What I Like About Blogging

I just was roaming 'round the Internet and thinking how cool it is that I get to play on it. There are so many places it takes me; so many 'me's' that get spoken to.

I read Avocado8's latest post on dealing with her son's willfulness and I got to think about developmental psychology and how kids' need for autonomy conflicts with parents' need for control. When they're born, we vow to do everything we can to nurture their self-esteem. But then they actually have some sense of self and that's fine, as long as it rears its willful little head only when we want it to. It's so hard to balance that line between necessary boundaries and squelching the kid.

And then I was flipping through Flickr and pulled up Dooce's latest photos and thought how her post about going to her mother's cabin for Thanksgiving made me so envious. And I realized that it provoked the same feelings I used to have when I watched Thirtysomething: I want that life. In my eternal quest to deconstruct blog popularity, I'm now thinking, maybe Dooce is the new Thirtysomething. The attractive family with flaws exposed, yet dealing with life and having fun--goddamit--a beacon for all of us who do not feel attractive or whose flaws seem too raw for exposing or who don't have families or who don't have the talent to write as well as Dooce does.

Then I looked at Andrew Sullivan's blog, Daily Dish and he has posted photos of Mormon undergarments. I was fascinated. I remember seeing someone, I think at BlogHer'06, wearing a little white shirt under her sun dress. As a fashion statement, I thought it missed. Now I think it was her undergarment.

I live on a silent street in a suburb. Sometimes the Internet offers the only life around.