Blogging

I've got nothing to say about Italy today (I do, but I'm gonna skip it), or England, or searching for a home, or working, or not working, or identity, or any of my usual themes.
What I'd like to write to you about today -- briefly, I promise -- is blogging.
Yeah, it's fun.
I enjoy the hell out of it (I hope it shows).
And I bet so do the hundreds of thousands of other people doing it these days too. Or is it actually millions now?
What a blast.
Just write whatever comes to mind. Use stuff from your life. From what happened to you that day.
Really liberating.
And fascinating. Addicting, even.
Fun to read (hopefully).
Not journalism though, folks.
Absolutely nothing like it.
Do I have a right to make this distinction since I do both? Or will the bloggers among you get mad at me? Or are all of you too busy blogging to be reading any blogs?
Take for example what I wrote to you about Italian driving the other day.
Didn't have a fucking fact in it.
Just me blowing off my mouth. And plumbing my emotions.
Now, let's pretend for a minute that I was writing a story -- for a newspaper, magazine, wire service, web site, anything you want really -- about driving in Italy.
It would need what you call in the game, research.
Like: Accident figures. Accident trends. Driving statistics. Comparative driving statistics. People who have been in crashes. People who have been affected by crashes. People who know stuff about Italian driving. People who know stuff about Italian crashes. People who know stuff about Italians. People who know stuff about driving, period.
ALL KINDS OF STUFF.
ALL KINDS OF INTERVIEWS.
A powerful opening anecdote. A nut graph. A spine. A kicker. An editor who says things like a spine and a kicker.
Work, in other words.
You would actually learn something if you read it.
I would've learned something writing it. (A lot actually).
Maybe not as much fun. For either of us.
Dunno.
You tell me.
A whole different thing, though.