Hast Du Etwas Zeit Für Mich?

To blog, or not to blog — that was the question. This is the answer. The dialectic leading up to it went something like this:

Not to blog: It's self-indulgent. No; wait, that's insufficient: it's masturbatory. Lots of fun, sure; even better with an audience, but inappropriate in public. Just a trendy new name for a diary. I had my first one of those when I was eight. It had a yellow vinyl cover and was held closed by a tiny lock and key. My deepest darkest secrets were recorded in it nightly, and then it was hidden under my mattress. Oh, the unspeakable horror, thought I, should anyone ever have read about my crush on Clifford Jerel in grade three.

The truth is, they would have been bored to tears. Really, what's changed?

To blog: It encourages writing. It could be habit forming. I have enough vices and several habits that are far less productive; perhaps it's not a bad thing. It encourages the writing of sentences, complete with capitalization and punctuation. A welcome backlash to the degeneration of written English as witnessed in most email messages. (Don't get me started on apostrophes. Seriously. Don't.)

All the best people are doing it.

And, just like my yellow vinyl diary of thirty years ago, I don't have to let anyone else read it.

Unless I want to.
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Go to next story, which is about shoes.