clarifications and reunions

First of all...I had way too much fun with yesterday's blog carnival. I definitely spent all afternoon and evening a few hours checking out other blogs on the list, checking out the blogs of people who commented here (all SEVENTEEN OF THEM, at last count. This is definitely a record for me!), checking out new followers (Hi!!! Thanks for joining!!!), and just generally having a good time acting like a hermit in the computer room. However, I wanted to make a few tiny clarifications based on some of the comments I received.

My "advice" (slash list of bitchy whining) was intended to help you/me make your blog attractive to new strangers. You know, people who are seeing you for the first time, either via a recommendation from another blogger, or by Googling you, or by clicking "next blog." When I happen upon a new blog, if it's breaking more than a few of these 'tips,' then I'm pretty likely to quit reading and move right along. BUT-- I promise that even if you are a perpetual breaker of all of my 'rules'...your real life friends (and family, and acquaintances probably) are still going to read and enjoy your blog. I mean, let's take my hard-and-fast QUIT TALKING ABOUT YER FRIGGIN BABY rule. That is because I have pretty zero interest in some random kid I've never seen before's schedule, and how many times they rolled over yesterday, and what size diapers they're wearing. But my friends' babies? Well, I know them. I like them! And so their baby-heavy blogs don't bother me. Because I know them.

See the difference? Stranger: don't care about your baby (yet-- unless you draw me into your blog with all of your other interesting posts, and then I get to 'know' you and subsequently find your boring baby posts more interesting). Friends: do care about your baby, but don't think this makes you exempt from using correct spelling and leaving comments. Mmmkay? 

So since the theme of the carnival was blogging tips to make your blog more 'successful,' and successful probably means 'random strangers enjoy finding and reading your blog,' then I think most of my tips were more in that light.

Like I said, I spent a good chunk of time checking out other people's tips. I decided that I definitely need to make my blog more mobile-friendly. I attempted to do that this morning by making an easy, blogger-option change. I'm sure there are more extensive things I could do. Anyone with a mobile device (since I currently still rock a Zack Morris phone) want to let me know how I'm doing? I would particularly like to make it easier for people (*coughcough*Mollyanne*cough*) to comment via smartphones. Any tips? I'm also thinking about getting rid of the word verification thing on my comment form. Anyone done this and wished they hadn't? I seriously don't want tons of spam AND I don't want to turn on comment moderation. I also investigated buying my domain today. It's available! But I'm pretty lazy and I don't want to have to figure out how to change it over to the new domain if I do.

Okay, enough about blogging. 

Tonight we're going to Matt's high school reunion. I should probably put that in quotation marks, since his graduating class consisted of eleven people. So the reunion is a cookout in someone's backyard. It's just hard for me to fathom that being your entire graduating class. Mine had over 500 people! 

This brings me to my dilemma: MY reunion. It's in September. I haven't bought tickets. It's going to be a fairly typical (as best I can tell) 10-year reunion, with everyone attending a football game on Friday night, and then a fancy-pants soiree at the country club on Saturday night. In theory, I'm all about reunions. For one, I loved high school. And even more, I've kept in pretty good touch with my closest friends from high school. We still talk (or at least email/blog stalk/facebook comment/text) and go to weddings and baby showers together. And as I'm sure you're aware, Facebook and social media have made reunions pretty anti-climatic, I'm imagining. Pretty much everyone I graduated with...I KNOW what they're up to! I know if they're married, I've seen pictures of their kids, I know where they went on vacation. And the people I wasn't friends with? I mean, not even "friends" enough to be FB friends with? I don't really wonder about them, and I probably wouldn't talk to them at the reunion. Not cause I'm hating or anything, but just because you really don't expect to be friends with 500 people, do you?

So it's like...why do I want to pay a bunch of money and go to some awkward evening if I'm just going to hang out in the corner with my friends I do care about and keep up with anyway? Couldn't we just all get together and do this in a much less awkward fashion?

It's a dilemma. At the end of the day, I think I'll really regret it if I don't go. But that hasn't been enough motivation so far to get me to buy my tickets. Did you (or will you) go to yours? If you're part of the EHS c/o 2001, are you coming to ours? Do you want to see me there, or do you feel like you already know enough about me? Haha. Decisions, decisions.

Well, I'd better go get dressed for the reunion I am going to. The one where I'm not going to know ANYONE, because Matt hasn't kept in touch with a soul from his class. This is not going to be awkward at all. I mean, have you seen me and Matt at a party? We are such social butterflies. We definitely do not sit in a corner talking to...each other. And plotting our escape.

Awesome. Happy Saturday night to you!