The Impetus

The subject of blogging came up in a recent breakfast conversation with my parents, who are both in their fifties and although computer users, not the most internet savvy. Mind you, both wear drug store reading glasses that magnify not only the print in front of them, but their eyes as well. Most nights, they sit at the kitchen table, dad reconciling the budget, mom writing reports, with their noses tipped up as their glasses slide downward. Both type with their index fingers pointed high over the keyboard ready to strike like chickens pecking at the ground. This particular Sunday, we sat at the same breakfast table, me reluctantly sipping their decaf coffee, when the subject of conversation came around to blogging. My slightly older sister had mentioned it in passing, and my father, struck by a question that he must have been pondering in quiet (and perhaps embarrassed) curiosity, asked, “How do blogs make money?

Emily and I looked at each other until she answered, “Well, it’s like any other website. It makes money through advertisements. If enough people go to the website...” And that’s when my mother chimed in like a school child who can’t quite hold her hand up anymore. “It gets HITS!” She accentuated the outburst by firmly striking her left palm with the side of her right hand repeatedly. “It gets hits.”

Despite Emily and I subsequently making a silly dance out the blog conversation (along the lines of the shopping cart and the fisherman reeling in the fish), I was inspired to try my hand at blogging. But the subject was still to be determined.

Since 2005, I have been living in Somerville, MA (a suburb of Boston) in a large five bedroom apartment with afore-mentioned sister and several different housemates over the years. I’ve mentioned countlessly to anyone who walks in that if I were the landlord and had any sort of money, I would have gutted the place years ago. It has so much potential, but features like browning drop ceilings in the kitchen and my bedroom (with, I swear, holes where little mice have chewed through) hold it back from being absolutely lovely. Just recently, after having the house appraised, the landlords decided to replace the drop ceilings with normal sheet rock ceilings. Honestly, very little lately has given me as much joy as this news. No more staring up at night playing imaginary checkers with myself, no more wondering if the mouse family that has moved in upstairs will be quiet neighbors. To top it off, the lardlords also agreed to pull up the old vinyl floor tiles and replace it with new vinyl floor tiles. Not my style (since I have a sneaking suspicion that there is hard wood under there somewhere) but anything will be better than the vanish-stained, imitation brick that’s in there now.

With the prospect of moving my belongings out of my room and then back in, I decided it was time to purge and redecorate. I feel I did decent job four years ago, given what I had to work with, but my tastes have since changed and I am utterly sick of the college dorm feel that the desk and pleather rolling chair create. A tag sale is in order, budgeting, and flipping through years of Martha’s and House Beautiful’s too. And what better way to stay on task, then to blog. Let's hope, as my mother says, it gets hits.