For the first time in a very long time, I spent a good hour just looking at a blank screen.  I was thinking about why you come here to this blog.  I figure you come here because you like something about the writing.  Maybe I commented on your blog at some time, and then you commented on mine, and before you know it, we assumed we knew each other. 

There is a dark side to this.  If I start writing boring stuff, you will probably go away.  After a whole bunch of tedious posts — say, about my fingernails — only my mother would be left reading this blog.  My mother would not abandon me.  She would keep reading the blog no matter what.  That’s what mothers do. 

Sometimes, I’m afraid of writing something shitty.  I’m worried that you will drop me like a hot potato.  After all, there are plenty of other blogs out there.

It would be cool to write something really shitty.  I think I would enjoy writing something really shitty once a week.  Should I tell you in the tags or beforehand, so you know when I KNOW the post is conceived as shitty, opposed to when it just comes out shitty by poor planning or distraction?

For instance, this is a pretty shitty post.  I know it.  It is not an accident.  I enjoyed writing this shitty post.  I’m writing it on Notepad.  I can delete it or I can copy it and publish it on my blog so you can read it.  The question remains:  Why would you want to read it? 

I have no idea. 

No, that’s a lie.  I actually do.  I think I would enjoy reading it if YOU wrote it.  But I’m odd in that way.

A few days ago, some blogger wrote a comment where she said, “I love you, Neil.”  I took this nice comment as meaning that the person liked the current post, or that something in my writing connected with that person.  I know the person doesn’t REALLY love me. I’ve had this lovin’ feeling myself at times.  On my last count, I have been in serious love with seven female bloggers over the years, and three male bloggers.  These are bloggers who I have grown attached to in the most unhealthy of ways — caring about them way beyond normality, crying when they write about being miserable, laughing when they are happy, worried when they don’t blog, mad when they didn’t comment. 

I usually fall in love with a blogger because of her writing.   And then she writes something shitty, and the magic is gone. 

But gradually, I learn to respect her in a healthier manner, as I see that her writing that shitty post was important for her to write.  It reminded her that her writing is her own — and not others — and that if she wants to write something shitty, she should do it, confident that even if everyone thought she sucked, her mother would still read her blog.