If you read dooce.com, you probably read the Times article about ‘mommy blogs’ (the phenom of meticulously documenting the perils of parenthood on the Internet) in which she was interviewed.

There are thousands upon thousands of blogs on the web, and I can tell you that most of them (including this one) aren’t worth reading. But in spite of the fact that it’s considered cosmopolitan to believe that everyone (but you and the ten people you dig best) is an idiot, the fact is that I have found a lot of amusement, reassurance, enjoyment, and yea, even solace in many of the blog entries I’ve googled over the past few years.

If you’re going through something, you can damn well bet there’s someone else out there who has got it worse. Depression? Anxiety? Broken heart? Morbidly obese? Pissed off at your husband? Someone out there is battling your demon along with you, and every once in awhile they’re a lot funnier at it than you are.

But the Times article made mommy blogging sound so… petty. So horridly egocentric. So awful. While there was a nod toward the idea that parenting is not one moment of pure joy strung on a string after another, the underlying mood of the article was that mommy blogging is nothing but a symptom of vanity, self-centeredness, and exhibitionism.

The Times article was so negatively blase about human expression that it made me feel… sour. About blogging.

I’ve been doing this for several years, myself. Since before I even knew people were developing software for it. Since I did it in HTML every day. I started at liscoplus.com/mush (defunct) and eventually bought goblinbox.com, and I’m now on my fifth server. I blog because I like to, because people read it, and because I can. (And also to use the web skills I’d taught myself, to make the whole effort of doing that worth the time it took.) I blog because I, like every other human being in the world, want to be heard. I want a chance to say what I have to say. I want to express myself in a medium that doesn’t require me to respond to input as I go.

I want a fucking hobby.

I like that my mother-in-law lurks on my site, and vicariously keeps an eye on her son and his wife. I like having friends drop goblinboxisms into their conversations at bowling alleys and restaurants. I like seeing where my traffic comes from every morning.

Most of the time, my life isn’t blog-worthy. It isn’t interesting, it isn’t intense, and it’s not even particularly amusing to anyone who isn’t me or a member of my clique. But sometimes, the shit does hit the fan, and I do have something worthy of expression. I’m not a professional writer, but I do know that when I get comments from people saying my post has made them cry, I know my expression of the human condition wasn’t fluff.

Most of life is fluff, if you’re lucky, oh New York Times writer. Most of life is nothing but tedious, no-one-cares-but-me details. Maybe putting that stuff on the web is tacky, but if ya don’t like it, don’t read it. And better yet, don’t write condescending articles about it.

I take the point that those heavily-blogged-about kids are gonna grow up, google themselves, and promply puke their guts out. But hell – wouldn’t you rather raise children in a society so rich that you can afford a computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, electricity, DSL, and enough leisure time to sit down and keep a running journal, and run the risk of (*gasp!*) freakin’ your kid out when s/he reads about the first time they pooped on grandpa’s lap… versus living in a world where “being freaked out” by something you read on the Internet is a LUXURY?!

Fuck it. If I didn’t keep my journal on a web server, I probably wouldn’t keep one at all. I think I’m over my reaction to the insipid nature of blogging even when your life isn’t ‘interesting enough’.

…stuck up Times writer, anyway…