You Know

You know what I hate? I hate bloggers who blog only once a month, and then, their first post back, talk all about blogging only once a month in a half-apologetic, half-arrogant tone. I mean, what's up with that?! First, you're assuming that we care. We don't. We have lives of our own. Get over yourself. Second, we know that you haven't been blogging, because we aren't important enough for you. You ramble on about being busy with caring for your next-door neighbor's eight Siamese kittens, carving Jack O'Lanterns with the gang from the boondocks to scare the old folks up in Mr. Pepperidge's Square, or (gasp) writing poetry of your own. We get it, OK, the blog has moved down your magical list of priorities. Congrats on finding a social life or writing that masterful novel! Third, we have more important things to do with our own lives than sit around and read posts that have nothing to do with why we came here. You may not think so, but we've got other things that we could be reading right now -- like David Woo's Eclipses, the latest gossip about Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, Michiko Kautani's reviews in the NY Times, etc.

But here's what is the absolute worst: bloggers who sneak in a self-promotion with their first post back. So, for example, you've been gone for a month, and you want to show at least part of what you've been doing with your time, so (tee hee!) you link to a modest little publication -- www.hlrecord.org -- that has nothing to do with the focus of your blog. "Golly, I'm so embarassed. Have I been editor-in-chief?! I didn't want anyone to find out." Really, I think that kind of behavior is uncalled for.