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June 7, 2007
I’m feeling this intense desire to read blog comments instead of paying attention to my current writing task at hand, which involves using the annoying terms personal productivity system and, worse, actionable (SHOOT. ME. NOW), so riddle me this, Bat-Reader, how did you get introduced to blogs, or blogging?
My story: in the last part of 2001 JB and I visited southern China; during that trip there was one night when I was hanging around our hotel room waiting for JB, and tooling around on his laptop to pass the time. I can’t explain what happened next, except to say that I was probably feeling a little lonesome for Americana at its finest . . . at any rate, I found myself googling Jean Teasdale, which inexplicably led me to Wendy’s site. I read through all of her archives until it came time for us to head to dinner (where a waiter repeated what I thought was “Chicken hot! Chicken hot!” to me, and I nodded in understanding—hey, I can handle a little spice, my good man—and promptly bit into what turned out to be a chicken heart. Which wasn’t half bad), and from Poundy I eventually discovered many more excellent blogs (well, online journals, as they were called at the time). A few months later, I decided to try my hand at writing on the web, and I’ve been duly blathering away—and reading—ever since.
How about you? When did you start reading blogs, or writing a blog? If you are really feeling generous, you could also tell me how you stumbled upon my blog, because I’d love to know.
PS: if you haven’t seen this video yet, prepare for your day to get about fifty thousand times more awesome. “NOT FUNNY!” Oh, but it is. (Via MightyGirl.)
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165 Responses to “Wherever did you come from?”
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Eureka Enviro Floor Steamer.
Why did I not buy this YEARS ago? WHY? OH MY GOD MY LIFE IS FOREVER CHANGED.
Neutrogena Healthy Skin Clear Skin Cream.
Maaaajor difference in my skin since I started using this. I alternate with Pond's so my face doesn't get too dried out.
Magic Bullet.
I use this almost every single day to make a smoothie. Really a surprisingly awesome little kitchen tool.
Neutrogena Revitalizing Lip Balm.
Amazing lip balm that gives natural color and somehow makes your lips look more full.
Voluspa Candle.
Discovered via Jennie. These candles smell wonderful (at least the Goji/Orange scent does), and I love the pretty tin.
NARS Flamenco Lipstick.
Whoorl was right, this is the perfect red lipstick.
With me it was TWoP to Pamie.com (who was squishy then) and hashai and frolicanddetour and several others. Then I found mightygirl and dooce. Then I started my own, right before Leta was born. From there is when I found all of my other daily reads.
My handwriting began to go down the toilet because I found myself rarely having to write anything that couldn’t fit onto a post-it note. It got to the point where it physically hurt to write long entries in my journal, so I did a net search for “online journal” and diaryland popped up. So I created an account.
Zoot – I came to online journals the exact same way, TWoP to pamie, and from there it’s a blur.
I googled “greek yogurt” one Sunday afternoon and it somehow led me to your blog. Ditto the reading (and laughing out loud) all day. I’ve been addicted ever since. Thanks!
I started reading blogs only last year when my son was born and I was nursing him several times a night. I had to find something to do to keep me awake. I found solace in people describing what I was going through with the whole baby thing and I found other blogs through those first ones. I found yours through a link on another blog and have been reading it ever since. It’s one of my favorites!
I was introduced to blogs through (wait for it)…reading Sundry Mourning! It was 2002 and I was but a young student in the land of academia, toiling away at the college library and my coworker (active in the LJ community and savvy to this sort of thing) kept braying wildly and reading things out loud to me and telling me I had to read this “Sundry lady.” So I did (do!), but I barely read any other blogs. Gofugyourself and Feministing regularly, and the occasional clickclickclick fest where I sample a bunch of other blogs then feel weirded out and like a voyeur. You are pretty much the one and only “real person” blog I read :)
I found on-line journals (as they were called back then) in 1998 when I was doing some research for a class called “Computer Assisted Reporting”. I found one by The Shanmonster, and from there, I found a list with a bunch of different journals. That’s how I found pamie.com (Squishy, at the time), and the wonderful world of on-line forums (fora?). Through Pamie I also found a bunch of other journals. I can’t remember exactly how I came to Sundry Mourning, it must have been linked somewhere. But I’ve been reading your journal for a long time.
I had an on-line journal for a while, but then diary-x crashed, and I realized my life was far too boring to blog about, so I haven’t bothered starting up a new one.
I did a search for something (can not remember what) and uncle Bob came up so I hit the link and got hooked them he linked to Weetabix and that was it I was totaly into reading them. I had always written a jornal myself since eigth grade atleast so I deiced to switch to an online one and I could sent a link to family memebers who moved away. Been writing in it almost daily for about 4 years now.
I also found yours from a link in Weetabix a few years back and read all the archives and now I never miss one. I do not always leave a comment but I do sometimes, ah like now.
I was surfing the web one night about 4 years ago and ran across a very funny post, who linked to Dooce, who linked to Bitchypoo. I started talking to everyone about all the funny stories and stuff I was reading online and my sister began pestering me to write my own– and Destination Unknown was born.
