Er... Blog?

The world, I am convinced, is divided into two kinds of people: those who blog (or atleast know of blogs) and those who don’t.

98% of people I know fall into the latter grouping!

Blog?!? My friends' reactions have ranged from bafflement to polite interest to total stupefaction…

“YOU WHAAAAT!” exclaimed a flabbergasted friend when I told her I’m doing a blog.

It took a few minutes to convince her I wasn’t going in for ‘blonde’ highlights. And another few minutes to explain exactly what blogs were.

B-l-o-g. I’ve had to spell it out for friends who hear ‘blong’, ‘block’, ‘blob’ and yes, ‘blonde’. I’ll admit it IS a rather clunky un-mellifluous word, requiring a certain adroitness of jaw to render the 1 ½ syllables optimally.

But the boo-boos aren’t just in the area of enunciation.

A friend to whom I’d sent the link to my blog, called back puzzled. ‘I read a bit,’ she said, ‘but I don’t get it. There’s no connection between the pieces.’

I seized the opportunity to expound on the unmitigated freedom of blogging. No word limits, no thought censorship, no grammatical correctness, no nothing… I tried telling her. No big deal, was the expression I read in her face.

Another friend used to call me up every week to ask for the link. ‘The url is a little tricky’, she complained. Until I pointed out that she could simply add the link to Favourites. ‘Ohhhhh…’ she said, as illumination flooded the room. With my meagre info, I still manage to pass off as a geek, thanks to friends like these.

Blog evangelising is a tricky business, I’ve discovered. Beyond a point, it’s like explaining a sunset to someone who’s never seen one before. Words are a mangy substitute for experience. For how do you explain blog friends? How do you explain knowing someone’s innermost thoughts without knowing anything else about them? How do you explain hours melting away when you’re plowing through blogdom?

Like I said, there are two distinct kinds of people in this world.