doing the john quincy adams thing

Seeing Julie and Julia this weekend put me in a frame of mind to think about blogging, and its value for me and for others. I’ve kept a blog in one form or another since my livejournal in high school, writing less and less frequently over time. In high school, I primarily wrote in my livejournal because it was a way to feel connected to the people I considered friends. I’ve always been enchanted by the idea of being a good diarist – as a child, my favorite books were always biographies of people who kept glorious diaries (to a certain extent, they still are. speaking of which, the John Q. Adams twitter project is fabulous), and livejournal seemed like a good way to fulfill my ambition to record my thoughts through the ease of the computer.

Somewhere around the time I graduated from college, I abandoned the livejournal and started this blog, which I’ve updated not even a dozen times since. Partially this is related to the 9-5 work day thing, and partially this is due to the fact that I don’t have an audience like I did with the livejournal – there is a large part of me that loves performing for an audience, and I think I’m just less motivated when I don’t think anyone reads it. Well, noone reads this blog (although I believe my sister Alli follows it), but I’ve decided to revive it nonetheless.

For me, blogs can serve a few purposes – the narcissistic look-at-me, look-at-my-life type entries that Julie’s husband judges in Julie and Julia, the very informative type entries in formal blogs like my favorite, ClimateProgress, or the diary-type entries. I’ve discovered that I truly love looking back on the 5 or so years where I documented much of my life on livejournal. Yes, I wrote entries as a way of reaching out when feeling lonely, yes, they’re narcissistic, and yes, noone really reads them anyway. But I’ve discovered that I’m amused by the version of myself I present in those old entries. 17-year-old me makes me smile, and cry, and guffaw. So I think I’ll try to write more, because when I’m 29, 23-year-old me is going to seem very peculiar.

P.S. - Julie and Julia - SUCH a cute movie. Meryl Streep is a goddess, Amy Adams was a little annoying but lovable nonetheless, and the marriages the movie portrayed were just a joy to watch. Go see it, nonexistent reader. No really, go see it.