The Reluctant First Post

I woke up this morning and decided to start a blog. Maybe it was because I watched Superbad with my boyfriend last night, or because I leave for my second year of college in less than week, but I was feeling pretty optimistic about teen ingenuity. This is the year of YouTube, Facebook and teen pregnancy, after all, the year twenty-somethings will enter a highly competitive job market, pay too much for gasoline and elect the next president of the United States.

And nine hours later, here I am, typing my first post into Microsoft Word so I can check and re-check my spelling and style. I forgot to add the Chicago Manual of Style to my list of interests. I'll probably write too much, it's intoxicating. I feel like Fogell trying to buy alcohol with a fake Hawaii-issued ID:



Like I absolutely don't belong here.

I do write. All the time. In my sleep, on my horse, at Hyde Park Produce. Why haven’t I written a blog? Because I’m afraid the first post will be my only one. I’m afraid that trying to balance two majors—both of them in the New Collegiate Division—and jobs at the UCSC and the Hyde Park Art Center will make it too hard just to keep myself upright, let alone write well about the things that matter to me. I also am on the staff of the Midway Review and the Chicago Maroon, and will hopefully share those articles here, time willing.

I would never have considered blogging last winter, when Ana Marie Cox (A.B. ’94), founder of the political gossip blog Wonkette, and Washington editor for Time, came to campus to speak to students interested in journalism. She urged everyone in the room to start a blog right away, and when I asked her if she thought that sounded a bit solopsistic, her reply was: "Yes, it is solopsistic. I'm glad you recognize that. Do it anyway." I walked home infuriated.

Most blog writing is boring, careless and self-centered. I don’t know if I can handle writing that way, and I know I will have to if I want to maintain the blog.

Actually, most blogs are barely written at all. Here are links to the first posts of other blogs whose domain names I would have liked to use as my own. A couple of them got past the first post: Encancaranublador, stargirl, but the rest didn't: peregrination, college journalist, pixel-stained wretch.

Okay, I'm not trying to suggest anyone read those blogs, though in the future I will link to lots of websites and news articles that I think would interest almost anyone. But there is a first post I'm actually proud of: Ruminations of a Dinosaur, written by my editor/internship supervisor this summer. We journalists really need to break down that fourth wall, the one that clearly separates author from audience, if we are going to preserve the fourth estate. Even if we secretly think we can't be beat at our own game when it comes to credibility, polished writing and, of course, beat reporting.

I'm happy with my domain name. It requires less explaining than Encancaranublador, which is part of a Spanish trabalenguas (tongue-twister) and a short story by Ana Lydia Vega, which I love. Peregrination would have referred to the hiking trip David and I took a few years ago in Spain, stargirl to my favorite children's book. And pixel-stained? I wish. I'm online to stay, but give me a good ink-stain on my fingers any day, any time...