Ego ergo I go

I have all of these "favorite things"/obsessions that I read regularly on the internet. Most are gossip sites (so that I can know the names of all the celebrity children the minute they leave the womb). Some are news sites. And some are just odd. Like this unbelievable obsession I have with a guy called Alex Balk who used to be at gawker.com and now works at radar.com.

Anyway, another obsession used to be this site about feminist things, oddly, since I'm not very feminist-minded usually. Anyway, they had a brouhaha last week, which I won't get in to, but, in a effort to NOT be working on my quarterly reports which are all due, I started reading about it.

It was all so self-serving. Blogs started linking blogs and commenters started attacking other commenters. And I realized, we're all crazy. None of this really matters. Why do I write about the silly things in my life? Because they happen in Sudan? Does that make them any more interesting? And why do I read, for example, a friend of mine's blog about life in a normal, mid-sized American city? Believe me, it isn't that interesting. Yet I check it every day and get quite put out if there isn't something new about, say, shopping at Target and the great sale on tea towels.

I get lots of feedback about this site, most of it positive, which I am really grateful for. And, oddly, more people than actually know me appear to read it, which is... well... terrifying, but none the less gratifying. I guess it is just the old Franny and Zooey loving, ego hating side of me kicking in and realizing I don't WANT to be like those crazed bloggers and commenters I've been reading all evening. So wrapped up in their own impending brilliance (yes, I realize that doesn't strictly make sense, but I think you know what I mean).

I guess the moral of all this is that I've gotten some negative feedback lately, too, that the blog is going too far in to personal things and not enough in to Sudan things. Part of that is because the longer you are in a country, the less you see the things worth talking about. And part of that is because my personal life is more interesting to me right now than my professional life and, therefore, is at the top of my brain.

Either way, I think perhaps I'm not comfortable with that, and I think we will try to get back to more... generalized conversations. Honestly, I don't even know why I'm writing about this change, I should just do it. Dear god. I must be stopped.