Am I An Angry Blogger?

Sebastian, one of my precious few male readers, asked me that question in an email today.

"Are you an angry blogger?"

And I looked at those words, at that interrogative statement and I thought, "Hmpf. Am I?"

In the end, I suppose, the question really isn't for me to answer-- it's for you to answer. I certainly don't sit down at the computer and say, "Okay, Apronbitch, let's let some anger fly!" The only thing I try to be is engaging-- interesting enough to compete with a sea of online media content-- iTunes, YouTube, Hulu, porn, and let's not even talk about the scads of other blogs out there that you could be reading instead of mine. I mean, Jesus-- why would you bother?

I don't know why, but you do, and I'm very happy that you do. See? I'm a happy blogger.

It's easy, I suppose, to see why some people might think of me as "an angry blogger." First of all, I swear a lot-- and that can definitely come off as angry, mean or hostile. Because I use profanity frequently, I view it as just another component of my vernacular-- no different than my tendency to overuse the word "ameliorate" or my unfortunate propensity to utilize run-on sentences that drives my wife crazy because I oftentimes write like I talk and there just isn't always a decent place to put a comma or a semi-colon and I'm not even sure I know how to use a semi-colon correctly anyway.

The Open Letters and the Dear Apron posts appear angry, sure-- but, really, I'm just trying to explore an alternate viewpoint-- especially in the Dear Apron columns. Dear Abby is so patently ridiculous, so prim, so uptight that my eyelids hurt when I read her advice to people. Some bloggers like to make the claim that they're unique for "telling it like it is." To me, that's bullshit for "I speak from my own point-of-view, which may be different from yours, or it may be the same."

Certainly there are times when this blog is angry, and it's usually when I'm angry about something. But please don't label me an "angry blogger." As the yellowed, torn poster from the 1970s that hangs up outside my office implores, "Label jars, not people."

Then again-- maybe I deserve the label. Maybe I am an angry blogger-- whatever that is. I mean, if you say so....

I really do thank Sebastian, though, for asking me that question. Sometimes you've got to ask people tough questions-- it's good for them, and it's good for you, too. All through middle and high school, I was obsessed with dating a certain girl. I talked about her all the time and obsessed over her the way I do about most things. Finally, I went out to dinner with another friend of mine, and she and I were talking about this girl I wanted to date/bang. Well, we weren't actually talking about her-- I was talking about her and she was humoring me. Finally, after I had completed Monologue #863 about this girl, my friend put down her fork and knife on her plate, wiped a crumb off her chin and she looked at me and said,

"What is it about her that you like?"

And I immediately rattled off a list of attributes about this girl that I found desirous and that deemed her worthy of suffering the entry of my penis on a regular basis. Only trouble was, all of those attributes were physical.

"Okay," she said, "she's pretty. But what is it about her personality that you find attractive?"

I thought about that. Nobody had ever asked me that before. I had just assumed that I wanted the whole package, I had never even given any thought to what it was, intrinsically about this girl that attracted me so. I was silent, looking at my partially-consumed steak. I was, at first, panic-stricken, and then I sort of internally sunk with the realization that the answer was, really, nothing.

"I... I guess.... not much, really..... I mean-- I.... nothing."

"Good," my friend said, taking a swig of water from her glass, "now you can finally shut the fuck up about that at least."

I've always been grateful to this friend for calling me out on this particular point-- and she did it with grace and intelligence-- all she did was ask a simple question. Sometimes that's all you need to do to people to get them to stop and think for a moment.

So, thanks, Mr. Seb. In answer to your question: "Are you an angry blogger?" I guess I'd just have to say, "I don't know."

But at least you've got me thinking about something.