Thoughts on Identity

All around blogland, you read all these articles about "growing your blog," and in every one, there is the same token of advice: "develop your blog's identity."

Now, that seems simple enough: do you write about fashion, or food, or furniture?

Do you have a cause, business, or opinion you want to see voiced?

People like things wrapped up in neat little packages and presented to them.

Well friends, I am neither neat nor little, and refuse to be wrapped.

I thought for a long time on what I wanted to focus my blog on, and then I realized, why not focus it on me?  It is my blog after all.  And it's not like I'm making any money off of it or trying to market it.  But I had been writing like I was.

So many of my entries come off as stiff or contrived.  Maybe not to you, dear reader, but to me.

And something I always strive to be is authentic.

Interestingly enough, the posts where I DO pour my black little heart out are the ones that spike in readership (yes I obsessively check my stats).

I don't think my life is all that fabulous or exotic, but it is life, and I guess mine is interesting enough to capture you, reader, for a few minutes of your day.

There is something satisfyingly voyeuristic about peeking into another person's life.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that all this talk of blog identity was making me feel a little schizophrenic, which is ironic, because I was trying to develop one blog personality, not seven.

Anyone who knows me in the real world knows I have a lot to say about pretty much everything, but I haven't been blogging about it.

I suppose I've been afraid of offending my readership - I mean, what if people are offended by topics like gay marriage and abortion and the word "fuck?" 

And then I realized, the only people that read this blog are close friends anyway, and they love me for my liberal, blasphemous, foul-mouthed self.  And for every person who gets their panties in a twist every time I decide to rant and rave about the Tea Party or bad tippers or people that chew with their mouth open, there's another person that can identify with what I'm saying.

So from now on I'm going to write about what I want to write about and to hell with the naysayers and advice-givers and all those successful bloggers who know how to do this shit.

Because I don't know how to do this shit, but hey, that's never stopped me before.

P.S. There's something about a neon Aztec-print head scarf that just makes me feel great.

And yes, my husband regularly makes fun of the clothes I wear.  We keep it real around here.