Blog. Say it aloud. The first time I heard the word, it sounded like the speaker was about to throw up. I didn't know what it meant. Now that I've learned it means a web log, as in on-line record or report, I am reminded of a book by Brenda Euland. An instructional volume for writers, it encouraged writing with abandon, as if vomiting your words on paper. Having read some blogs, I think Ms. Euland's idea has caught on.
     My first experience with a blog was an accident. I had used Google to fact-check an item for a column. Before I realized what had happened, I found myself on someone's blog, rather than a reliable encyclopedia-like resource. I wondered if the writer could somehow sense my mistake and was laughing at me, saying, "Fooled you."
     Having a blog, a forum to express whatever is on your mind each day, could be tempting. Mad at the President? Go ahead, rant. Teenager driving you bonkers? Tell the world. It appears no subject is out of bounds. Many political pundits garner attention and respect for their blogs. The Minneapolis paper even publishes some of them on the Op-Ed page.
     In fact, it was a newspaper item about Britney Spears that led me to check out Rosie O'Donnell's blog. During Spear's recent implosion, I'd heard Rosie blogged an invite, encouraging Britney to move in with O'Donnell and her family. It's true: I read it myself and found Rosie often structures her entries like poetry, with super-short stanzas. Some words look like hieroglyphics: ur means your and 2day is today.
     I don't think blogging is for me. I keep journals. Over the years I've filled thick college-ruled notebooks with my ramblings and musings. They are safely stashed in a drawer, never to be made public. In fact, my husband has been instructed to light a match to the whole kit-and-caboodle when I have left this earth.
     There's nothing incriminating or hush-hush in them. At my age, journaling is more therapy than anything else. Not like the diaries kept by my girlfriends years ago. Every evening they recorded their secrets in small leather-like books of lined paper. Intimacies kept safe with a clasp that locked with a tiny gold key. Some parents of these girls found a way to open the chronicle and read its contents. The ending was never happy. Many of the girls were grounded or forbidden to see their Prince Charming.
     Bloggers harbor nothing. They don't know the meaning of "under one's hat." Whether writing about last night's TV show or an argument with a coworker or relative, they want people to know their innermost thoughts. Thomas Augst, an associate professor of English at the University of Minnesota, was quoted in a Minneapolis Star Tribune article about Minnesota's blogosphere. "People think their ordinary lives have a dignity that is worth commenting on, even if no one else ever will," he said.
     Not me. My husband put me in my place a few years ago. During a disagreement, he surprised me by hurling his idea of an insult at me. "You have an opinion about everything, don't you?" he asked. Even though his tone of voice dared me to challenge him, I couldn't. Being opinionated is genetic (Hadn't he met my father?) and I'm proud of it. Sometimes, though, one of my notions might be better suited to the shorter format of a blog. If it doesn't have enough substance, I struggle to turn it into a whole column.
     Case in point...blogging.