Uh-Oh, It's Crisis Time

So, I had this great idea for a post about funny banner ads that appear over my Yahoo! Mail account:

There's the one with the picture of a comely Indian girl who is, allegedly, "Sonalii: 22" and the text below implores you to: "Make her a propose now."

Then there's the one offering me durable medical and home safety supplies.

And the one aboue the Christian mom making $5,000 a week from home. I mean-- why would I even need to click that to "find out more?" She's obviously a prostitute, right?

So, I had the idea and then I just... didn't feel like it. You know? I just... didn't. And there was no editor chomping on a cigar or angrily shoving his thumbs in his suspenders or into my eyes, compelling me to meet my deadline. Nobody threatened to fire me or dock my pay. No newspapers discontinued my circulation. You may have noticed that in recent posts I haven't been putting much, or any, energy into searching for funny pictures with which to hyperlink. I'm lazing off. Saturday was a re-run. I didn't make a post Sunday, and nobody kicked up a fuss. I kind of don't feel like doing one today either.

I don't know.... it's hot. And I'm at work. Shouldn't I be working?

Aren't I a bad person?

Here's the thing: from June until today, after 363 Pudd'nhead Nathan blog posts and 76 My Masonic Apron blog posts, I suddenly started to think about what I was doing, and why. Here's the answer to the latter at least: I don't know. I'm "anonymous" right? The quotes are because old friends of mine that I want to read this blog can read it and know who I am, but new people can read it and have no idea who I am. It's personal, but anonymous. I hope. I keep work out of this because I don't want to get fired and because I have a big, obscene mouth.

Fuckin' aye.

Why do you blog? I don't know. Maybe you're a poet, maybe you have some personal shit to work out, maybe you have frustrations and anxieties and dreams that you want to share. Not to sound like an arrogant sonofabitch, I blog because I'm a reasonably effective writer. I can make a reader feel things-- not always good things, admittedly. But I blog because I enjoy writing, and I've come to terms with the fact that the chances of getting hired to do it professionally are pretty slim, especially in the current economy.

I don't know what my blogging is becoming. I'm obsessed with my statistics-- who's reading and how often, where are they coming from, how did they get to me, how many 20something bloggers "friends" do I have, how can I get more? What can I do to blogvertise without becoming unanonymous? I know there are bloggers who've been out there doing their thing for four, five, six, seven years-- they have a hundred or two hundred followers, thousands and thousands of hits a day.... Comments after comments after comments after comments--

Comments are the golden nuggets, aren't they? And we seek them hungrily. Why?

What's happening to me? Is this healthy? No, I don't think so.

Maybe it's burn out. My average output is two significantly-sized blog posts a day-- and a three-post-day is not wholly unusual for me. Is that necessary? Is it any wonder sometimes I struggle for content? I mock bloggers who post a YouTube video and write maybe a paragraph under it-- is that blogging? I don't know. I don't think it is. But who am I to say?

I suppose every blogger confronts this particular animal at some point in their non-career. Humans are often bothered with existential bullshit questions of the "why am I doing this?" ilk. Animals only have instinct-- they're not so easily troubled or conflicted.

I started blogging because I thought it would be good for me. A situation arose where I got into serious professional trouble because of a personal essay of mine that got published in an e-literary journal under my real name. Some of the things I said in the piece were not very nice, as I'm sure you can imagine. I got in deep, deep shit. So, in an effort to reclaim the power of my pen and my voice, I took to the blogosphere under a bullshit pseudonym, because I needed to get my legs back again. And it was good for me. Now, though, I'm not so sure it's good for me anymore.

Maybe I can keep going, just not at the same prolific rate at which I was blogging before-- because that's just nuts. And I know most of the reason I put up new content as often as I do is because I want to keep peoples' interest. But why? Why does that concern me so much? I don't know. Maybe because I've always seen myself as an entertainer, someone whose role is to engage an audience. Maybe that's the trouble.

Maybe I need to give up looking at the blog tracker, too. Just-- pretend it isn't there. If people want to read, if they can be cool with variable interval reinforcement, then that's fine. If they can't, well, there are only 78 gabijillion other blogs out there to be enjoyed. And some of them actually have content by competent, capable, courageous writers.

Most of them just have fucking YouTube videos, though.

I guess this post is a message that things are going to change around here. It's also a ramble, and it's a cry for help, and it's a question, and it's an answer, too. To those of you whom I'll be inevitably losing as My Masonic Apron becomes a different place: a place where I'll be writing only when very, very moved to do so, thanks for hanging around-- for giving me a chance to bend your ear, for sharing a little piece of me with you. I mean that. Thank you. For those of you who will stick it out for a while yet, well, you're pretty great, too.

The blogosphere is a strange place. It's one I never thought I'd enter, but I'm glad it's here. And I'm glad you're here, too.