......I am not interesting

I don't know why anyone starts blogs anymore. I've talked myself out of it plenty of times (most recently when I discovered that Blogger doesn't let you indent your paragraphs...who the fuck are you to decide if I get to indent my own paragraphs? Fascists...). What's kept me from starting a blog for so long is the fact that there are so many interesting bloggers out there. It's intimidating. I'm as scared of them as I was of the popular kids in high school.

One blog I subscribe to is written by a TV weather girl who starts charity organizations in her spare time, has had three books of poetry published and just made an appearance on Jeopardy. She blogs about her everyday activities...you know, meeting with editors, interviewing for a new TV host job, that sort of thing. On her homepage is a picture of her sitting at her desk, drinking from a Starbucks cup with her trendy laptop and her trendy dog. Short skirt, (probably non-prescription) glasses...she looks just the way Blogger Barbie might be packaged in her little pink box. Her blog is interesting and all, but ultimately your hatred is what keeps you reading.

On the other end of the spectrum you have the millions of uninteresting people and their stale, mildewed blogs about what they ate that day and what their cat is up to. You can't help but wonder if they know they're boring. Then you think that maybe they know they're boring, but they're hoping that blogging will make them more exciting. Say someone cuts in front of me in the grocery line - if I post about it on the internet, does that make it more interesting? If someone I don't know reads about it, does that make it more interesting?

What about now? Is it interesting now?!

It was the lame bloggers (or "Blah-ggers," if you will) who pushed me to start my own. It brought out a very childish side of me. They're as boring as I am and they have blogs, I wanna blog, no faaaiiir!!! So here we are. But I do want to clarify a couple of things up front, so that there's no confusion...

1. I am not interesting.

2. I am aware that I am not interesting.

Moreover, I am not blogging in an attempt to become interesting or "cool." I have never, ever been cool. I surrendered the fantasy a long, long time ago when I realized that I don't have any of the right clothes. That reminds me, has anyone else noticed that all the teenage girls are wearing stretch pants now? What's funny is that wearing stretch pants in the 6th grade is what made me uncool. Forever. That is, the actual stretch pants made me uncool at the time, but the hesitation and constant self-assessment that bred from my classmates' reactions to the stretch pants made me permanently uncool. It's interesting, how poly-nylon blend can change the course of your life, isn't it? Or maybe it's not...

Don't misunderstand - I'm not bored, lonely or unhappy. I'm just not interesting. I attribute my lack of intrigue mainly to my happy marriage. There's nothing less interesting than a happily married couple. No one yells, no one throws anything and a lot of Discovery Health Channel gets watched...it would make you sad if you knew how excited we get about Shark Week.

Why then would someone who is totally aware of her ordinariness start a blog? To be honest, it's really just an attempt to put energy into something other than my home, my husband or my daughter (I know...even my reason is boring). See, it was recently suggested to me that I "get a hobby" after I had a twenty minute conversation with a friend about my baby's poop schedule. She was just a little too gentle about it (her tone was kind of 'talking someone off a ledge'-ish), and I knew I was in danger of becoming one of those moms. You know the type. The ones who start Mommy Blogs, the WORST of the uninteresting blogs.

"McKynlee rolled over today!!!" Great! Get on the phone and call your husband and your parents, the only three people in the world who give a shit. Videotape it, mark the event in her baby book. Care! But understand that the general public does NOT care what McAshlynne ate for breakfast. McFinnigan's teething may be an acceptable topic at your Mommy group, but it doesn't belong on your blog. I realize that since I get as excited as any other new mom about my baby (who, by the way, does not have an annoyingly modernized McName) and her monotonous everyday activities, my Mommy Blog would be just like everyone else's...filled with "news" about her sitting up and pictures of the new jammies I bought her.

The hard part about being uninteresting and trying to think of blog topics is that they're scarce. I'm not exactly overwhelmed with options the way an interesting person might be. I can just imagine Oprah agonizing over whether to blog about her TV show, her magazine, her humanitarian efforts, her world travels, her celebrity friends, etc. The point being, there won't always be a point.

So with no interesting life, no topic and certainly no excuse, it is somewhat apologetically that I start this blog in hopes that someone other than my parents will read it and forgive my frequent (and improper) ellipse usage. Though I don't intend to post about the bread that got moldy in my fridge, do yourself a favor and don't expect any fireworks here. I'm just putting myself out there, trying a little too hard to make some sort of statement, however intangible it may be...the Tuxedo T-shirt of blogs. I'm grateful that you made it this far...