one month blogiversary

it’s my one month blogiversary!
which is an appropriate time to ask,
why do i blog?

why we blog
has been the subject of
some posts that i have read this past month.
last night over dinner
i lamented that other people get lots of comments
and i get only a few...
which lead grub to ask me,
"you don’t blog for others, do you?"

good question.
i thought about it,
and
yes, i do partially blog for others…
why the heck would i put it online then?!

so why do i blog?
there are three reasons:

1. community
my very good friend, ms. pea,
had been blogging for months...
i checked it occasionally
but not really (sorry ms. pea!).
i knew lots of people who had blogs
but i was of the impression
that blogging was silly.
why do i want to read about
other people’s everyday lives?
but… a month ago,
i randomly read ms. pea’s post
on her secret (knitting) pal...
i realized that there were all these neat little projects
linking the knitting (and later i discovered, art/craft…) community together!
i am a sucker for community…
especially with respect to the arts…
i have organized stitch-n-bitches in both chapel hill and dc,
helped organize activist groups like keys of resistance
and university social events - wine and cheese thursdays and tea-time...
all with the sole intention of forming communities.
i realized that blogging was the same sort of thing.
i had to be a part of it.

2. inspiration
all my siblings are in the arts.
so i have always been surrounded by
the creativity of others my whole life.
my siblings are constantly
constructing or creating something.
when i use to visit them frequently
(i am now in DC and they are all in Seattle)
the first thing i do is wander around their place
and see what they are working on...
i peek around to see
what do they have drying in their studio,
how they have creatively organized
their paintbrushes or whatever.
they were a constant inspiration for me.
now i am in the science-world of grad school
and i interact with people who may be very creative
but it is all very closeted…
i also have stitch-n-bitch
but that isn’t quite enough…
many of them are exceptionally creative
but i don’t see them frequently enough.
so seeing what people are creating on a daily basis
and reading all the support and compliments they receive
inspires me to start drawing and sewing and painting again.
i don’t have that much time
but grad school in science leaves
a part of me a bit hollow…
the part of me that started out in art school
but gave it up
because my brothers and sister (who also went to art school)
were waiting tables, bartending and working at the USPS.
but i can’t really give it up…
so i read the everyday thoughts
and see the postings of projects by artists
like sarah or camilla (to name a few)
and it encourages me to keep at it…

3. staying in the loop
as already mentioned, i am in grad school.
so i don’t get out much…
i don’t talk on the phone or write letters very often.
blogging allows me to keep my friends and family
(although my siblings are mostly technophobes)
in the loop.
it also allows me
to see what my blogging pals are doing
and
i can do it when i have a moment to spare.

so that, in part, is why i blog.

i will leave you with a picture of
my almost finished, floppy slippers
for grub’s valentine:

and
the view from my couch
after a wonderful dinner last night: