I don’t want to get all meta on you, but (Em Em’s recent foray notwithstanding) I’ve been thinking about the process of blogging quite a bit lately. This here blog was ostensibly conceived as a low-pressure way to get me writing so that my “real” writing might become more frequent. Of course, to the chagrin of the world at large, it has become an end in itself. I’m not entirely sure why this is so.

I don’t possess any vital information that must be relayed to the hoi polloi. I don’t delve into things that are terribly personal, so it’s not much of a catharsis for me. I don’t crave the money and power that come with a highly successful blog. Okay, I do, but that hasn’t really panned out as of yet.

On the flip side, there are a lot of drawbacks to being a blogger … even a less-than-successful one who’s addicted to ellipses. There’s a lot of pressure. I mean A LOT. Okay, there is some. A mild amount. Nothing that a handful of Xanex and a box of merlot won’t take care of, but still.

People suddenly start giving you material. When something funny/interesting/amazing/bloody happens in your presence, you are expected to turn it into an anecdote post-haste. Friends just go around shouting “THAT’S going on the blog!” Add alcohol and this phenomenon is amplified.

People also begin to expect you to be like your blog … in my case, I am told, this means funny and/or pervy. There are worse things, I suppose. I could be expected to be profound all the time. Or insightful. That would kinda blow.

Anyway, I digress.

You also have to worry about the ethics of posting. I mean, entertaining stories often involve hapless third-parties. And there’s a fine line between bemused observer and misanthrope. Some of the third-parties are people I know and genuinely like … respect even. The fact that my wee brain must reduce people to archetypes in order to parse the outside world is my failing not theirs.

Then there’s the idea that telling countless strangers something personal necessarily cheapens it. I don’t know if I believe that, but it’s worth losing sleep over now and again, right?

So, with all this, why do I do it? I don’t know. I was kinda hoping by this point in the post it would have come to me. Alas, that is not the case. I can say that having a blog gives me a forum to talk about whatever the fuck is on my mind at any given moment, which is nice. Often times, as you know, this amounts to, “I wonder what Beck’s is eating for breakfast today.” Sometimes it is a tad deeper.

Lately, I’ve been reveling in the wonders of city living, how living in a city brings you into contact with people in this very intimate yet detached way. Like this morning, on the bus, I saw an intriguing man—a gentlemanly, old black man. He was disheveledly academic and wise looking. Ossie Davis meets Cornell West.

As he stood to get off at his stop, he caught me watching him, and he gave me this face that said, “It’s okay to look at me for a bit too long. I know things you do not.” It was a great face. When I, for shame, turned away, I noticed a package of Hostess Sno-Balls in the pocket of his tweed blazer.

Naturally, I smiled at the incongruity. I also thought, Wow, I know something about him that his wife of umpteen years might not know … an illicit Sno-Ball addiction. I bore witness to a package picked up at the bodega—hastily, furtively—on his way to work. “What do you mean, Alvin likes Sno-Balls?”

I suppose that’s all I can come up with for now. I blog so I can tell you about Alvin and his Sno-Balls. Shh. Don’t tell his wife.