hmm...

I haven't quite worked out what I want to say here today. So, why am I even here? I'm working it out.

I'm not the type of person who can open her mouth and spew forth brilliance (or anything with any kind of luster, actually). I take a long time to process and I like to think through composing. I either compose on paper, on the screen or in my head. I often wonder how much of a problem this is going to be for me as I advance in my field, but I'll just have to deal, right? Right.

Although I sometimes focus too much on how many comments I get (or don't) and how dismally low my reader count thing is, I still enjoy blogging. I came into it cautiously back in 2005, after Poke explained to me that, "It's like a journal online. It stands for 'web log.'" I thought the concept was interesting, but a bit weird. I made mention, in my first blog post on my Other blog, in my annoying not-quite-letting-anyone-else-in-on-my-train-of-thought way that the voyeurism is strange. Blogging is so narcissistic and exhibitionist, but I think about these attributes less and less. (I also dislike that these -- narcissism and exhibitionism -- are such negative-sounding traits, but I'm not going to stop and try to find some happy words with which to replace these.) Sometimes I think, "Geez-a-wheeze [as Pic says], I talk about "I" a lot." But, well, what/who else am I going to discuss. I only know me and I don't claim to know me all that well.

Reading others' blogs has been a great way to feel that I'm still connected to people who I don't otherwise check in with all that often. I'm a strong advocate of everyone I know starting a blog...but for pretty selfish reasons. I want to be able to read them. I know that some of my friends aren't into the whole blogging thing and that my parents just aren't completely down with the whole blogging thing, but the blogosphere has been good for me. I still keep my own journal (seventeen years and counting*), but I also like to share some things with the blogosphere. And, I don't have to have anyone looking at me while I do my sharing. I'm not entirely comfortable with other people looking at me (or, actually, with me looking at me either).

This has been one of the hardest years I've ever had to survive and reading about others' tribulations** has helped me. I have yet to share all of my dark and twisty moments and experiences, but I hope to at some point. I feel badly, sometimes, that I don't share as much as I can, because the sense of thanks-be-that-I'm-not-the-only-one has been essential to me this year. Part of what I love about the very small section of the blogosphere that I'm plugged into is the sense of community. (Get ready for some cheese, sorry.) I honestly feel (hope?) that if I ever had the courage to approach some of the bloggers I regularly read, if I ever had the chance to meet them (hello, BlogHer '09), they'd be warm and accepting women (yeah, I still don't read any men regularly...at least not anyone fessing up to being male).

I'd like to eventually be part of a larger conversation,*** but for now, my little blog here is working just fine, I suppose. So, thank you readers and commenters for reading my drivel for all this time. Thus (pretty much) ends my somewhat sappy and disconnected freewrite.

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* What does one do with a lifetime's worth of journals when one comes to the end of one's life? (This "one" of whom I speak is me, of course.) Do I make a provision to have them burned with me? Can I do that? I sure as heckfire**** don't want them available for others to peruse, and judge, after I'm gone...although I will be gone, so I might not care that much.

** Wholesome or otherwise.

*** I've been in grad school for way too long.

**** I've seen Groundhog Day a ridiculous number of times.

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I couldn't embed this video ("embedding disabled by request"), but Toby Keith's "Wanna Talk about Me" is running through my head right now.