Why do I Blog?

Tag! You're IT!, originally uploaded by Blazingstar.

Okay, I'll bite, and thanks to O'Donovan for tagging a newbie. I have been in something of a blogger slump ever since someone a few days ago kindly remarked upon how prolific I've been since I started this little misadventure almost two weeks ago, so a lovely meme on 5 reasons why I blog is just the thing to get me going again. I hope I'm doing this right, said the rube to the farmer's daughter.

My five reasons why I blog. Let's see...the reason I started a blog was so I could comment on a friend's blog, so thanks go to Xtinpore for getting the ball rolling, but I only posted once and didn't post again for more than a year, so that doesn't count as why I blog.

1. I blog to run with the crowd. So many of my writerly friends have blogs and it's fun and rewarding to read what they write. Invariably I've learned things about them that I didn't through my previous modes of contact. So, by blogging I'm giving back to the Blogosphere, and it's a spiffy new way for me to network.
   
2. The software is cool. It takes my words and pictures and shapes them into an eye-catching interactive web page with very little effort (theoretically) from me. I provide the content and it sweetens it up for easy consumption...like a spoonful of sugar.
   
3. I wanted a place to post things that I found vitally important, interesting, or for whatever reason, worth sharing. As a member of an on-line community (salon.com's Table Talk) I was going to the trouble of quoting, expounding, or linking, only to have it all get swept away in the mighty rivers of linear discussion.
   
4. I am hoping the blog process will bring some coherence and illumination to my desultory absorption of the world around me. Already I think it has sharpened and expanded my consciousness. Particularly, it has made me pay more attention to the news.
   
5. I wanted to see if it would change my life. It's a bit too early to tell, but it certainly has kept me busy in the blog-tweaking department, not to mention transcribing and editing sundry materials to share. I'm hoping the versatile blog environment will open up many doors of creativity, including those that were shut a long time ago for whatever reasons, as well as those that have never been opened.

And now, to tag who hasn't been tagged:

1. Christine Lebrasseur
   
2. Mary Elizabeth Willams' Neighborhood
   
3. Going Jesus
4. Miss Aniela
5. life is a glorious cycle of song

From Today's Soundtrack


• Wonderful Tonight─Eric Clapton and Dire Straits
  
• Only The Lonely─Roy Orbison
  
• No Woman No Cry─Bob Marley
  
• Brahms: Sonata in F Minor for Clarinet and Piano, Op.120, No.1─Kalman Berkes, Clarinet; Jeno Jando, piano─Brahms:Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano
  
• Easy Living─Chet Baker─Chet Baker: Jazz ’Round Midnight
  
• Beethoven: Quartet No. 12 Opus 127, II. Adagio, ma non troppo e molto cantabile─Juilliard String Quartet─Beethoven: The Late String Quartets
• Ujung Laut-Sinyur─Pusaka Sunda─Lolongkrang