That's B-L-O-G

What IS a blog?  Really.  Until hearing about the origin of "Julie and Julia" (or is it vice-versa?), my interest in blogs was limited.  Severely.  Turning 40, and the host of interesting developments in my life around that year, led me to start my own blog to kickstart my dormant writing genes.

I have a friend who surfs the net for myriad blogs of interest.  She suffers from an artistic leaning, so the sites she discovers are often quirky AND beautiful.  I admire her knack for finding some real gems.  Surely there are a great many others who do much the same.  But why?  What is the draw?  Where is the payoff?  How do they pull us into their web of personality, personal, and persona?

If we throw out the blogs which stem from a media source, and thus regurgitate news o' the day for the most part, what is left is an amalgam of entries documenting an individual and their satellite people and the weather patterns of their days and nights.  It seems self-centered.  This idea stuck in my craw and had me wondering if I am selfish or seeking attention or some such self-serving concept. 

Now, I don't mind being on the receiving end of attention, but I have no desire to steal anyone else's thunder or keep the sun shining solely on my spot of earth.  As far as selfish, not to any high degree, though I refused to share more than a sample bite of my pomegranate ice cream bar with my son tonight.  (He WAS scarfing down an Oreo Klondike ice cream sandwich whilst begging for some of my frozen confection.)  And, yes, I yearn to spread the seeds of my word in the minds of readers everywhere, but to their benefit, too . . . not just mine own.  The blogs I choose to subscribe to are all varied but they share one significant commonality: they reveal a piece of someone.  I like revelation.  It's useful.  It's necessary.  It's GOOD for you.

I'm thinking -- as best I can given the state of my brain in this Claritin-D induced haze of awareness -- a blog is what the creator makes of it.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  This one scintillating.  That one introspective.  All a bit of escapism which may or may not benefit the gazer on the other side of the screen.  Most will never warrant the transition from computer screen to big screen, though I have seen at least one which bears further scrutiny in that department.  I know I'd watch a movie about a Chinese man who leaves his family each weekend to rescue potential suicide victims from one of China's biggest bridges.

Why do YOU read blogs?