Lessons learned from and because of Master Kat

Every few months it seems that I have this existential conundrum about blogging. Back in October I wrote this( http://petechat.blogspot.com/2008/10/strange-nature-of-blogs.html) Essentially the question is "Why do I blog?" The answer...it depends. This may be a bit disjointed so do your best to follow along. The nexus of this quarters' question came from a discussion we had last night. My good friend and faithful Pete Chat reader, Kat Fleming recently completed her Masters Degree in Museum Studies. She worked very hard for this and to celebrate this she invited a number of her friends over to dine. Leave it to Kat to be the one being celebrated but still doing the cooking. She's amazing. Good job by you Kitty Kat.

Not a Master of Evil like Darth Vader.

So as we sat and chatted while digesting our lovely pasta meal, the subject of blogs came up. We talked about the pro's and cons of Google Reader (my final take, it makes reading blogs easier for me, but takes more effort for people to comment), and why we blog at all.

David brought up a valid point. Isn't blogging totally narcissistic and self obsessive? Does the whole world need to know about every detail of your life? For me that is a very simple answer, Yes it is. I am self obsessed and my life is extremely interesting. (Not really at least the interesting part). I mentioned that I had not been getting many comments lately, and Brian mentioned that yeah I read your blog but I have zero to say about your back pack (touché). Although I has the crazy sense of loyalty to inanimate objects that have served me (thus the posts about backpacks, earbuds, and shoes) and should be honored. I have also noticed that some of last year’s more prolific bloggers have slown down a bit. There have been new bloggers this year who have picked up the slack I suppose. Maybe that is because the people who were writing about stuff, have started to do that less and actually do things more. I don’t know really.

I wonder if full time bloggers ever struggle to find things to write about. Dan Clark mentioned sometime ago in his blog that he thought people were spending too much time talking (or blogging) and not enough time listening. I think that there is some validity to that.

I’ve said time and time again how much I like comments. For once this isn’t an ego stroking thing. I genuinely like feedback. I like to know people are reading and what they think about the things that I deem blogworthy. I’ve heard time and time again, I don’t know what to say, and like Lloyd Dobler would do, Say Anything.

How then do I keep my blog relevant and interesting? I think it comes more from discussing ideas than events. People really don’t care about the trips I went on or the poster I bought, at least I don’t think they do. I used to get a lot of comments when I would write about relationship stuff. I sort of had to stop writing about that because either I was in a good place or I risked hurting feelings. I think I know why so many great writers die prematurely, misery keeps you creative. B Squared said that about one in four of my entries he really enjoys,and I think he is a pretty good bellweather of my audience. I would like that number to reach one in three.

Blogs are good, for keeping people informed about your life if you don’t see them every day. Blogs can be a creative outlet for writers who don’t have a chance to be creative in their other fields, blogs can be…. I just stared at my screen for thirty seconds and thought. Blogs are really people just writing stuff; maybe it is no more significant than that.
And a list of things learned from dinner at Kat and Lindsay’s last night.
1. Scott Inouye Es Scott….Robbie a Scot.
2. To Kat, barf = funny
3. You go to high school with John Elway’s kids and you don’t have problems. Man it must be good to be from Englewood, CO.
4. Things are different in Colombia.
5. It’s nothing personal, some aren’t morning people. We decided that the international sign for not wanting to talk in the morning is leaving the earbuds in. If you are waiting for public transportation and you see someone you know and they wave and keep their earbuds in, they don’t want to chat. It’s early you know, and maybe they have some serious thinking they need to do. Again, nothing personal.

And finally a Monday Haiku:

Love Actually. Yes.
Zero touchdowns this weekend.
Norwegian Sweater.