it feeds my ego a bit to think of people reading...it's kind of the same joy I feel when I get a reprint-request for an article I've written in the mail. It's a sense of...I don't know, a sense of "I'm not invisible!" or a sense of "I exist for someone else!"

(And I realize how that sounds - maybe not quite neurotic but a little bit needy. But some days I do quite literally feel invisible - and I think maybe that's a curse that lots of live-alones have.)

But it does make me feel "less invisible" to know that I have readers, and I thank you for that.

(Tomorrow, there will be pictures I think. I realize I never photographed my "naughty squiddy" that I made over break, nor the little camel-hair hat).