The Man Blog

"Welcome to Blogger, may I take your order?"

"Yes, I'd like to make one man-blog, please."

"I'm sorry sir, could you repeat that? A man-blog?"

"Yes, a man-blog. You know, like a woman blog, but minus all the links to thousands of blogger-friends from high school and the pictures of little son Karssin's (I love people who find interesting ways to spell average names) first trip to the toilet and the frilly backgrounds with patters that look like a grandma-couch and colors that no one even knew were colors until women came along... You know, one of those blogs."

"So you want a blog with little or no pictures, no connection to other people or friends, and a basic boring background?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right."

"I'm sorry sir, but I don't think blogging was meant for that sort of thing."

So here it is: no drumroll, no drama, just plain blogging. This is not in any way a protest of women's blogs or blogging in general. I've watched my wife blog for the past two years (sometimes early in the morning when I think she's going to the bathroom) and am grateful for the record she's kept of our life.

However, in our past few years of marriage, I've realized just how much of a role blogging plays in our social life. I've listened to conversations between women that often contain a phrases something like this: "...well, I read on her blog that..." or "...yeah, even though we've never talked about this or e-mailed or used any other form of communication, I already know everything that's happening in your life because I read it on your blog...". I've had women whom I've never before met tell me more about myself than even I know all because they read my wife's blog. I've even heard this out of more than one woman's mouth: "You know, I saw her in the store and went up to say hi, but then stopped because I realized, even though I know her birthdate, all her children's names, her past seven favorite colors, her clever remedie for removing scabs, and her bed-wetting experience that even her husband doesn't know (he doesn't read the blog)--I've never met her. So I walked away." Apparently, the best (and maybe only) way to stay up on current social events is to blog.

So I've decided to join the game. The problem is, as I've roamed the blogosphere (through my wife of course) I've noticed that most blogs seem to be done by women. This is probably rightly so. In my preliminary research for this blog, I researched other blogs with similar names to mine. Both manblog.blogspot and manblogger.blogspot have one single post to their titles and both are about 5 years old; themanblog.blogspot has links on the side to comedycentral, espn, and playboy and posts that look like they discuss little else outside of those topics. So I personally think that it's a good thing the woman controls the blogging instead of the man. But I thought I'd give it a whirl anyway.

So here we go. My resolution is to "blog" every week about...well, I haven't quite figured that out yet. We'll just see where it goes--though I do promise no periwinkle/mauve paisley backgrounds.