Blogging

Blogging is self-indulgent.  I am presupposing that you care about what I have to say and find me entertaining.  So why am I doing this?

1. I'm unemployed and hence kind of bored.  I'm attempting to use this time to do things that I've been thinking about doing for a while but haven't had time.  I love writing.  I've always loved writing. I keep starting stories and not finishing them.  I write in my diary and feel sad that all this effort is basically wasted because no one will ever read it.  (Unless I suddenly die in which case I've given my friends permission to read everything, edit out the gory sex details, and give it over to my parents for them to reminisce and publish and make lots of money off my relatively uninteresting, but well-documented life experience.)
2. My friend Casey.  She inspires me.  She has a blog and has attempted to get me to start one for quite some time, but I've been nervous about it.  I tried starting a blog before, where I discussed beauty products, but I felt like I wasn't qualified.  Who was I to tell people what beauty products to use?  I felt like my entries were not well-researched...but I was too lazy to do extensive research, so I gave up.

(Side note - one of the reasons why I stopped doing the beauty products blog was because I had an entry in there where I mentioned a product that my then employer made.  This product drew chemical structures.  Anyway, I used the program to draw a chemical structure that was in one of the beauty products I was discussing in the blog.  Then, some jerk at the company who subscribed to google updates that mentioned the product went to MY BOSS and complained that it was unprofessional for me to be mentioning the product in a beauty product blog.  So then, my boss had to take me aside and talk to me about this and the whole thing was f-ing horrible and embarrassing and I was like...this is NOT worth it.)

I feel nervous about blogging.  I'm afraid of insulting people or making them mad at me.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm totally fine sharing my opinions...but, that I also desperately want to be well-liked.  Whenever I post anything remotely controversial on Facebook, I instantly regret it and wish I hadn't done it. And, I don't mean posts like, "I love Justin Bieber and I don't care what anyone thinks about it."  Because, I actually do love Justin Bieber, and I actually don't care what you think about it.  But, if I posed something like, "I think that welfare recipients should be drug-tested before they receive benefits", I'd be completely petrified of the wrath that might come my way.  So, maybe it's good for me to express some more "real" opinions in a public forum.  Maybe it will make me more brave and force me to stand up for the things I really believe.

I'm pretty sure that those close to me are slightly nervous about me blogging.  I tend to be an over-sharer.  After reading my first entry, Ryan (my boyfriend) said nervously, "I'm really glad you didn't name any names."  Poor thing.  

So, I think I'll lay down some ground rules for my blog.  These will be for myself and for those of you who are nervous that I'll share your deepest secrets...which I won't.

Rule #1: I'm dying to discuss relationship stuff, but I will NOT divulge information about the men I care about.  You know who you are.  However, if you're a dude who's pissed me off or dumped me or in general been a dick, you are not safe.  I will go Taylor Swift on your ass so fast, you won't know what hit you.  

Rule #2: I will attempt to make some of my political opinions known in an honest and open way and I will try not to be freaked out if people are surprised or angry about them.  Just try to go easy on me, ok?  

Rule #3: I will try to be funny without insulting people.  Tina Fey is good at this.  I just finished her Bossypants book and she manages to poke fun without being a jerk.  Like, for example, I hope I wasn't too mean about the lame butt-dancing at the high school dance.  I thought it was funny though, and wanted to share it with you.

Rule #4: I will try not to desert the blog and forget about posting in it.  

Those are all of the rules I can think about right now.

Please let me know if I have forgotten any of them.

Now, I must move on to another blog entry, because I'd like to discuss a more interesting subject.