About Blogging

Two things happened. One: I was IM'ing with CLo and asked her if she'd read my blog lately. Since she hadn't, I sent her the link. Later she called and as the conversation turned to my blog - which by then she'd read - I asked her what she thought about the comments, whereupon she said, " Oh I never read the comments." Whereupon I said, "WHAT?? YOU HAVE TO READ THE COMMENTS!" - I mean, ¿¿don'tcha??

It happened that way for me as a matter of course! I started w/Fned's blog. She let the family know that she had started a blog and sent us the link, so of course, I immediately checked it out. As I read that first entry, I naturally clicked on comments, and voilá! I found other bloggers. And so I clicked into their blogs. And from there, I found other bloggers.

Does this sound like I spend a billion hours a day blog-surfing? Actually, I don't. What I do is check my own and Fned's practically daily and if that's all I have time for, that's it. But whenever I have a moment, between translations, or other computer activities, I click on one of the blogs that I've bookmarked - blogs that I found through the comments sections of Fned's and other blogs; blogs that I've been wanting to read but haven't had time for... till now!

I don't know how other bloggers have built up their blog-life, but that's how I've done it up to now. I love getting a chance to scroll through certain blogs. For example, there's the Cancun Canadian who almost always blogs about something worth thinking about or worth doing something about - or both! I don't always comment cause she has a huge following already and someone usually says whatever I would have said in a comment... or sometimes, when I do leave a comment, it's on a previous entry that might or might not be relevant to her at the moment, but is to me. There's a miss chriswho just awes me with the way she writes about things - her feelings about life and what it's all about are very akin to mine. I love to read her blog, though I don't get to it often. Whenever I do go there, I inevitably leave a comment, although once again it's not always on a current entry. There's Ale whose blog is so fun to read. She writes well in Spanish or English! She has a lot of spunk, great wit, and I like catching up on what's going on with her. There are some blogs that I've found that are real specialty-area blogs. Interesting reading for sure!

Then there's the phenomenal thing that happens when you kind of get to know someone from a process of mutual blogging and commenting. This happened with Theresa in Mérida who calls her husband Husband, and her dog Mr. Dog... I get a great kick out of that. She has a lot of wit when she writes and I like following all her thoughts and ideas... she has a pretty big following too, so when I get to the comments section, I sometimes find my comment was already made by someone else!

As to the other thing that happened (I said there were 2): turns out that Fned's Super-Hub has started his own blog. I read it and was really IMPRESSED!! What wit! What irony! What a fresh view told with imagery and style! So I said as much to Fned on her blog - where she had introduced her hubby's new blog. She, being in total agreement, explained his emergence into the blog world by saying, "He finally figured out what he wants to blog about!"

That comment surely got me thinking! When I started blogging, I had no idea what I wanted to blog about! I simply thought, well, okay, I'll write whatever I feel like writing about, and people will comment and I'll answer them. I didn't really expect a lot of response, but just thought it would be fun to see what other people thought about things I think about or things I experience. However, I slowly realized that blogging means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and they take it seriously! See Fned's blog on blogging (and the comments section too)!

One of those things they seem to feel seriously about is getting and giving comments. Here, I'm a bit confused. Is there some kind of unspoken rule about having to make comments, or about what kind of comments you can or can't make? I get the idea that bloggers all applaud each other for whatever their blog is about that day. But what about the other side?? I mean, total agreement can be a bit repetitive, don't you think, or am I just being ornery?

So should I not be blogging? On the other hand, don't I have the right to blog? And why should I have to leave a comment on a blog I've read if I have nothing to say or if someone already said what I would have said?

Well anyway, I guess I'll stop here... as you can see I still have a lot of unanswered questions about blogging. In fact I don't think I've even answered the two I started out to answer!!!