Let's start at the beginning

If I am posting my first blog entry today evidently I have been very late to join the blogging bandwagon. Most of my friends blog, I have occasionally read blogs and of late I have been following a few blogs seriously, and by seriously I mean religiously digging through their archives , some dating back to 3-4 years, reading the comments posted against them and navigating to the people who are regular commenters. Since I do all this in my office, I mostly keep getting the ominous black screen ('Access is Denied'. This page belongs to the personal/entertainment category.) But that doesn't deter me from being the voyeur to CompulsiveConfessor's colorful life or listening to SmugBug's long rants.

Often I have wondered why I don't write on the net myself.
I think I kind of fit the bill to be a 'blogger' because I write, not that that is a pre-requisite.
I have many 'Dear Dairy' type documents here and there. And a lot more non-dear diary type writings e-strewn around. (Never on paper anymore after my mother read my whole notebook of heartfelt writings in class 7. Now they are typed and password protected, thank you. Not that I had many, ok any secrets that had to be guarded from the parents, but it felt like an immense betrayal when my mother surreptiously began to talk about the exact same things I had written days back, while plaiting my hair! I still don't know why mother read it when she accidentally found it but I guess she after all is the MotherOfThisIfNotAllCuriousCats! And being a psychologist and all, it would be immensely hard to walk away from an offspring's memoir. Come to think of it now, I realise it was only after this that my mother completely stopped giving me those hidden-value-lessons, you know the sort where mothers see a movie/read a news article/meet someone on the road/any random thing and can always churn out a 'moral of this story is' kind of statement. She by then knew how tame and non-exciting her daughter's life actually was and how even if she tried she wouldn't go astray.)

Coming back to the reasons why I didn't start blogging before today, though I always have something to say about most things, I was never vain enough to think that there would be an audience who would want to read it. My friends were forced to hear me but strangers were under no such obligation. Why post what I think when those who know me would have heard it from the horse’s (maybe cat's from now on!) mouth and those who don’t would not care anyway? Just posting it for the sake of it or because others were doing it seemed like a waste of many kinds of energy that would be better dispensed doing other things.

Also, I am a very closed person. I don't mean the sorts who talk very little, are uncomfortable in groups and best enjoy their time sipping coffee and reading a book alone. No. I love people genuinely, well at least most of the times. I have many friends and a few really close ones. I am by nature curious about what others do/think and why and things like that. And I like being in groups and invariably I am most of the times the topic picker and question asker. I like to understand people. (Or maybe that is just me rationalising my curiosity.) But I do like sipping things (not a coffee lover, sorry) and reading a book alone above most things.
Anyway, what I meant was, while I am the question-asker, debate-beginner I very rarely answer them myself. I might dodge it with a remark or gloss over it, but seldom reveal too much about myself. I of course am not guarded when we are talking about say how handsome Obama is and how probable it is for Palin to become President (McCain being so old and all), I go all out then. But I do ask people very intimate things (I believe that they have the option of not answering!) but I don't like talking about myself too much. About the things that really count, you know. For instance, I don't mind telling you that I will always have an abiding love for Howard Roark, but I will never tell you about the person I am actually in love with (wait wait, that doesn't mean I am in love now, that was purely rhetorical, that also doesn’t mean I am not in love right now. You know nothing, forget about my love life.)
So, you see I was very hesitant to write about myself. And also my life is not exactly something you would fall over yourself to know about!

Thinking that I don't have much to say, knowing that not many who don't know me would want to hear me, not wanting to write exclusively about myself and what I did today and general apathy kept me away from blogging.
So what made me change my mind and start writing?
Two things, actually.
Extra long mails almost daily to various mailing groups among friends which convinced me that I always have something to say and Egypt.
I am going to Egypt, mostly in November. Yippee! (I have always wanted to go there. Childhood fascination + love for mythology and history. I also realised that I write a lot in parenthesis. That is because I like these small meanderings. More on why I write like I write in another post. God, I have already become the regular blogger type, planning about my future posts and all! If my writing style resembles the way The Catcher in the Rye is written, sorry. I am reading it again now and maybe it spills over sub-consciously. I should see how I write when I am reading Emily Dickinson; I can't rhyme for my life!)
Coming back, I wanted to record my Egypt experience in as much detail as possible and share it with some of my friends. A blog seemed the most practical way to do it. And while I was at it, why not start a little early and write some general things!

So, there.