I don’t remember how I ended up on Chiara’s Ampersand site, but she linked to you and the first post I read of yours there was a picture of JB’s bare assed self up in the mountains. I had to keep coming back to see if he killed you for posting that photo :
Pamie (Squishy) was my first intro blogs as well. I honestly can’t remember how, just as I can’t remember how I eventually stumbled across yours. But I do know that Sundry (in it’s various forms) has stood the test of time of daily reading when so many others have come and gone.
I started blogging in 2001 or 2002, I think. I was introduced by my friend, Tori, who was using Diaryland at the time. From there, I started my own and stumbled upon your blog sometime later while going through the most recent posts. I was hooked! I had to stop reading you at work because I’d be busting with laughter and pretty much crying at my desk.
Hmmm…. I’d say TWoP, then Kevin Smith’s blog, then some of the blogs for Rockstar: INXS (and then Supernova), then it kinda exploded.
I was pointed here by someone else linking in, but I have no idea who that could have been. I’m currently at 171 blog feeds on my reader with another dozen I hand check (darn them).
The first blog I remember reading was Chase Me Ladies, which still continues to be hilarious, and I found a lot of the other blogs I read through his comments, and then started my own. I think I found yours here via your Club Mom blog, which I found through Amalah’s Club Mom Blog, which I found via her regular blog. I have no idea why I was clicking around the Club Mom blogs anyway, since I am a single childless slut, myself, but I’m glad I was, since I have found so many blogs I love that way. The day I clicked over here first, you had posted this, which grabbed my attention pretty damned fast, and i have been reading your blog ever since.
Yahoo used to have a Cool Link Of The Day back in 1998 and one day, at my first desk job post-college, I clicked and got ye olde Hissyfit, which led me to Pamie, which led me to…everyone, I think. After reading all of Jessamyn’s old diary-x journal I finally sacked up and started my own, just about six years ago. I have never attained the heights of internet celebrity I’d like, but I still can’t stop obsessively recording my little life, regardless of how many or how few people read about it. Too, I’ve made some amazing friends through writing online, which makes it totally worth it.
I found the old Sundry Mourning site through comments in Jessamyn’s blog when she was getting married and I was instantly hooked. I was so nervous to email you, girl, that first time and tell you I thought you were cool; I remember the day we met, when I got up early and did my hair special (i.e. ran a comb through it) because I was so freaked out about meeting you in person. And I think the first thing you ever said to me was “How did your gynecologist appointment go?” True love, people. That’s how it happens.
I think TranceJen was my first, then hashai (oh, the days when she was still writing!), then you, Linda. I don’t know how I found Trance, though.
I don’t remember exactly why I started keeping a blog. I don’t really remember reading any blogs at the time, though I’m sure I must have been looking at one somewhere–I doubt I came up with the idea on my own. I was just a bored kid freshly graduated from high school with nothing to occupy her summer aside from a weird part-time job. I suppose I often had funny things I wanted to write about said job, and keeping an online journal seemed like a good venue.
I started reading your page during my second year of college in 2002 or 2003. I found it through 12% beer. Congratulations, you are the only 12% member or alum that I still read.
Oh, man, this is reaching, like WAY back. I discovered online journals in general in the spring of 2000 – apparently a kid in one of my classes had one, and the TA for the class had found it and loved it. And mentioned it one day in class, comparing its awesomeness to Dawson’s creek. He didn’t give us the link to the journal directly, but instead gave us the link to a CWRU Diaryland page which had links to all the CWRU kids who had a Diaryland account that had asked to be listed. I was totally hooked. And immediately started my own, although no one really read it because, you know, I didn’t tell anyone where it was. A few years ago when I moved to my own domain I pondered bringing the old Diaryland entries over, and when I went back to read them they were so damn cryptic even *I* had no clue what I was talking about, and I’d written them! Yeesh. So, yeah, 2000 on Diaryland, then off to LiveJournal at the end of 2001 and then to the current dawnie.com home in January of 2003.
Christ, seven years is a lot of random-ass babble to have floating on the internet.
Now, how I found yours? Oh, hell, that was also a very long time ago, circa 2003 (and HOW IN THE HELL has it been FOUR YEARS since then? It seems like just yesterday I was in Austin drinking obscene amounts of Shiner with the MATH+1 folks), and I’m 99% sure it was through MATH+1. It’s possible I saw a link on a different journal to yours, but I can’t think of where it would have been, so I’m going to say good old MATH.
I started blogging because we live overseas and everyone back home wants to know every detail of The Boy’s activities. And, I knew I was out of the running for Mother Of The Year when I noticed entire months had gone by since I had updated the baby book. I figured blogging was a good way to keep track of those milestones.
My next door neighbor went to school with Whoorl and got me started on her blog. I found you from there. Once I saw you had an adorable kid the same age as mine- I was hooked!
