The mysteries of the blogosphere

1. How can bloggers be "stumped" for what to write about? WTF. Why would they have a blog in the first place? I’m stunned at the number of sites devoted to “how to think of something to write about on your blog.”

2. Are there some rules of etiquette a newbie needs to know? I've posted comments that were not that disagreeable or argumentative that got deleted. I have to assume the blogger was offended. (See #4)

3. Is it against the bloglaw to do a search by keyword for blogs you want to have a conversation with? I posted a comment that challenged the post and the blogger said I shouldn't be key word searching and to cut it out, kiss-kiss. Another WTF. I actually hadn't done a search, but her response got me thinking. I sometimes do have an agenda but so do most bloggers. Which brings us to the next question.

4. Are bloggers unwilling to enter into debate? Are they only interested in preaching to the choir? I know I would delete a comment if it was spam or an attack on me personally, but it seems stupid to not be willing to have a discussion about something. I don't know, nobody has left any kind of comment that challenged me.

5. Do non-bloggers jump from blog to blog through the various blogrolls? It would make sense, yes? You don’t have to be working on a blog to be interested in what other people are doing on their blogs, right?

6. How do I get people to read the f#%^&ing blog in the first place? Only 2 or 3 of my real-life friends and my daughters read it. I can’t even get my other friends to visit. I thought one of the ways was to visit other blogs, leave comments (only agreeable, cheerleading type comments, of course) and something that links back to my blog. OK, a couple of people have visited because of that. I’ve seen posts that have 75 comments, some have over a hundred. Is it the length of time that that blog has been around? Is it the fame of the blogger from some other activity, i.e., [redacted] is a blog done by a guy who writes for Esquire.

7. Is it unusual to obsess about the number of comments you receive? Can someone tell me how to stop worrying about it? It has occurred to me that there are visitors who do not comment, therefore there are more people reading than I am aware of. Like Cyndi. She must have been reading for a while, but didn’t leave a comment until something really bit. And how did she find it in the first place?

8. Here’s a good one, not exactly a question, but certainly food for thought. A soldier dies in Iraq and the next day a new post appears on his blog. He had sent the post to a friend with the instruction that if something happened to him, she was to post it. It’s a little odd, but when you read the message it makes perfect sense.

9. And then there's the question of whether or not to respond to comments in the comment section. I've seen blogs where the author will reply to every comment, even when they're getting 70, 80 comments. Are you kidding? And the responses to the comments take on a conversational tone, which is cool, but again, no disagreeing allowed. Are the people leaving the comments personal friends of the author? Are they just other bloggers who drop in so regularly that it seems like a bunch of friends? Do the commenters come back and read the reply to their comment? It's way too complicated. I need to know how this works.

I don’t think that’s all of my questions, not by a long shot. But now that I’m participating in this cultural phenomenon, I’d like to understand more parts of it. I realize I’m a little behind the curve, everybody else has been doing it for years; they’ve learned some of the tricks. I even registered at a site called Blog Ninjas where a blogger can get “help.” Hmmm, we’ll see about that. In the meantime, if you’re reading this and you don’t leave a comment, could you at least send another person to my blog? Hell, even if you DO leave a comment, send a couple more people here. Thanks.

A voice from the past

Cyndi writes:
"I was crouched next to you when you first met Kim. We were on a mattress in a corner of Terry's living room at Contempo. There were suddenly lots of strange people there that night in May.

Then Kim came over and talked to us for a long time, and made you laugh a lot.

I didn't ever know you felt that way. I never felt that way. I wish you had told me.

One of the things I remember Kim saying to me was about how he thought a good couple would be one where you would read together, different books, and then sit and tell each other what you read.

Kim was filled with significance of thought and interesting ideas. All the traits you ascribe to him here are true from my memory of him. Seen through your eyes, I see how very special he is, and that you are able to appreciate each other for who you each are.

How good to know now, knowing you each from the start, and what happened to each of us that first decade or so, that you and Kim found each other finally, in a way and at a time when you could finally become a couple.

As soon as I saw, a few months ago, you had got back with Kim, I realized, yes, that is who she should have been with all along. And now, reading this, I wanted to tell you so.

I was there at the beginning, but I have gone a very different way, which can't be very surprising to either of you.

Looks like none of us live in the southwest anymore, but we left very strong impressions behind us there. Endings can be the best part of a positive experience."

This is mind blowing to me. I've tried numerous times over the years to find this person and here she is, reading something I put on my blog and then writing this astonishing response to it. It's hard for me to describe how weird this is.

Cyndi was my only friend in high school. I would pick her up in the morning, we'd go for coffee and a few smokes, then maybe we'd make it to school. We'd eat lunch together and then, when school was over, we went to her house and drank Coca-cola and ate SaraLee marble cake. We listened to Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and occasionally Broadway show tunes -- go figure, right? I think there was a girl named Sherry who hung around with us once in a while, but we weren't super good friends with her like we were with each other.

Cyndi and I were in a couple of the plays our senior year. I think we were both in Cyrano de Bergerac and maybe we worked backstage on The Sound of Music. The two of us were oddballs. We didn't really fit in too well -- we weren't jocks or nerds or cheerleader-types or even very sociable, for that matter. We stuck together and were pretty much ignored. On Friday and Saturday nights we'd go to Terry's apartment in Tempe, where I'd get blasted as quickly as I could and spend the rest of the evening trying to get sober enough to drive us home. Understand, this was 1966: "don't drink and drive" had not been beaten into us, we'd probably never heard anyone say it, hell, my car didn't even have seat belts!

I hounded Cyndi into going to Arizona State with me. It was great fun moving into our own apartment a few blocks from campus. Can I just interject here how strange this is, remembering all this stuff? I haven't thought about any of this for years and years. Strange, but fun too. Anyway, we got a one bedroom apartment for $66.00, close enough to walk or ride a bike to class.

It was at the end of that school year that Kim and I went to San Francisco in my old 1949 Mercury with the pillows in the back instead of a back seat. Cyndi went to New York to do summer stock. That was the summer I stumbled into $cientology, which, in my drug stupor seemed like an answer to something. When the new school year started, Kim and Cyndi were both back in Tempe. I was heavy into $cn and made it my mission to convert as many people as I could. So I did. It was because of my involvement that Kim, Cyndi and another friend of ours, Irv, got into the cult. Cyndi even married a $cnist a few years later. I know that she got out and divorced the $cnist and raised her son.

I lost track of Cyndi for quite a few years and then we hooked up somehow, not too long after Allison was born. We drifted into and out of each other's lives for years, until about 1990, when we had a falling out. I haven't talked to her since then. From the tone of this message she left in the comments section of Kim, she has changed quite a bit. I really want to talk to her, but I don't have any way to do that other than write to her here and hope she reads it.

Hi Cyndi.