Curiosities of the Blogosphere

I tried to establish, from the beginning, that I have no “street creds” for blogging – am not a tekkie, am not even in the typical demographic for bloggers – really just enjoy writing and thought this would be a good way to do some. I’m a little afraid of Cyberspace because of virus warnings and privacy issues, but not afraid enough to pass up the opportunity to learn about this phenomenon. So here I am, enjoying the chance to put ideas down, to stay in touch with family and friends in a way that communicates ME as well as my thoughts and ideas.

Don't get me wrong though - I absolutely understand that this is an open, public forum that anyone can read. That was part of the attraction - the possibility of a wider audience, however unlikely.

It was a spur of the moment thing – and I’ve been having fun with it, so I’ve kept at it. But not without a little trepidation (that’s a good word – I can use it again, right?) I kept testing it out. I would try entering key words into Google to see if it would come up in a search – it hasn’t – and so I gained a little confidence and figured that I pretty much know that I have "limited" readership. I know who you are who are reading it (because I have given the URL to you) and you know me – quite well, of course. Consequently, the whole business about the punctuation is an effort to broaden the “bandwidth” of communication-via-internet precisely because you do know me; to give MY voice, which you know, to these printed words so that greater meaning (and, largely, greater humor!) can be inferred. I’m pretty confident that you have all recognized the “tongue-in-cheek” nature of most of my comments. (Confession: I did know the real story on Milli Vanilli – though not all of it – but used that headline simply because it was a funny one to make my point; same with the business about Paula Abdul and the golfer guy.)

Also, I’m quite sure that you - the audience that I know about - don’t know much more about blogging than I do. OK.

So now, I've finally gotten some comments on my blog. Some nice (thank you, someone, for the whole scoop on Milli Vanilli); some totally irrelevant, but all of which surprised me since I think the only way for someone to find this blog without the specific URL is by “trolling” – and I'm just surprised to find that there are people who do that??? (When I tried it I eventually ended up on a blog that started opening up windows and downloading something! I shut the whole computer down, quick!) It’s an odd world out there.

Evidently at least a partial answer about why people would comment is so they can invite you to read their own blog in turn. Which – and please forgive this obvious gaffe, whoever you are – leads one to wonder why someone reading THIS blog might have thought I'd be interested in Russian Brides?

I’m learning new stuff all the time.