I have been giving a particular matter a lot of thought, and finally, after debating back and forth a hundred times, I’ve come to a decision:
I will no longer read private blogs.
Phew! Glad to have that off my chest.
Now, lest you get your feelings hurt, you private bloggers, please allow me to explain:
A few months ago, Poor Kyle (my tech guy {and husband}) convinced me to switch over my blog reading to Google™ Reader. {And by “convinced,” I mean he locked me in the closet, commandeered my laptop, set up an account, and switched everything over while I pounded out my protests against the closet door. It was dark in there. And my shoes smell. I wanted out.}
Image of my very own Google™ Reader cache, featuring Confessions of a Young Married Couple. Hi, Katie!
I fought the change for a long time—I made up dozens of excuses as to why I hated Google™ Reader, and why I didn’t need it, and why it was just another outlet for me to waste my time..until one day I fell in love with it. [I sounded not unlike my sweet Grandma, when our family was helping her remodel her kitchen, and we all tried to talk her into getting a dishwasher. She fought it and fought it, and continued to fight it until one of my uncles finally took her out to lunch to Hometown Buffet, and while she was gone, the rest of her kids bought the dadgum dishwasher and installed it themselves, and when she got back she was cussing mad about it for about thirty minutes until someone showed her how it worked, and now you’ll never get her to admit that she ever had a problem with it in the first place.]
And, okay, saying that I LOVE Google™ Reader might be going a bit too far, because I LOVE my husband and I LOVE my nephew, and I can’t equate an Internet application with family ties, so I can only really be FOND of Google™ Reader, but I tell you, my friends, it really did change the way I read blogs. For the better.
See, before, I would go over to my sidebar on the right hand side of the blog, right click on EACH AND EVERY LINK, select “open in new tab,” and go through the blogs to see who had updated. Every day—sometimes more than once. I used to think it was cathartic…a sort of therapy for my soul…until I realised that it wasn’t. It stressed me out. I never knew whose blog would be updated and whose wouldn’t. It broke my heart to keep wasting my clicks, week after week, on blogs that had been ignored (in fact, I disowned many dear friends because of the constant heartbreak {it’s a cruel world}). [In fact, that was the very post wherein Cristin commented and prophesied that Google™ Reader would change my life. I fought it, but it turned out to be true.]
ANYWAY, despite the fact that Google™ Reader has very easily streamlined my daily blog reading, there are a few new problems it has brought up in my life.
Further Complications to My Blogging World as Introduced by Google™ Reader:
1. I don’t comment NEARLY as regularly as I used to. It used to be that when I was reading blogs, the actual blog page was opened, so commenting was just natural. In fact, I made it my motto that if I had time to READ a blog, I had time to COMMENT on it. Now, however, if I want to comment on a post, I have to click OUT of Google™ Reader (horrors!) and go out of my way to do so. Needless to say, I’ve been a lot less commentacious in the recent months.
2. I can’t see new layouts. Again, I don’t actually see people’s blogs unless I specifically click out of Google™ Reader to do so. Therefore, it might be weeks before I finally take the effort to actually see a person’s real blog, and if it has changed since the last time I was visiting, I mention that I notice the change…but it could be weeks too late. And that’s awkward.
And most relevantly {to this post}…
3. Google™ Reader does not have the ability to follow private blogs. I have changed my email address several times since starting this blog, and as a result, I am registered to read several private blogs under several different Google™ accounts. I can never remember whose blog I read under which email address, and that’s after I can even remember whose blog is private in the first place. I always feel like I’m forgetting someone, since I don’t have one place or list where all the private blogs live. Sure, I could write it down somewhere, but there’s no TELLING where I’d misplace THAT scrap of paper.
It’s a disaster. And quite frankly, it causes me a lot of guilt. Sometimes it’s weeks before I finally get my act together and check on my private-blog friends. I always feel so bad, like I’m neglecting them and they probably think I hate them and then they’ll stop reading MY blog, and eventually I’ll have to just quit blogging altogether because I cannot HANDLE the GUILT.
Can’t handle it.
So, in an effort to rid myself of every iota of guilt in my life {well, in my BLOGGING life anyway—there’s no help for the guilt I will always feel about that piece of chocolate I stole from the bulk bins at Fry’s Food and Drug when I was a kid}, I am just not going to read private blogs anymore.
I realise that because I feel guilty about this, I’m making it sound like I consider myself God’s gift to private bloggers—that without my patronage, their blogs will surely shrivel up and get blown away by a brisk wind. Please, don’t think that. Probably nobody will even notice my absence anyway {like I said, I’ve been a lousy commenter on all blogs—both private and public—lately}.
This is just something I have to do for myself. And now it’s out in the open.
If you ever decide to make your blog public again (and therefore, accessible to Google™ Reader), I’ll be first on the list to sign back up.
I’m sorry.
[The guilt is still here.]
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