blog crushes (et, sayonara por ahora)

This may be my last message for a couple weeks. I'm going to fly over an ocean and use that visa I was telling you about before.

Today was my last day at work, except for visits to use email and the professional-quality color printer (don't worry, I pay for my copies. Cheating a non-profit is so gauche.) Quitting hasn't really sunk in, and neither has this trip I'm about to go on.

As I dug around in the garage for a money belt, checked if my bugspray had DEET, made an appointment to get anti-malaria medication (those last two items being related) and so on, I realized once again that my life is odd. Actually, the true "oddness" of my life didn't dawn on me until I was sitting cross-legged in front of my closet choosing head-coverings, trying to decide which ones would be most practical for the climate, culture, and couture. That I need head-coverings is strange. That I have enough laying around to sort through is extra-weird--even for me.

Ummm...I think that's all for now.

No, there was one more thing. This next discussion is at the request of a certain friend (you know who you are ...)

BLOG CRUSHES

by annie:by request

The beautiful thing about blogging is that you link to friends' pages, and they link to their friends' pages, and you can zoom around the world reading the words of friends of friends of friends, with a fair assumption that, since you share friends (of friends), you might actually get along if you should ever, y'know, meet. And then, while you read their musings, jokes, and chatterings, you start to think that you actually know this person who, in reality, you don't.

And sometimes it goes a step further. Jane Austen once criticized women for their ability to take a simple conversation with an "available" man and turn it into evidence for an imminent "permanent-relationship" (sorry--as a commitment-phobe I can't use the "m" word). And this typically-feminine mind-leap is so easy to do through blogs. There are guys out there communicating voluntarily. Sometimes it is just too much for a single girl to take. But, if she finds herself especially taken with a certain gentleman, she must only refrain from posting a comment in order to feel that she is playing hard to get.

The main problem with this thinking is that she can't "play" if the other person doesn't know about the game.

There's another side to this issue. Although I would never presume to speak for all commitment-phobes out there (we are a varied species: I'd give more details about my genus and phylum but my mom reads this) intense, soul-searching questions like "so, how many siblings do you have?" make me tremble. And not in a good way. It's more of an "I-can't-locate-the-nearest-emergency-exit" type of trembling.

Perusing blogs is so much more enjoyable. The blog reader can "meet" a new person, leave, take a nap, come back, and pick up right where she left off...no questions asked. When she starts getting the idea that he (the blog writer) just likes to hear himself talk ("see himself type"), she can always use that handy little "x" in the top right corner. And the dreaded DTR* talk NEVER HAPPENS. This alone makes the anonymous blog "relationship" preeminent.

An added bonus, if she is ever tired of doing all the listening (reading) she can write her own blog message, and imagine that someone out there reads (listens to) her words. And maybe he's as taken with her as she is with the blog-guy who doesn't know she exists.

If you're still reading this--then you must be the one who requested the topic.

For anyone else who might be hanging on...To answer your question, "I have two siblings--both brothers. And they're big. So be nice to me."

I've shared too much. I had a lovely evening. Maybe I'll run into you sometime.

Or you could email.

Yeah. email.

baby steps.

Phobics need baby steps.


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*DTR=define the relationship