The Chicago Tribune on blogs

On Reddit today, I ran across this gem of an article: "Blah, blah, blog, blog." News to Chicago Tribune: many bloggers are literate, care about grammar and correct expression in writing, and have something interesting to say. Is it self-important to consider that the rest of the world wants to read everything we have to say? It's certainly possible, but it is more likely that most bloggers cater to a niche and are aware that few will read what they write. More than half the people whom I am aware of having read my blog are friends and went looking for my online presence or followed other links from me back here, have visited exactly once, or most likely, both. Bloggers blog for a number of reasons, in fact. Most of what I write here is meant to inform. If my friends with FMS know that my blog exists as a place for me to share information I find, if one of them gets one piece of new information to take back to the doctor, then I have served a purpose here that has little to do with my ego or any sense that the fact that I have been watching stupid movies today while sick may be important to anyone's life.

However, if people do choose to communicate as the author assumes, what of it? The truth is, since my now-husband deployed to Saudi Arabia years ago, we have communicated online with a kind of shorthand. We dispense with most forms of "to be" in our conversations, for example ("I sick. How you?"), creating a kind of caveman language just for that shared space. The younger Gen-Ys have spent their entire lives creating shared cyberspaces. That they have their own shorthands for everything, replete with emoticons and full of shorthands and slang, does not mean they do not know how to communicate face to face or don't deal with real people. It is more analogous to my own middle school years, when many girls tended to write each other notes instead of paying attention during class. I remember when a teacher noticed a note to a friend of mine that started with "'Sup?" He hooted and laughed, asking if her friend was inviting her to dinner. The teacher in question was a lot of fun as well as being extremely good-looking (and writing this, by the by, inspired me to look him up, but I will not mention him here by name in order to not embarrass either of us).

To bring this back on topic, I would like to include something I found last night. For the sleepless out there, check out Baby to Sleep. If white noise helps you rest, meditate, or sleep, then this may be a great website for you.