Blog Mortality and Philosophy

At the risk of veering too far off the topic of Asian-American poetry, I have been thinking about blog mortality lately. I've been around the blogosphere long enough to know blogs come and go, and it's always sad to witness the departure of a beloved blog. You know, bloggers are people. I have found that bloggers are and are not the personas they create through their blogs. It's hard to say sometimes. You, or at least I, do think about the people behind the blogs -- sometimes it's hard to discern that the persona is part fictive. But then maybe meeting a person in person is part fiction as well. I've always felt that blogs and e-mail are terrific for people who like to write (perhaps shy people) but perhaps not so good for the brilliant extroverts who are good at dealing with people in person. Anyhow, who is to say that being with a person in person is more real, or at least any less real, than getting to know a person via e-mail or through a blog? On balance, I guess I prefer getting to know people in person, but really, there are people I know just through blogging or e-mailing better than the people whom I encounter regularly in the classroom...Ok, not enough about Asian-American poetry. If I say "Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni," maybe that would make it somewhat better?