Show me on this chart where my blog bad-touched you

I was having a conversation with a contemporary yesterday and the topic moved over into bad students. I finished an anecdote and she laughed and said something to the effect of "you have the weirdest students". I said wistfully that someday I'd write a book whose profits would support me into my old age.

"I would read that book!" she said gleefully.

"Well," I said in a tone of voice used to reminisce about a dog one previously owned, "I used to write about my students in my blog..."

She interrupted. "I don't *read* blogs. Ever." Her face was suddenly grave and distasteful, as though bad fish had been eaten.

I blinked. "...but I don't anymore, because I don't want them to stumble across it," I finished.

I should have said, "Why in the world not?", but I decided not to appear like a partisan for my own blog. Instead, I just let her comment lie there like the last crusty piece in the communal pan of brownies. I'd like to know what is so terrible about blogs, though.

Maybe she assumes that all blogs are rife with horribly-spelled ramblings about cake and tube tops and rock bands and thwarted feelings about girls. And while I may have indulged in all of those particular topics at some point, I would be hard pressed to categorize my blog as being "about" them.

I look at this blog as being about ME. To the extent that it talks about religion or politics or school, it's really reflecting the prominence of those issues in my mind at any given time. I'm not interested in creating a specialized blog where people go for the latest information or commentary about "this burning issue". There are political blogs that do the job much better. The only things I'm really qualified to talk about are myself, what I think, and music. The problem with music is that it's notoriously hard to write about. To mangle one of my favorite quotes, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

In effect, it doesn't make sense to me that a person would be willing to read a book I had written, but practically in the same breath decry the need to ever read other things I had written. I suppose she could ONLY want to hear from me on stories about weird student behaviors.

I totally understand that some people strictly don't like blogs. They just don't care to read random thoughts. I can sympathize with that and don't hold a grudge against them. It's the people who want to know more about what I think or who enjoy my one-line status updates and want to read more of what I write, but ultimately don't come to my blog that I find puzzling.

Oh, well. Time for me to move onto my regularly scheduled entry about cake.