In the ensuing conversation, eventually I realized that she didn't know what a blog was - I'd sent her a link, she'd clicked on it and read, and thought that was it. Which means we'd essentially been out of touch since I'd returned from Australia mid-summer, other than a quick non-specific email or two.
You mean it's like a journal? she asked.
So I apologized (profusely) and signed her up for email updates. And she loves it. She sent condolences and advice about Emma's cancerous growth (who still gets called Yem-Yem because that's what her daughter at age 4 called her); plans to order some LittleMissMatched socks for her daughter, now 11; and, after reading about all the loot I got at Circuit City, knows that my proclivities for thriftiness haven't changed.
Other than the Emma news, most of this stuff I'd never mention in an email or phone chat, but they're integral slices of my life that Pinecone probably would have known if I still lived across town from her. Yet another reason I love blogging - it's an easy, unobtrusive way to keep up with people I care about.
Once they realize what a blog is.
Note: A few years back Pinecone's daughter told her her hair style resembled a pinecone, so it's a fitting sobriquet. Because it does, a little.
4 comments:
I had to laugh, did the same thing to my best friend of thirty odd years (yes they have been very odd years!).
Now she reads my blogs (all of them) every day, and feels much happier. - She moved away a few years ago so now we do coffee over blogs!
(She's even been known to write a few herself!)
I secretly live in fear that my evil MIL will discover my blog one day... there is a draw back to blogging!
Love this post! I had a meeting with an agent last week and talked about blogs and web traffic, etc. I couldn't convince him that there are some people, MANY people, who have never ever read a blog. I took a poll among my mommy buds at coffee on Monday and not one of them had read my blog posts recently. One dear friend even aksed me, "Now, that's a computer thing, right?"
Ahhh, the humble writer posts anyway :)
Okay, Okay, I'll need to remember this. Given that my blog is about my cancer treatments I'm probably particularly harsh on my friends who may not understand blogs. I tend to fall into "you don't even care if I live or die!!" if they aren't reading the blog. But I'm melodramatic like that. And non-scientifically, we've decided the age cut-off for understanding blogs is 35. Below that you get it. Over that...not so much.
Cat, took me longer than I want to admit to figure out what MIL was - here's hoping she remains blog-illiterate!
Windy Lynn, it was an eye-opener to realize that my very bright friend had no idea what a blog was. On the other hand, she used to throw her mice away when they stopped working until I showed her you could open them and clean them (this was, of course, before optical mice).
Teresa, you could always do what I did - sign them up for email updates! (They do have to okay them.) When you recover from your cancer, you'll have to start a new blog - my first was Sara Meets Australia, and then had to start a new one when I returned to the States.
Honestly, I'd blog if no one read it, but it's more fun when they do.
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