Perhaps I can Explain: A Day in the Life of an Obsessor

It all started with E-mail. I really didn't think I needed the Internet. Ah, little did I know! E-mail became my way of staying in touch with my family and friends...i.e., allowing me to feel like they were my almost constant companions; I could keep a running dialogue -- er, I mean monologue -- going so that they could be privy to every little thought I had, every little word I said or had said to me, everything I did or had done to me...my hopes, my dreams...Oh, I can just hear them now, groaning in unison: "Too much information, Kate!"

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(But I couldn't help myself. I was obsessed.)

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Then I started reading/hearing about blogs. I didn't understand exactly what they were, and I didn't really care to know. Until, that is, my sister Melissa told me about her blog:

(http://www.alexisalldonescreaming.blogspot.com/)

She had started it as on on-line journal of her struggles in dealing with her son, Alex's, autism. (In fact, her earliest posts were taken directly from her real journal.) I was blown away. I knew she loved to write; I always thought -- and still do -- that she'll one day publish a book. I eagerly logged on every day to read what she had written. But after the first few weeks, there were no longer daily posts. They gradually came further and further apart. I begged, I wheedled, I even...Well, okay -- I never actually tried to bribe her. But I wanted more!

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(Note: Melissa no longer writes in her blog, but it is still available for reading, and it truly tells an amazing story -- especially if you go back to the very first post and read them in chronological order.)

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Melissa once mentioned that perhaps I should start my own blog. No, no, no! my inner boss screamed! You don't need another obsession!

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Then came the day I checked Missy's blog and found, again, nothing. Before I logged off, however, I noticed the little icon at the bottom of the page that said something about starting my own blog. That was the day I threw caution to the wind and said, "Why not?"

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Why not indeed! Because I would become obsessed? (To clarify, I am not the one who originated that term. That would be my Awesome Husband Greg. He says, "Kate, you're obsessed!" any time I mention the same subject twice in one day.)

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Last September I began bowlofchairies. Many times I've asked myself why. And I've actually come up with a few answers...

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The first one, I suppose, is that it is my on-line journal. A journal that I would not be motivated to keep, were it not for the Internet part of it. (I suppose all bloggers are, in at least some small way, exhibitionists.) I write it for my family -- especially for my kids. I like thinking that some day they'll revel in being able to read all the dumb/profound/funny stuff I wrote, and that they'll understand -- at least a little -- the Who-What-Why's of Me. (How I would love to have been privy to the inner workings of my own mother, who was the exact opposite of me in the exhibitionist department!)

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But even as I write for my family, I pretend I'm writing for a vast readership. Some days I'm a novelist, some days a newspaper columnist, sometimes a book reviewer. Always, I pretend that Everybody is hanging onto my every word as if it were a lifeline. I know I'm pretending. But that imaginary audience is a huge motivator for me. (Aha! That explains why one of my favorite answers to the question, "Do you work, Kate?" is "Only when I think someone is watching me!")

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See that? There's another reason I have for blogging: Self-discovery (a feat my here-there-everywhere brain would never otherwise attempt)!

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By their very nature, journals are private -- Does one ever pick up someone else's journal and peek inside without feeling at least a little bit guilty? But a blog is different -- We want people to read our blogs!

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So now I arrive at the second part of this explanatory blog...Why do we read other people's blogs? That's easy. Why do we read other people's books? To be entertained, enlightened, inspired. I love reading blogs of people I know, or used to know. I love discovering blogs of people I've never met and probably never will. I love leaving comments on their blogs, and discovering that they've read them and commented in return...I love meeting fellow bloggers!

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Oh -- are you wondering what prompted all this, Bloggees? Well yesterday my favorite columnist, Leonard Pitts, wrote about Twittering. (At this time I have no plans to become a Twitterer -- even if I ever do come to understand what that's all about. E-mail, blogging and now, Facebook, are eating up nearly all of the discretionary time I have.) I read Mr. Pitts' column with interest, as I often do...

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Note: He was not talking about blogging. He never even mentioned the word, as a matter of fact. But I read everything he said about Twitter (about which I know nothing) and applied it to what I do know -- blogging...

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He said (among other things), "...we are not just sharing secrets; we are sharing lives. And not the good parts, either, but the banal, the mundane, the everyday."

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Ouch! I do that. And I read other people who do that. I see what Mr. Pitts means, but is that necessarily a bad thing? It's all voluntary -- the reading part, I mean. And let's face it -- mundane and banal can be funny. And laughter is wonderful. Sometimes mundane and banal can even be moving, softening our hearts. That's also a good thing, isn't it?

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Well, Mr. Pitts, I still love you. I get what you're saying, and I'll still read your column -- when I can find the time. Hey -- have you ever thought about starting a blog?