not so zen momma

NEW YORK—In what is being called a seminal moment in Internet history, a rare weekend post by 25-year-old blogger Ben Tiedemann on his website bentiedemanntellsall.blogspot.com rocked the 50 million-member blogosphere this Saturday.

The landmark post, which updated nearly every member of the global online community on the shelf Tiedemann was building, was linked to by several thousand sites, including Daily Kos, Digg, and The New York Times.

"Wow, what a special treat this was for all of us," said Talking Points Memo head blogger Joshua Micah Marshal, who, along with all other bloggers, checks Tiedemann's site every day just in case something monumental occurs. "I thought I was going to have to wait until Monday to find out if Ben decided to put [the shelf] in his bedroom or the living room. The pictures were great, too."

Within two hours of going live, Tiedemann's 15-word post received 34,634,897 comments.
Leave it to the Onion to perfectly express my current view of blogging. It seems like sometimes the most interesting thing to write about is "where you decided to put up your shelf." My case in point: Sitemeter reported today that I average eight visitors per day. What content are these eight visitors seeking? Surely my Christmas list from two weeks ago can't be that captivating!

I have found it strangely liberating not to feel the pressure to come up with something creative or even remotely interesting this past two weeks. Because sometimes, I'm just not interesting. I'm pretty sure my devout readership-all eight of you-can appreciate my desire not to let you know the most enthralling activity I completed this evening was cleaning out Van's bottles and relishing an hour of "alone time" while Derek snoozed on the couch.

But perhaps this recent blogging malaise could be attributed to my realization about my personal blogging motivations. Because, I recently recognized a feeling I hadn't experienced in quite some time... feeling unpopular. Blogging definitely creates a sense of importance; as well as provides quantitative measurements (comments, visitor counts) for your success or failure. This motivation to be "the best" or "most successful" can bring out some of the worst qualities in me.

To be clear, I'm not down on blogging. I think it can be a fun hobby, and I can't pass up the opportunity to share pictures, videos, and stories with my friends and family. But at the same time, I must profess (for myself more than others) that I am not competing to have the most exciting blog on the block. This blog is just me, "deciding where to put up that shelf."