So E said something a few weeks ago at one of our many parties (they just seem to materialize in our living room), that she doesn't understand the whole blog phenomenon. I didn't agree with her at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder why I blog. Originally I started so that I could communicate with my friends and family while I was in Japan (I had protested blogging prior to that). That way I wouldn't write the same story 20 times in every letter, and they didn't have to read my stories if they didn't want to. But if that was the only reason I would not have continued to blog after returning to the US. I could say that it is just my own personal journal, but I have plenty of those at home that are not exposed to the whole world. I admit I experience a little thrill when I see that random people have read something on my blog, or that my blog appears when someone types "spy museum" in msn.com's search engine. But why do I feel a need to share my life and its details with the rest of the world. I am certainly not the only person obsessed with this trend, but generally I like to set myself apart from the people who will do anything for attention including marrying total strangers on TV or embarrassing themselves on FearFactor and American Idol. I would like to think that I am different from those people. But really what else is a blog, but a slightly more subtle form of attracting attention from random strangers. A very self-centered webpage which I make under the assumption that the world actually care about my life.

That's depressing, so I will stop with that train of thought. But all this wondering has made me feel less inclined to write on my blog, because I wonder if anyone reading it really cares.