To give you a bit of a background, I’ve had a small lack of inspiration happening this morning.  There’s usually the moment where I haven’t had coffee yet, and I can’t write, but then a few hours later there’s the moment where I’ve had too much coffee and I can’t write.  There is a finite opportunity for me to get this blog off, and if I piss around too much within that window, then the quality of my product decreases significantly.  Usually I wake up Monday morning knowing I need to blog to fulfill my commitment to myself (and now some faithful readers…. thank you).  I’m lucky if I already have a topic picked out, but usually if I don’t, I quickly come up with something.  They say writers should write even if they have nothing to write about, just to stay in the habit of doing it, plus it’s probably a good test of skill to pull off some half decent writing with no inspiration.  I want badly to write about ‘writer’s block’ but it’s so cliché.  I sometimes ask people for topics, but for whatever strange reason, I never want to write about things that people suggest I should write about.  Today I would like to write about the impact my writing has on my social life.  Yes….I’m going to blog about blogging!  It was only a matter of time.

I was just instant messaging with a friend.  We were catching up, and I hadn’t come up with a blog topic yet, so I asked him for one (knowing I probably wouldn’t use it).  He had just had us over for a get together on the weekend, and he suggested I write about house parties!  The ins & outs, expectations & pitfalls, dos & don’ts, the anecdotal booze rules……  That’s a pretty good topic.  He knows me well, and knows I could write passionately about the subject, because I love a good house party!  Herein lies the problem with that.  If I do this, people in my circle that have read my blog could become ‘house party self conscious’ if they choose to invite me.  Am I over reacting?  Possibly, but this past Saturday night I was at their house attending one of the better get-togethers I’d been to in some time.  They had renovated the backyard, they had one of those big tents to keep the bugs out so we could sit around outside.  The food was good, they had cool drinks, great music, guacamole, nice mix of our friends.  I had a great time.  Then when my buddy offered coffee to everyone, he mentioned that he didn’t have cream.  Two other people piped up and mentioned a previous blog that I had written about the importance of having cream for your coffee.  We all had a good laugh, but I felt a range of emotions.  1) Flattered that people are reading my blog and almost able to quote stuff from it.  2) Bad because something I wrote contributed to a moment where I was basically now judging them for not having cream in the house, even though I would never have said anything, and 3) Embarrassed, because publishing that blog months earlier was now the equivalent of getting up in the middle of a room and shouting “OH MY GOD, THESE GUYS DON’T HAVE CREAM FOR THEIR COFFEE”, which was such a small detail to an otherwise amazing night.  I don’t even think anyone was going to drink coffee!!!

It’s a very interesting dynamic.  I’ve started a blog which whether intentionally or not has become something of a ‘rant’ blog.  People tend to find me more entertaining when I’m angry or feisty (according to the site stats) which is actually rather inconvenient for me since I prefer just to be cool and laid back.  Upon reading some of my own stuff, I appear to be auditioning for a job with the ‘behaviour police’ and judging everyone I come across in the world which was really not my original intention.  It’s funny how lately, people I know will occasionally reference a situation, and say ‘I wonder if he’ll blog about that’, or ‘I hope he doesn’t blog about me’.

I’ve learned a great lesson about how words (even on a small-scale such as this) are forever once published.  Even though I’ve never mentioned any names, and have rarely made reference to anybody I know, I have been putting my opinions out there into the world.  I try to make them general rather than specific, but you may fit into a category of people who I’ve made fun of or spoken out against.  If it’s happened with people I know, I hope we’re still cool.  I’m legitimately worried that if I wrote a post about house parties and how I think they should be, that people would be nervous about inviting me to theirs, thinking I’d be making notes or filling out a report card.  I don’t want to put pressure on people like that.  I just want to have a cold beer.

In general though, I just want you to know that you don’t have to worry.  I’m not so desperate for blog topics that I would intentionally embarrass any of you.  I am not waiting for you to screw up in life so I can write about you.  I’ve seen enough random strangers doing a lifetime’s worth of idiotic things, that I can write about that until my hands fall off.  Just in case you were wondering…….Hope we can still hang out 🙂