So you want to start a blog? A word of caution: You should think really hard about what you share. Because, first of all, no one NO ONE notevenyourmother wants to read your Epic Overseas Adventure blog. They are too busy reading Eat, Pray, Love, first of all. Second, you can't be brief, I know you can't, and the internet reader has no attention span for reading the day-by-day play-by-play of your arrival and subsequent pickpocketing debacle in Macchu Picchu. The pictures you take? I'm sorry, because I know this sounds jaded, but they've all been taken before. By someone that is not you, that went before you to that very spot and mock-leaned just like that in Pisa. So before you ~~torture~~ treat your friends with your travelogues, maybe you can commit yourself to posting no more than 5 pictures - 5 super fantastic pictures that at least have a picture of you with your busted Birkenstocks in them - and try to summarize one super fantastic moment of the day. In a paragraph. Please? Thanks.

The other reason you should watch what you share in the blogosphere is because, as a blogger with friends and mothers who read this here blog, I can say with confidence that people think this here website is the sum total of EVVVVERYTHING that happens in my life.

Kid you not, I have actually dined with a friend whom I hadn't seen in years who said, "Well, I read your blog so I know what is going on with you, so let me tell you what's been going on with me." Baking powder? You think that by reading a few paragraphs a week about what I choose to tell you about my life that you have the full download? When you were done taking the college tour with the tour guide paid by the office of admissions, did you say, "Well, I know everything that happens on this campus, so let's get back to talking about all the books I've read for AP World Lit this year"??

It's not even about omission. It's not even about brevity. It's not even about what bloggers are not telling you. It's what they can't tell you about their lives via html that makes the assumption so maddening. The assumption that The Blog = All There Is. Oh, there is so so much more. Things that would get me fired. Stories that would estrange me from people I love. Feelings I can't properly put words to, and questions I don't even dare let the universe know I am asking. And then there are the moments that I'll just keep to myself just because, I do hold a few things sacred.

Oh, and then there's the time I said "Get the silly band out of your cooch." You can't just toss that out into the internet without explaining yourself, and who has time to explain herself?

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