OPB

I love clicking on the "Next Blog" button in blogger. Just going through and randomly reading random shit (I kept wanting to type that out as ramdom...), you see some seriously interesting things. In the course of 3 clicks, I read a mommy blog about a woman with 2 kids and a husband. A woman I would not get along with, judgmental and traditional, but who loves her kids and her life. She wrote nothing about her husband, which makes me wonder. But it was awesome to be able to peak through the windows into her living room, to watch her interact with her kids without having to sit there and squirm uncomfortably as you bite your tongue on the things you'd tell her if she was your friend, like giving a child who hates soccer a break.

Next up was a storm chasers blog. BEAUTIFUL pictures. Just... so amazingly awesome in the truest sense of the word. And this random blog helped remind me that it's ok to want what I want. It's ok to need to travel, to thrive on not knowing where you're going to be tomorrow, to gain so much satisfaction from following whim into the yonder, that the potential for beauty is always waiting. I have to say, though, the people who wrote that blog were a little morbid. You could tell they had no thought of the devastation these storms they were obsessed with were causing. They were writing about hoping for a big one in their area (heh), bitching about how quiet the weather had been around them. And I couldn't help but think of the lynch mob that would have formed around people like that after a tornado a couple centuries ago. "You WANTED this to happen???"

Then it was a blog that I actually frequent, called Milkweed and Teasel. It's written by a woman who moved to England years ago to be an organic gardener, met a man who happened to be a gameskeeper on an old English estate, fell in love, and settled into his life. Her life now is fascinating to me. The sheer amount of work she does in a day is astounding, but she manages to make it sound... not idyllic, but paradisaic. She loves what she does, loves her life, and that shines through her writing and out into me. She inspires me to feel guilty about the tomatoes I let rot on the vine, and long for My Side of the Mountain life I used to want so badly. Plus, she seems like a good sort, and I'd love to have a cup of tea on her (dog hair and dirt covered) couch someday. I bet I'd really like this woman, with her down to earth dreaminess and matter of fact sense of humor.

All of this from words on a screen. People posting who most likely don't even think about what strangers might be learning about their lives. It feels more than a little voyeuristic, but also satisfyingly connective. I love this wealth of knowledge at our fingertips. It's fascinating, and lovely on many levels.