the good old days

Remember when blogs used to be collections of the stuff that makes up life--mundane, thoughtful, hilarious, sad, whatever--of any length, often dashed off, even? Compared to now when all that stuff has moved to Facebook and Twitter, and blogs are now a real live publishing platform, where people actually make money writing real stuff.

I kind of miss those good old days. The days when I could pop out a few sentences that gave family and friends some insight into my day, while giving me an outlet for whatever random thing I was thinking. Then people would go visit each other's blogs and leave comments, and sometimes whole conversations would happen in the comments, and it was like a little community.

Facebook is kind of like that, I suppose, but it's also not. With a blog, there's the option of short or long, multiple photos or none, links, etc. With FB, not so much--it's really a short-form medium, (though some people do try to write long treatises...then they complain how no one ever comments on their status) and while conversations happen in the comments, it seems less thoughtful/community-oriented somehow.

So, 12 years ago I would have put this on my blog, but today I put it on Facebook:
"this morning I tried to put the cereal in the fridge, and to wash my face with conditioner. Therefore I sat down on the couch with the cats to try to regroup. Now I think I might be ready to try this day again."

The comments are friendly, funny, compassionate, and commiserating. I like the immediacy of the Facebook status. but I also miss the community of blogging. Plus there's something (I haven't quite put my finger on the right way to express this, but I'll try anyway) about the way Facebook delivers things we say...the algorithm means that some people see some things, and others don't, etc. But it also means we don't expend much effort in keeping up. Which can be good--news about friends is right there in front of me. Yet there's something about the almost mindless way we can click the like button or leave a pithy comment that isn't quite the same as the blogging days, when (especially before feed readers became big) we had to make an effort to visit someone's blog. I don't know quite how to say what I mean, but it just feels different.

The rest of my day, for the record, went a lot better. I did some things I've been putting off, and I got some good work done, and had a really good meeting (not something I say very often!). Yes, I ended up eating macaroni and cheese for dinner at 10pm, but at least I didn't find the milk on the cereal shelf...