I Was Tagged, You See

While I was away in Italy, Hope and Dagoth tagged me. It's nice to come home from vacation and find out you're IT. :)

The meme? To list 5 reasons why I blog about the things I blog on my blog. Here goes:

1. I'm a photo-taking fiend. Even when I'm not in total-tourist-spinning-around-in-circles mode, my camera is never far from my hands. My blog gives me an excellent place to show off all my pictures that would never otherwise see the light of day--sadly, there's only so many people in daily life you can show the photos of your cat/garden/bellydance party after all.

Imagine my happiness at this excuse to post some pictures from Venice, for instance.

Venice made me think fantastical thoughts. Venice made me want to try on masks. It made me long to don an elaborate costume and attend a fancy-dress ball.

I settled for borrowing Tai's headscarf and sunglasses and pretending I was Audrey Hepburn.

2. I love to write. I've written since I was a child--half-finished stories, dream journals, some truly dreadful but somehow still amusing poetry (I was a big fan of the rhyming couplet), trip diaries, whole binders of notes composed to friends in math class. I have shelves full of notebooks that contain all sorts of dribs and drabs that will no doubt be useful when I'm famous for something and write my memoirs of eighth grade.

Blogging is a continuation of those notebooks. A little of this, a little of that. My blog is never terribly focused, and that's quite alright with me.

3. I love for people to read what I write. The wonderful thing about blogging is that there is the potential that anyone and everyone in the world to read what I'm writing. There's a vast random audience of people from Canada to Timbuktu that might be reading this. Not that there are more than a handful of people that actually see any given post, but I love the potential that my words are out there in the world.

4. I like to feel connected to people. I'm somebody who likes to strike up conversations with total strangers. If I meet you in a grocery store line-up and you have an interesting tattoo, I'll most likely ask you about it. If I don't, I'll be kicking myself later.

There are so many great people out there in the world, and there's no way that I can meet you all in person. How frustrating! But through blogging, I can interact with people outside my own little world--people with different beliefs and cultures and hobbies and music and senses of humour. And sometimes people who are the same. That's nice too.

The point is, if I didn't post this and that on my blog, then I'd never have known about them. And, what's more! they would have never known about me! Ah, can't let THAT happen!

5. I blog about the things I do because it helps me stay in touch. What a way to sustain friendships when you live far away from one another! Plays I've seen, songs in my head, the news story that flabbergasted me: I have to let them know. And it works both ways, of course.

I love reading about the little things my friends are thinking about or doing or even the last crazy thing they found on YouTube. I love the minutiae of their lives because I'm rather fond of them, and besides I'm often one of the main characters.

And it helps me keep in touch with people like my brother. I found out he rolled his truck through his blog. I found out he was a fencing enthusiast. I found out he's into geo-caching. I love seeing pictures of his garden online. (I already knew he collected toasters though...)