The more mainstream Blogging becomes the more people it seems, particularly traditional journalists, are starting to weigh in with their opinions on the matter. Most of them are positive but I read one article recently that ticked me off. The reporter was complaining about how more and more of his friends were starting Blogs and sending him notifications when they were updated with every minute detail of the dog’s latest trip to the vet to a blow-by-blow account of their weekend activities. He made Bloggers out to be totally self-absorbed narcissistic fools unabashedly using their Blogs for shameless self-serving promotional tactics. There may be a little bit of truth to that but so what? If you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to read it.

First off most Blogs at least mine, the reader has to sign up to receive notifications. Bloggers don’t just start spamming people haphazardly with update notices to guilt them into reading it. Secondly, this is probably the same guy who stays glued to the weekly reality TV shows like the Amazing Race and Big Brother but somehow that’s acceptable to him. Honestly, how much different is Blogging than Reality TV? The concept is the same, you are peeking into the world of others, tuning in like a voyeur to see what they will do or say next. The only difference is that Blogs are real and interactive, they aren’t watered down by ratings-hungry producers trying to twist the material into something more compelling than what it really is. Let’s face it, real life can be mundane, not everyday is cause for an epic post and its not some must-see event with 22 hours of nothing edited out. This is why God invented MEMES and PhotoBlogs.

Some people Blog the everyday banal with their own little twist, some Blog for therapy, some to promote themselves, their photography, their writing skills, their sex lives, or the sex lives they only wish they had. Some do it for notoriety, to obtain Book Deals, and some people like me just have an incessant need, not desire but need, to be heard and understood because we sleep better at night with that little piece of validation tucked under our pillows. I write because I have to, because I’m not someone who can hold things inside. I make observations and analyze thoughts and feelings, I always have. Prior to Blogging I have always kept a journal, this is nothing new. Blogging has just allowed me an open forum to utilize it and the understanding that there others out there just like me, 8 million others to be exact.

I like taking people on a ride with my words and insights, I get off on it. I enjoy sparking a debate, provoking thought, and stiring up controversy. Shocking, and showing different sides, revealing just as much or as little of myself as I choose to. There have even been times when I am not sure if my Blog is imitating my life or if my life is imitatating my Blog.... If I can make a man understand what it’s like to have a Bikini wax or bring a woman to laughter and tears simultaneously by describing it in great detail, then I have achieved something that provides me with a kind of inner satisfaction that an artist would feel after completing a painting or a baseball player would feel after hitting a Grand Slam homerun. And isn’t that better than a stack of dusty old journals sitting in an attic somewhere that my grand children will one day discover and say "Wow, Nana was really a racey chick back in her day!"

Note to reporter - Listen, most of my friends don’t even read my Blog, maybe they don’t have time or aren’t “computer” people and that’s fine. Maybe they would prefer to get together for lunch or talk on the phone for 3 hours instead, which personally isn’t my thing. Or maybe they just don’t quite grasp the concept yet and it’s totally okay. These are also the friends who I predict 2 or 3 years from now will be asking me to help them set up their own Blogs because they realize they can profit from it. Maybe they don’t see Blogging as a new form of sharing information that will only get bigger and create more of a demand, eventually even changing the way Google’s algorithms and other top sites ranking systems are infrastructured. Blogs aren’t new, they have been around for years and they aren’t going anywhere. But they are gaining popularity right now and with that comes criticism. Even celebrities are realizing what a nifty marketing tool Blogs can be and are hopping on the bandwagon. Celebs Like Pamela Anderson, William Shatner, and Rosie O’Donnell are all new Bloggers just to name a few.

Who knows maybe I will someday get tired of blogging and just stop altogether, I’ve seen other Bloggers reach that point or just take long hiatuses. But I can’t imagine it. In fact I can foresee myself running multiple blogs because at the end of the day, the blog is all of these things for me. I Love the fact that people sit down with their morning cups of coffee, open up my Blog, and start their day off by reading it. A happy day was when one of my readers told me they actually sprayed coffee onto their monitor while reading one of my crazy stories! So yes, I am a Blogger and I’m a little bit narcissistic. I have those Blogs I like to frequent as well and I can’t wait to see what tasty treats they have in store for me next. Because it’s more than just the everyday details, it’s a community-based, non-regulated, where freedom of speech still exists, open forum where there is always dirty laundry to air, support to lend, and secrets to reveal. It’s a virtual neighborhood of intimation where there is something for everyone. It’s like the Wysteria Lane of the World Wide Web and it’s hard not to get sucked in.