Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Coming up on my second bloggiversary next week, and it's got me thinking. Well, that, and the after-realization that yesterday I asked you all to buy me something for Christmas, and it felt perfectly natural, and why is that?

I've met some incredibly wonderful folks over my past two years as a blogger.

We're merely recipro-readers and occasional commenters, and the balance of interaction and attention between us is surely uneven in every case. But I admire their -- your -- intelligence, and your struggles to keep me honest.

The way your blogs flay your lives bare to me and, in turn, the way you sit by me asynchronously through my own blogdailyness and share in mine, creates a kind of intimacy.

Though all of you are half-imagined, mere projections of my fevered brain, in many ways you are also closer to me than many of the flesh-and-bloods I spend time with on a semi-daily basis.

I have grown to depend on you by my side. I appreciate you. I appreciate that you listen to me. I care about you.

And, as the holiday season approaches, I want to acknowledge you somehow.

Yes, I want to buy you something for Christmas.

But I don't want it to be trivial, or etherial. I want it to be as real as your places in my heart.

And what I don't want is to have to exchange real addresses, or otherwise spoil the virtuality of our relationship-as-is. I see the potential for this to get O'Henry-esque, and refuse to go there. Let's not spoil the half-imagined otherness we share.

So don't send me your snail mail address; keep your pseudonym, please. But do set up your amazon wishlist, and fill it with trinkets -- the kind of slight objects that a secret santa might buy. 'cause I'm looking to get you something small.

Maybe it's just me. But if it isn't -- if you, too, find yourself starting to wonder how to send fruitcake to the bloggers you love? Then -- psst! -- pass it on. Tell your friends. Because the spirit of giving is almost upon us, and don't we spend our days here together in ways worth acknowledging?

Help me light up the bloggiverse this year. Get ready to prove to the naysayers and luddites that the virtual world is filled with real hearts and minds. Let's start up a meme of giving, a standard of potlatch. Because we're ready. Though our pockets may be mostly broke, if we're at all rich in spirit it is because of the sustinence we give to each other, here as in the meatworld.

Comments:

Aww shucks. I'm blushing. How bout you buy me some Ben N Jerry's? :>

# posted by

Anne : 10:07 AM, November 11, 2004

I was not sure of the best place to comment this, but because this was an entry about virtual friends I thought maybe it was appropriate.

http://www.blisteredavalon.com/2004/11/ideas.htm

She wants to try to write a collaborative blog about journaling, blogging...etc. She is looking for 1-3 atleast who might want to work on this project with her. She has her own site, so I assume she could host the project.

~Kiernan

# posted by

Anonymous : 2:22 AM, November 16, 2004