To Blog or Not to Blog

I have a confession to make. I have let it slip a few times but always safely away from my bloggie home. I take comfort in imagining that my secret sins will remain hidden at bottom of someone’s comment barrel and never discovered. I hope to disguise the truth with pretty pictures and catchy Google tags. Some of you probably already suspect something is a little different, perhaps a little off around here. I don’t suppose I can go on pretending that you won’t find out about me. Eventually it’s all going to come out and it won’t be pretty. No sir, it won’t be pretty at all. Well, I don’t know how pretty or not it will be but lives will be ruined I tell you. Ruined! OK, so maybe not ruined exactly but there will be hell to pay I tell you! Maybe not so much hell or anything but certainly a good time out with no cookies, at least not the good ones with the miniature M&Ms in them.
I’m sorry what were we talking about again?


Oh, that’s right the horrible mortal sin thing, hell fire and public flogging, right. Well see, the thing is, it’s the blogging, the public blogging to be exact. It was Rosey Pollen at Dung Hoe. It was her fault. She pushed me over the edge with her clever probing blog questions. “Why do you blog?” she asked as though it were a perfectly reasonable question to ask, as though I had a perfectly good answer, as though I had any idea at all.

Oh sure it seemed so easy for all her people to cheerfully give their smart and thoughtful answers. They all had such good reasons, noble reasons but mostly just actual reasons. I envied them all in their surety and self-awareness. They had missions, goals even. They had family to share stories and pictures with; they had information to share with other gardeners. Some were spreading serenity and joy while others were keeping a garden journal for posterity’s sake. There are writers with blogs who write about writing for writers who write. There are bloggers that blog for the sake of scoring hits to make latte’ money and still others who blog just because they seem to have an awful lot to say, about what I am not too sure but they do it anyway.

Stalling? No, I’m not stalling. I’m perfectly comfortable with this. Um, by the way did you pull the curtains? Is there anyone else in here besides us? Just asking, that’s all. Perfectly comfortable; could I have a glass of water? Kind of warm in here, don’t you think?

So here it is, the horrible shocking truth.

I blog by accident.
I don’t have a deliberate reason that I can figure out to save my virtual life. Wait. Don’t judge me. Let me explain myself. I’m sure I can explain this. Just give me a minute to think something up. I mean…

It all started because this year was the first year we/I had the garden in any kind of garden shape. I finally had the plants in and the pond was open for its first summer. I found a fantastic online garden community at GardenWeb and met many wonderful people there. Nell Jean at Foxes Earth was one of those people and she started a thread asking how many members blogged about their garden. Well apparently many people did blog about their gardens. FlowerLady was the first blogger that I got to know personally and she has become a wonderful friend.

Because I actually had been living under a rock for some time I had never seen a blog before. I know. The shocks just keep a comin’ don’t they? Well anyway, my curiosity was piqued. Being the closet nerd that I am I was less interested in reading the blogs and more interested in what the blog programs looked like. I went to the one I saw most frequently used which Blogspot was, for a little look around. In the past I have done my own art website and another website for a large arts organization using GoDaddy.com and found it easy to work with. I wondered if this was the same so I decided to do a trial.

I set up an account because they wouldn’t let me touch anything until I did. They made me feel cheap just because I wanted to browse. Sheesh. That indignity now dealt with I was free to roam the store and try on outfits and accessories. This was the fun part. Everything fit and nothing made me regret that extra brownie at lunch. I could customize, mixing and matching to my heart’s delight. Then came the time to try out some shoes with the new outfit. This is the part where you put some talk to the walk and see how it all looks on the carpet.

Now what words would I use to fill up my imaginary first post? It hardly mattered since I was just filling in some space so I could see what the template looked like all together. It was my intention to close out of the test sample as soon as I saw what the completed thing looked like. There was no way I could imagine coming up with anything clever, witty or interesting enough to merit even considering starting a blog. So this is what I typed in: “Let’s just see how boring this could possibly be."

I don’t recall what led me to this next item but I ended up on a Google search page where I saw BluegateGardens and directly below in gigantic glaring letters “Let’s just see how boring this could possibly be.” Ahhhh! It went live? It went live with that? It went live with that attached to my name?

I was shocked and horrified. I couldn’t let that stand-alone out there with my name all over it. I spent the next millennium trying to delete it only to find that when Google grants life it can never be taken away. It was as if some evil digital vampire had bitten my little test blog and set it loose on the unsuspecting world. I had to do something to drive a stake through its heart and

fast.
So I blogged. I blogged over those flippant first words which were never intended for public consumption and I kept on blogging, burying it deeper and deeper into the Google graveyard of the undead. Then suddenly something magical happened, something I never expected or imagined possible. I had a follower. I was shocked. I was stunned. I was sure this person had clicked something by mistake or was at least mentally unstable. Either way, mentally unstable or computer klutz I had a follower now and I was hooked. It was not ego but rather a sense of responsibility that hooked me.

I understand that blogs are whatever you want them to be and that you do them for yourself but that’s not how things roll in my head. I figure that if someone is going to give me their time and attention then I want to bring something to the table as well. I hope to add something of value to the conversation in whatever way possible. I am always so grateful and quite often overwhelmed when I read your kind and generous comments. I am humbled that you visit my blog and that you take the time to write. Sure, it’s just a blog and I can’t even say what this blog is about but what I can say is that the reason I blog is because of you. You are my reason and I thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your time with me.

PS. I would like to ask you one little favor if you don’t mind. Can anyone think of how to describe this blog? It has come up a few times and I just have no idea of what to say. I’m totally stumped.