Wednesday, July 22, 2009

A Thousand Days in the Making

Part 1: My New Blog Buddy

Day 1 (October 10th, 2006) -

After a few weeks of working my nerdy little ass off, I had finished a very major project at work in the eleventh hour. This project had kept me at my desk until midnight more often than not, and I found myself suddenly relaxed and free of stress. On this particular day, the clock struck three and I was done. I had given the company my time, and while it was best that I stay till five, all work stopped and my attention drifted to my new writing project.

It occurred to me that I hadn't actually read other blogs. It was time to look out and see what the rest of the world was writing about, and to do that I started clicking the "Next Blog" button at the top of the page.

I was more disappointed than the guy who financed The Adventures of Pluto Nash. I constantly joke about being a bad writer, but the average blog makes me look like William Shakespeare.

Spanish Blog - Next Blog
Picture Blog - Next Blog
Spanish Blog - Next Blog
Advertisements - Next Blog
What was supposed to be English, but failed to achieve anything close - Next Blog
Portuguese Blog - Next Blog
Someone that I don't know's baby blog - Next Blog
Some girl in Montana with a nerdy glasses, Tina Fey sorta thing going on who's studying to be a nurse. - Solid grammar. Decent number of posts. Let's see what she has to say.

Over the next few days I would read Mandi's entire blog from start to finish. In some ways it was simple. She wasn't necessarily trying to tell a giant story, or cover a specific topic. It was just a keyhole view of someone else's life. It was well written and engaging, and in the end I had some new ideas on blogging. It was just what I had been looking for.

Day 4 (October 14, 2006) -

I sent Mandi a message on Myspace which in retrospect probably read like a letter from a creepy dude on the Internet. Where a simple, "Hey, I read your blog and really liked it, thanks." would have most likely been sufficient, I wrote a page long email. Jesse 2009 realizes that reading an entire blog gives one a false sense of relationship with the writer because that relationship is inherently one sided. Jesse 2006 did not.

Day 6 (October 16, 2006) -

Luckily for me, Mandi wasn't too creeped out. She wrote back to thank me for reading her blog. She quickly became my first official "blog buddy" and her's would become the first blog linked on the side of mine. In her email she also mentioned the odd coincidence of having a sister who lived in Phoenix.

Had I known Mandi better, my first question would have been, "Is she in to short nerds?", but since I had probably already over stepped my bounds I let it go.

She even left a comment on one of my blog entries about a hiking trip with Geremy and a girl whom I had nicknamed, "Harold".

I like the name game. It's fun! Geremy is Todd, and Amy is Harold... can I be someone else? (Not that you particularly know me, or that there is any foreseeable reason I should turn up in your blog. I just want to be part of the party...)

It's been almost three years, but I'm finally prepared to answer this question. The in office nicknaming scheme for all females is to call them by a geographical location. In this case you'd probably be "Montana", but I think we're just going to have to go with Mandi until a more suitable nickname can be found. I'll have my people call your people. We'll work on it.

7 comments:

  1. I think my calc homework is going to wait a bit longer in favour of giving the "next" button some attention. I'm curious as to what I'll stumble across.

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  2. Awww. Mandi. I think she is smart and cute too! I may be a little biased though.

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  3. John,
    There's a lot to sift through. The Next blog button gives you that feeling of being Han/Luke trapped in the trash compactor wading through crap.

    UF,
    Nah, probably just someone making a typo or double post. I've removed it.

    Rachael,
    She's said she might come to Phoenix in the next year, and maybe we'll have lunch. How crazy would that be after all this time?

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  4. So I had this weird desire to read something on the internet that was not one of my normal websites (i.e. Facebook, Textsfromlastnight.com, azcentral) and I remembered your blog. Glad I did. I am now wasting away my time, while I wait for my DVR to record the best of Shark Week, sorting through the Next Blogs.

    I have a strong urge to start a blog...

    Flip Cup

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  5. Aww, Jesse - I'm touched. :)

    (Luis will love that someone made a Tina Fey comment about me. He and I both crush on her hardcore.)

    And if it makes you feel any better, Mandi v.2.1.1 still feels an unfounded sense of attachment to people she only "knows" in print form. I'm a familiar type of person in general - there are no strangers, only friends I still need to get to know better. :)

    On the nickname front - I had a couple of random people at various bars/parties call me Kansas the first few years I was here. I liked it, and was hoping it would stick. No luck though. I wasn't willing to go so far as to tell people to call me that - that just always comes across as more sad than anything else.

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