What I’ve Learned During My Year of Blogging

Sarah Liz, one of the regulars here, told me today that she’s been reading this blog since last October.

That made me realize something. It was this, “Holy crap-o-mole. My blog is a year old.” I thought about commemorating this big occasion with a party, and registering for said party at either J Jill or Zappos.com or Ann Taylor Loft. That way I could get people to buy me the clothes and shoes that I just can’t afford right now.

How cool would that be?

But I thought that sounded a little too self-serving. So, instead, I decided to celebrate this milestone by letting you all know about some of the big life lessons I’ve learned in the past year. They are:

People really do read long posts. According to folklore going around the Internet, people won’t read anything longer than 200 words at a time. To that I say: baloney. Most of my posts are around 1000 words, and I have scientific proof that most of you actually get all the way to the end. See, I like to hide little nuggets at the ends of my posts, just to see if you all will find them. Anyway, my longest post ever was 2500 words. It was also one of my most popular, and it has the most comments on any post to date.

If you want your community to delurk, give away something inexpensive and somewhat silly. Like a pair of gently used bed sheets. Or a candy bar. Or a dildo.  Really, don’t spend a lot of money. Anything that’s free will work.

Reddit is a social bookmarking site that can bring a crap load of traffic to your blog. Thing is, a lot of really nasty and somewhat bizarre people will travel along with that traffic. Be forewarned.

When nasty people come to your blog, there’s this plug in called WP-Ban that will knock the living daylights out of them. No lie. It’s like a virtual bodyguard for bloggers.

Just when you think you have proofread your post to death, you will find yet another typo. Then you will worry that the entire blogosphere thinks you are a stupid ninny. In reality, most of the blogosphere hasn’t read your post or your typo, so it’s really not a big deal.

Blogging will bring you closer to your friends and family, especially if you blog about your sex life and bad marriage.

Blogging will destroy your relationships with your friends and family, especially if you blog about the sex lives of your friends and family.

There are a lot of things that can bring a woman to her knees. A lack of blog traffic is one of them.

No matter how much you think a certain joke makes sense, there will always be someone, somewhere who just doesn’t get it. Like the idea of trading sex for housework. Most people find that funny. Some people think I’m promoting prostitution. Go figure.

No matter how fair and balanced you try to be, there will always be someone, somewhere who accuses you of being unfair and unbalanced. But that person will probably keep reading your blog, so don’t fret over it.

Certain things are always funny to write about. Farting and peeing your pants are two of them. If you run out of material, write a post about the top 10 most embarrassing places to fart or pee your pants. Such posts go viral faster than the swine flu. Some people will claim that they don’t laugh at such vulgarity. I think such people are secretly laughing inside.

The word “underpants”? Always funny. It brings down the house every time.

You really ought not to be embarrassed about anything. Chances are, no matter what you’ve done, someone else has done it, too. For instance, have you ever farted during oral sex? I’m not saying that I have (or haven’t). I’m just saying that someone has, and that someone is just waiting to hear about the time you did it, too.

If you think junk mail is bad, you will not be able to imagine the kind of crap people send to bloggers. Thankfully, there’s this nice little plug in called Bad Behavior. It makes spammers run crying for their mommies.

Just when you think your blog is about marriage advice, you will learn that a few hundred people a month come to your blog in search of the best way to spank their husbands. For those folks who accidentally end up here, all I can say is this: you are over-thinking the situation.

If you thought golf was a time-consuming hobby, just try blogging. You’ll never sleep again.

Blogging will improve your writing in ways you could never imagine. It will also cause you to start using hip expressions like “Just sayin” and “Word up.” Oh wait, that second one was from the 80s, wasn’t it? Sometimes I get confused.

Once you start blogging, you will start coming out of the closet in a big way. Like you might feel courageous enough to tell the world that you love the theme song to Flashdance.

I didn’t learn this from blogging, but I thought I’d mention it anyway. Until about two weeks ago, I thought that sword that Luke Skywalker uses to fight Darth Vader was called a Light Saver. Saver? Saber? Whatev. (See, how cool I am? I typed whatev instead of whatever. That’s because I’m a blogger). I also used to think that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds had the following phrase: The girl with colitis goes by.

I kind of like my version better.

Just sayin.

If you’ve had two martinis during Girl’s Night Out, you will have a very hard time proof reading your blog. Just sayin. If there are typos in this entry? I blame it on the martinis.

Oh, and if, by chance, anyone would like to commemorate this big occasion by buying me a gift, I am a size 4 (well, more like a 6 at the moment, but I will be a 4 again by spring!) in clothes and a size 6.5 in shoes. I also believe my wish list on amazon.com is public and viewable by all. Just search for me under my maiden name.

Don’t know my maiden name? The first person to figure it out gets a chocolate bar. It’s really not all that hard to figure out. Here’s a hint. My maiden name and my married name only differ by two letters.

But you have to leave a comment to win the prize—because comments make me feel good.

Note: I’ll be away at a writing conference for the next few days. My next post won’t be until Tuesday. It will be about something deep and meaningful. It’s a total must read. Don’t forget to check back. You won’t want to miss it. See? That was an example of a little nugget that I tend to bury at the end of a post.

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