Tuesday, January 18, 2011

January blog

It's January and I live in Minnesota and these factors should be enough to justify starting a blog. I really don't like the word blog. It's not a pretty word and it's not very descriptive even when you stretch it back into the two words it represents in its compacted little expressive sandwich. What is a web log anyway? Don't you think of Star Trek and William Shatner saying "Captain's log, stardate 2011.1.18, Spock told me a hilarious joke the other day..." or, you know, whatever it is he says in his captain's log when you hear the word "log?" When I think of writing in a "log," that's what I think, anyway. Maybe that's just me. But a blog can be so much more than that. For instance, when it's 10 degrees outside and there is a wall of snow so high in front of your house that you have to stand on tip-toe to holler a greeting to your neighbor and you are 5'9" so that's a pretty damn high wall of snow... well, then, a blog can be something to do, a guilty pleasure, a little indulgence.

I like to tell stories and I like them to be amusing. I tend to think I am much more amusing than any source of feedback should have led me to believe thus far in my life. I love people who appear to find me funny and entertaining. On the other hand, usually a blank stare or look of slight confusion is my first clue that a person does not, in fact, find me at all entertaining or amusing. And when I talk to someone like that, I subsequently try NEVER to encounter that person ever again in my life because, in all honesty, I don't have any idea how to talk to that person. The more confused they look, the more nervous I feel, and the more nervous I feel, the more "funny" jokes pop in to my head and they refuse to be ignored even as I try madly to act normal and think of a normal, grown-up-lady thing to say. I end up just muttering "so, anyway..." and then I trail off, sentence unfinished, and basically just get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

But in writing? Oh yeah, I don't have to see anyone in my audience (and maybe that's because there IS no audience, ever think of that, smarty pants?) so I can just be as hilarious as I please. I can tell all the stories I want and if no one wants to listen, it's okay. You can just click on the little red X in the upper right-corner. Unless you're on a Mac and in that case, I don't know what you do but I trust you'll think of something.

So this is it: the January blog. It could stretch on into February and March, or it could just peter out and I'll say "It was the January blog. I'll write again next January when I'm bored and stir crazy." We'll just have to wait and see. Either way, I see a future of me telling some good stories and hopefully I will entertain at least one person, possibly just myself. It's January in Minnesota and the landscape is nothing but shades of gray but I found something to do.

4 comments:

  1. Excellent start - sounds like you. And, yes, you are funny.

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  2. Thanks! And did you notice the minimal spaces between sentences? I'm evolving...

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  3. Didn't happen to notice that - do like it, though. Am worried that I've heard you mutter "so, anyway..."

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  4. no way... you always laugh at me!

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