reasons blogging has made my life a warmer, fuzzier place:

I had a bit of a Highway-99 epiphany this morning on the way to work... I realized that - GASP - i'm a happier person now that I blog! It dawned on me (at an unusual moment, as most of my best thoughts do: as I was merging onto a particularly trecherous stretch of road)...I was actually looking FORWARD to getting into work this morning to check in with all of my blog buddies...yes, actually reasonably HAPPY on a monday morning...

So, with that realization, I decided to start a list of the many ways the small, spontaneous decision to start writing some thoughts down every day in a public forum has unexpectedly enriched my life...

• I write every day. I haven't written every day since nursing an "unrequited crush hangover" from the early college days that left me with so much angst I started writing a novel. A novel written almost entirely about my high school principal (the object of said crush)...over the years the character morphed into some version of whomever I was secretly in love with at that point (the silent hunky man at my first office job, the skinny, well-dressed frat boy that didn't know I existed, Jack Bauer, that sort of thing), but since taking lame job after lame job and drifting into this sort of black hole of self-pity that - interestingly - squelched rather than inspired my writing, I found an unexpected antidote in "The Blog." Hey, I'd love to say that I actually POST something every day (I try!), but at the very least, I WRITE every day, and feel that much more like myself, that much more calm, that much more creatively connected, and that much LESS likely to slaughter coworkers with scissors and mechanical pencils or scald them with coffee, or walk out on the job..

• I'm bi-coastal! Or, global, for that matter...four months ago I wouldn't have anticipated corresponding with wonderful people from the UK, from Australia, from Spain...from New York, from Canada, from Indiana...it makes my tiny, stuffy, oppressive little tube-shaped office that much less oppressive if sitting in it, at this odd L-shaped desk means I'm meeting people from all over the globe...and it's a beautiful thing to realize that, just like me, we're all sitting at silly little desks, at all types of jobs, with all types of incomes, in all types of relationships, of all different shapes, colors and sizes, sharing one thing we all enjoy - WORDS. And holy cow, doesn't that sound like a corny NBC plug for some human-interest snipped between events during the Olympics, or something a sitcom star would say between Thursday night episodes encouraging couch potatoes to get Literate! Read!
  

• Dlisted: Hot Slut of the Day. Not sure how I got by without Dlisted and Defamer and Perez but work is a happier place now that I can beat my sister to the "Lance is Gay!" punch...of course he's gay, and I knew it at least a day before she did (Sister is always leaps and bounds ahead of me when it comes to music, movies, handbag trends and concert circuits, but I have her bested in the celebrity gossip category, no contest...)!

• I'm not alone...! Were it not for The Blog, I would still think I was the only girl born without the wedding gene, or the only person ridiculously fascinated with Lindsay Lohan for no reason, or the only one that turns up "Stars are Blind" on the radio when they think no one's around...I might think I was the only person that has trouble finding jeans that fit these days, the only one that's ditched shampoo, or the only girl wishing she had more back...turns out I'm not the only one afterall...and that's a pretty great feeling to jumpstart a monday morning with!

• I've got things to do at work, other than work...because it's my official position that people that do only WORK while they're at work are SUCKERS. Why dig right into that big project when I can bounce back and forth between a dozen blogs waiting to see who just commented and who hasn't posted anything in DAYS, and who disagrees with whom, which people were as bored as I with the World Cup, who had their heart broken when Mel slipped up and who saw it coming all along, you know: IMPORTANT things...

• I have a renewed faith in the NICENESS of people I've never met. Honestly, it would easy for us to post cutthroat comments on each other's pages, berate one another, become spiteful, envious MEANIES, but instead (for the most part) everyone is nothing but encouraging of one another - where else in life will people be as unilaterally supportive of one another as in the big, beautiful blogosphere (even if the nice is driven primarily by the self-interested aim to gather more links! i'll take nice, no matter its motive, frankly. I'd rather encourage and be encouraged any day!)

• I'm motivated by a little friendly competition to try harder. Because there are so many blogs written by so many witty, well-read, well-educated, well-spoken, well-composed people, it's a fantastic motivation to be a little more well-read, to aim for a little more wit, to try that much harder...because no one wants to have The Forgotten Blog...

• I get to catch myself saying the old, "I know a guy who..." or "A friend of mine just..." when really, we've never met, have no idea what each other even look like, live an entire country apart, and are familiar with each other only in a written, pen-pal-esque context, but it seems like we MUST know each other better than that...afterall, we spend our entire workdays together! It's a strange phenomenon, but I think I'll call it healthy...the more friends (even in unconventional contexts) the better..