The Perils of Blogging

So I've realized something: Writing a blog is difficult.

Why? Well, for starters, there is the whole "keeping people interested" in said blog post. As I sit here, staring at the screen, I am now remembering how extraordinarily difficult it is, based on prior experience.

For those of you who don't know, I wrote a newsletter every week of my freshman year in college. For some odd reason, people will sometimes bring it up to me, asking why I stopped. That suggests that it was, at least in some small way, moderately successful. But why was it successful? I attribute its success to two reasons: it was sent to my family (bless them, the poor fools!), and it was funny. As in ha-ha, and not just in my head.

The advantage of writing a newsletter in your freshman year in college is that you simply can't avoid wacky situations. Whether it is because you nearly get arrested by the "Po!" because you are so naive you don't even know what the "Po!" is - or accidentally getting your head shaved because the barbers at the campus barber shop who couldn't make the cut elsewhere don't think to ask what you really want when you tell them to "trim it up." I mean, who really thinks a $10 "style cut" means "attack me with the weedwhacker." These were experiences born from my lack of experience. This fact, combined with the entirely new situation of being on my own, surrounded by people who, like me, are so completely inept at life survival that we think being able to force oursleves awake at 10 a.m., showing up to class looking like a bedraggled hippie, and managing to stay awake through two hours of class constitutes the equivalent of a full time job, is bound to create many a situation which can only end with much hilarity.

This is not to say that such situations will not continue to arise, or that I have acquired all the experience I will ever need, only that such situations will hopefully arise less frequently. Which is the cause for my lament. How can one write a successful blog when one is hopefully learning from his mistakes? Would we still remember old Roadrunner cartoons so fondly if Wile E. Coyote had realized the first time that every tunnel he painted on the side of cliff would eventually culminate in the roadrunner escaping and a train running over him? I think not.

Alas, now I am forced to find humor more abstractly, by examining events and pulling the humor from them, as opposed to having it bowl me over. But it does convey certain advantages, namely, I no longer have to make fun of myself! I can use anyone's experience to find the truly polished nuggets of comedy gold.

And I must say, I can't wait until Janelle goes to college!

And of course, there is always the problem of getting people to come back to read the next post - but that's an issue I'll tackle next time.