OK, here's the reason why I'm doing this

Last night, at Friday's game, someone asked me why I'm doing this. The only answer I had was because of Peg Lautenschlager (who says politics doesn't affect your life? look at me).

There's other reasons. To be cynical for a second, I'm an exhibitionistic freak. I like telling people what's going on in my life -- not that they care at times or that I'd even get attention on the Internet with everyone and their mother blogging their brains out. I see this more as a message in a bottle -- I don't know if people will get it, but I want to get it out there. Maybe someone will hear me, but more likely not.

But that exhibitionism is part of writing and the creative process. The ultimate goal is exposing a part of yourself to the world. You want people to read your work or see your play or hear your music.

The other reason is for a place to jot down the random thoughts that go running through my head. This obviously ranges from political to pop culture, deep to shallow and everywhere inbetween. One key of being a good writer is practice, practice, practice. While I do write a lot at my job, I was missing something else and in a way, I hope that this is a way to strengthen my writing skills and find an occasional gem that I can use either in work or as a snarky bon mot with friends. Anne Lamott wrote in her book, Bird by Bird, about how she would carry a note card and a pen with her to jot down random observations and ideas for her works. This is like that for me. I'm never too far away from a computer and I'm admittedly more comfortable with a keyboard -- not to mention, my handwriting is horrendous.

That's why I have a blog.