Some odds and ends. You may remember my earlier post RE: the burning cross decoration outside a Western MA house. On our way to the Boston airport, I snapped off a quick pic with my iPhone. These devices are built for neither motion-photography nor night photography, yet i think the image still gets the overall point across:

Yup. I'm not making these stories up. Yet.
Secondly. I recently received a striking backhanded compliment, by one of my favorite people, about this blog. He said, "I don't read any vanity blogs except yours." I said, "Vanity blog?" He said, "Yah, blogs about, well, nothing in particular, no theme." [I should be more explicit that he by no means MEANT this as a backhanded compliment and was merely informing me of "lingo" i probably should have otherwise already known. end edit].
I was crestfallen. I am crestfallen. Here i was typing out the painful hilarity beset upon me for the enjoyment of strangers, just to be labeled "vain." If I knew ahead of time that this was going to be called vain i would have made myself look much stronger, smarter, better looking, chest-haired, bearded, and less clumsy, awkward, crazy, Jew-y, and gastro-intestinally challenged.
My friends reply, "What would YOU call it." This question prompted me to come very close to changing the name of my blog to: "The Vanity Blog: The Conceitedly Egocentric Diggings of a Narcissistic, Megalomaniac, Pompous, Self-absorbed, Self-centered, Self-concerned, Self-indulgent, Self-interested, Self-loving, Self-serving, Selfish, Stuck-up, Vainglorious, Glory Hound." But im entirely too concerned with my image for that name to fly.
One traveling story. I understand drinking before a airplane flight. Hell, I consistently "eat a big sandwich" or take an anti-anxiety pill to deal with the inhuman experience of launching one's body 30,000 feet in the air with absolutely no understanding of how it's all happening (Bernoulli has something to do with it), nor any control as to how I will make it safely back to land. But, folks, the point of the drink is to calm one's nerves and pass the time. The point is not to relive one's college days. You do not order on a plane by saying, "Hit me again!" You do not half-mumble/sing the words to all songs played over the loudspeaker system regardless of whether you have heard that song before or not. You certainly to not repeat "Crosscheck!" at high volume every 15 seconds for 45 minutes until the delayed plane can move. Sir and madam (40-50 yrs old) sitting behind us on our flights + delays. You're are both asses. You are a couple with 3 seats between the 2 of you and you don't have the decency to understand you are lucky and should keep your party local. Instead, you get sloppy drunk, kick our seats, talk openly about our flight probably getting canceled in the end (something NO ONE wants to hear after 7 hours of delays and the prospect of being stuck on a no vacancy island overnight) and making the airline workers already trying day, just that much more annoying. Fuck you people behind us. If we were to go down in that windstorm, i would have be slightly relieved to know we were taking you two down with us. P.S. I purposely farted as many times as I could and I aimed them back at you guys. I'm not perfect either, and you guys started it.
While I can't promise you, my blog readers, that I will be consistent in my future vaykay postings, I will post whenever the internet allows. Because i miss you guys as much as I (apparently) vainly miss myself.
I think (or hope, anyway) that the term "vanity blog" is used more to distinguish an individual person's life musings from blogs that report on current events (or other non-personal topics).
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's an inappropriately derisive term--choosing to share your thoughts, feelings, and experiences with others doesn't mean that you're "vain," even if you have nothing to say that's worth listening to (which isn't the case here). It means that you're open and self-expressive.
The mere fact that you have several people following your blog confirms that you are not merely delusional in your belief that your life is interesting to others.
So there.
To be a little more clear, a vanity blog is themed, but the theme is one person's personal experience and interpretation of their every day life. This is in contrast to something like blogs around a theme. I.E. photos with lasers in the background. It was not a value judgement, simply descriptive. I did not invent the phrase for your blog; I simply used the phrase I knew.
ReplyDeleteSemantics... i would view it as a compliment :)
ReplyDeleteMatti, all these apologies are clearly made with the embarrassing misunderstanding that you are too amazing as a person to need them.
ReplyDelete