OMG, I AM BLOGGING!!

It all happened so fast! One minute I was a typical (?) suburban housewife, vacuuming, stacking the dishwasher and writing emails to my friends about our family, and in the next minute I became a BLOGGER! And the really funny thing is that I still don’t really know what a blog is, who reads them, why anyone would want to keep one, and how I AM one.

My friend Bryan got me into this, sending me an internet link that makes it incredibly easy to broadcast your any thought to the world. Cut, paste, and one click and I was blogging!! What remains to be seen is if any of you out there actually care about the things that I manage to come up with, and if I can manage to come up with anything more!

I am thus thinking about how this whole blog lifestyle may affect me, and how it has affected me so far:

I put on lipstick before going to the grocery store now, thinking that in case I run into someone who has read my blog, I must look at least like someone who is somewhat put together. And I always look at my shoes before leaving the house. Are the flip flops I got from my daughter’s trip to Brazil with it enough, or should I wear the Crocs with ribbon bows? Which of the two are most impressive? For Pete’s sake, am I really pondering my shoe choices for the first time in my life?

And then there is impulse control. Since my husband has sent the blog link to two thousand of his closest friends, might I be running into one while at my gym? While getting my Paxil prescription? When being introduced to a friend of my husband’s, should I mention the blog? Or should he? Or is this fishing for compliments?

How do bloggers act? Nonchalant? Pushy? Important? Vague? Are they witty? I am certainly not witty—my favorite joke about condoms is just about the best one in the world, my friend Dave has told it to me over two hundred times, and I still can’t tell the damn thing in the proper order so that the punch line makes sense.

And will being a blogger put pressure on my life? How often do blogees read blogs? Do they expect a new installment every day? If this is the case, I have already failed. Do blogees want something every week? More possible. Every month? I might be able to handle that. But isn’t every month just long enough so that anyone who once read my blog would totally forget about it in the interim? As a result, I am now always contemplating blogworthy topics: Is the fact that I can’t sleep at night, but can fall asleep in a doctor’s waiting room significant? Would it be worth blogging about the fact that I, on average, eat ten bowls of cereal a week? How can something be no weight watchers points if you eat a tablespoon of it, but POINTS if you eat three tablespoons? Would anybody be interested in reading about my ideas on teeth whitening products? Is menopause funny?

Who invented blogs, anyway? And why? Are blogs just for people who think they are writers? Or for people who are narcissistic and love seeing their words on the internet? Or for people who have a lot of time on their hands and love to type? That’s it! I just love typing!

So from now on, whenever I get the uncontrollable urge to bang the keyboard, I will share with you my thoughts and feelings. The cast of characters you may as well come to know:

CHARLIE, long suffering husband, talented handyman, general geek, stroke victim with resulting inimitable phraseology.

ANNIE, darling daughter, best friend, Spanish teacher and rock solid emotional supporter—but things do tend to happen when she is present. Horse lover and equestrienne who leads me all over creation to watch events that I know less about now than I did when she started riding at age 6.

MARION, first born daughter, high powered Hollywood agent who is too busy to tell me about any of her deals, and who has yet to take me to anyplace where there might be a celebrity sighting in Hollywood. Exercise addict, weight watcher, chef, and total whirlwind.

ASSORTED FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS, you know who you are. You are funny, supportive, laugh at my jokes, and are nice enough to read what I write. But if you do something strange or off kilter, I AM ALL OVER IT.

So this is my analysis of why I am doing this!

Or maybe I am just one big ego looking for an outlet.