The One Hundredth Post!

Good golly geez - I've actually managed to write 100 posts. Who would have thought? Especially since I was a lousy blogger in the beginning.

Samuel Pepys I am not.

My diary from my childhood include an entry on the day I received it as a present and once again about the Summer Olympics - spelled "olimpeks" I think. I got another diary years later, this one without dates (a very good plan since consistency is NOT my middle name). It records more of my life, in that it mentions things that happened in the world that I felt were of historical importance, such as the OJ Simpson car "chase," but not my feelings on the matter. It reads a bit like a history book. Why did I record world events? As if somehow if I didn't write them down the world would forget?

So obviously I am not a natural blogger.

Yet over the last few months I have become rather prodigious in my writings. Partially because I find it much easier to write the blog than the dissertation. I may spend all day working on one paragraph, checking footnotes, trying to think of a much jazzier word than "thing" and trying to write academically.

Something that also does not come easy to this archaeogoddess.

I find that it's rather nice to see the words flying out from my fingertips, even if it's just my ramblings on what I cooked in the kitchen the other night. There is a sense of accomplishment, from the cooking, but also the telling of the cooking, and the act of telling anything, anything at all!

It's rather funny because I can and do write ridiculously long emails. This has a downside, in that I will write lots and lots about my life to one person and then not realize that only ONE person received that email and therefore NO ONE else knows anything about what I'm doing. I then make a reference to what I'm up to and suddenly people are saying "you didn't tell me that!" I can't keep track of who've I've told what to. It's a good thing I'm not a lying sort of person, because I would never be able to keep my stories straight. As it is I keep telling the same people the same jokes and then not telling other people those jokes at all. I'm convinced that there are people out there who feel I'm a dreadful bore who keeps telling the same stories again and again and others that think I am an intensely private person because I never tell them anything.

Experts have wondered why blogging is so popular. Why do people feel the need to express and flaunt their inner selves to an anonymous public? Google "why do people blog" if you don't believe me. Hey, I know how to back up my statements! I am a foot-note fetishist!! I have not read all of the various reasons people blog, but I have my own theory.

Well, duh, of course I have my own theory. I blog, so I must think about why I do so.

I fall into the group of people who blog to "document their life." This includes the use of the blog to not only record one's existence, but to also inform family or friends of what's going on. In my life, I would probably not blog if I lived in the same home town with all of my family and friends. There would be no need, because I would be able to talk to these people frequently and easily. If I lived in say, a typical small town setting, everyone would know what I was up to anyway, so there would be no reason to write any of it down. But in this global age, when people travel and move far and wide and we lose that sense of community in the place where we live, we create new communities on the internet.

As a Romanist, I love that we call these places "forums" - it tickles my fancy.

I'm not big on joining the forums though. They require constant supervision if you want to maintain a conversation. I don't really have that kind of time and energy. It's like trying to maintain a large circle of friends. I really can't do it. The people I consider friends are the ones who can not hear from me in a while and who KNOW it's not because I'm pissed off with them or have dropped them for other people, but because I've gotten distracted by a new research problem or forgotten the date or something else silly, but not malicious.

Heck, I'm still trying to remember to blog about my successful attempt at Chinese food. I'll get to it one of these days. Really. I'm pretty sure.

Until then I'll try to keep up with the random events of my life. Not that there really are any, but the things that pass for events in my life. And any random thoughts I may have. And definitely more about food. I really really love to write about food and cooking. It's not so much about documenting my life as my stomach. But whatever. It's my blog.