But, it didn’t work. I would spend an evening typing a thoughtful letter, referencing things they’d mentioned on their last email, answering questions they asked, providing followup as well as sharing new info. I’d write a proper letter. In response, if there was any response at all, I get a set of announcements with no reference to what I’d said, not even answers to direct questions.

So, I made a blog. My mom gets a email that is a letter, but I include the blog address too, because there may be more information there that I didn’t specifically mention in the email. one of my daughters and I use IM a couple times a week, and we read each others blogs. One friend and I play continous rounds of FB scrabulous and chat in the chat box there. Everyone else gets an announcement that the blog is updated. Most read it pretty soon, almost all read it eventually. Some comment, some are prompted to send me a blog-post type email about their life. I don’t like it. But I am no longer disappointed by reading their responses and feeling they didn’t giveadamn about the info I’d shared with them.

I’d been thinking about making my blog more public, but this weekend I really noticed the number of blogs who cross-reference each other (generating hits) or mention various conventions and get togethers, or who take turns subbing for each other (hit building again). It begins to seem like an electronic pyramid scheme: all the hits from all the people trying to get hits so that they all get a bit of money from the ads which they are all feeding from the same sources. It also feels like junior high on this end: all the cool kids talking amongst themselves and hanging out together, while the rest of us listen from the next table over in the lunchroom. We can comment, but we aren’t really part of it in the same way.