I don’t remember when or how I first encountered blogging, but according to my first entry on diaryland this is how it happened: “Alright, I happened upon someone’s diary entry through google.com or something so I says to myself I says “Laura give it a go” so I do.” Riveting, I know. This was way back in 2001 when I was still in high school (damn, yo).
I don’t know when or how I found your blog either, but you were still at diaryland.
Now I read too many blogs for my own good.
I’d heard of, and read a couple pages, of blogs before but they never peaked my interested then a couple weeks ago my friend linked me to yours, and you were hilarious, so I went back and read through your archives.
It in fact inspired me to start my own blog in hopes that I’d be able to network even slightly…so far, not so good.
I was all into the message boards but didn’t like that I was limited to such a small space to write. One member of a board I was a member of suggested I try Diaryland. I did and got comments, which led to other blogs and new readers and more comments, lather, rinse, repeat. I found your blog via TranceJen; it was the camping trip where you took a pic of JB saying a hearty good morning to the world…buck nekkid. Nice ass and an even nicer blog.
My friend Kat moved to a different state and started a livejournal which i read all the time to keep in touch with her. I eventually realized i was leaving so many comments that i was practically writing my own blog right there in her comments section. So i started my own livejournal. Eventually, through Kat again, I discovered Amalah, and through Amalah the rest of the non-livejournal blog world. I was quickly hooked and ended up moving my blog over to my own domain. And yet, I still comment all over Kat’s lj.
I don’t know specifically how I found your blog. I think i just kept hearing about you on other blogs and came to see what everyone was talking about. Then I found out everyone was right about how good your blog is, and so I kept coming back.
My intro to blogging is detailed here: http://www.agirlandaboy.com/journal/archives/000842.html
I’m pretty sure I found you through Tall, Gorgeous Kristin, as she seemed to pimp you extra hard back in the day. What can I say, the lady has great taste.
Hmmm … I was browsing Collegehumor.com during a slow day at work, when I stumbled upon Damn Hell Ass Kings, where I clicked on Uncle Bob. I read him faithfully for about six months, then got deployed. I was sitting in a tent in Kuwait reading Uncle Bob’s archives and being bored and depressed, when it struck me that this “blogging” thing could be an AWESOME way for me to anonymously vent my ever-present hostility at a bunch of strangers, while also keeping my creative juices flowing. It totally worked, and two(ish) years later, I am still — sporadically — writing in the the dang thing. It’s fucking addictive, really, and has yielded me several real-life friends, as well as a plethora of fantastic care packages.
I found your site, I believe, through another Diarylander’s link to your photo entry wherein Cat and Dog were tested to see which would get the biscuit first. Brilliant, my dear.
I found you via the Breedorfs. Yours, hers and your aunt Linda are the only ones I read and might I say thoroughly enjoy!
I was looking something up and found Marn at diaryland and she was so funny. She linked to 12% beer and that’s how I fhoud you.
I believe I found your blog via Kristin (Debaucherous and Dishevelled) and have been hooked ever since.
I started my old pregnancy blog back in October of 2004 (babycadeau.blogspot.com). At the time it was more of a means to document my pregnancy, and then I discovered that I like comments and well, the rest is history. :)
Chicken heart eh? Mmm. Tasty.
I found a site back around 1996 or something, just as it was getting started called http://makeachildsmile.org/. Essentially, it is about sending cards to terminally ill kids, to make their days happier as they go through some pretty tough times. One family sent in regular updates about their kid, and I would get them in a mailing list. I eagerly awaited those emails, and as the site grew, that one kid was the kid whose story I always followed, a little 5 year old girl with Leukemia. Well there were updates for 2 years, and believe it or not, the girl overcame Leukemia! So the mom stopped writing as they went on with their now healthy lives. And I missed hearing her story!!
My husband said, “Have you ever seen Livejournal?” And I went on there, and joined, and still write over there. In the mean time, I discovered Diary-X and Diaryland and wrote in both places, as well, but eventually those fizzled out. For a while I wrote publicly on my own site called Seafoam, but then just started getting really self conscious about everything I wrote being out in the open (most of my stories are work stories, and there’s that whole “don’t write about work on the web unless you want to get fired” philosophy, and all). So now I keep mostly to friends-locked entries in Livejournal.
Also somewhere in there, in the midst of finding cool online journals (Darn Tootin’, which is now Schuyler’s Monster Blog; pamie.com; and hashai.com), I came across JournalCon’s website. I went to 3 of them – San Francisco, Austin, and San Diego. And I met you in the Austin one. I think I talked to you for all of 5 seconds, as I tried very hard to talk to almost everyone there for at least a little bit, but it was hard to socialize with everyone. So I think I ended up sticking with reading your page, after loving your writing that I came across on the JournalCon attendees webpage links.
I had a job in the tech business during the dot com boom where all I had to do was sit at my desk and look busy (not as fun as it sounds.) I think I started with TWoP (Mighty Big TV) and Tomato Nation. Leading to Damn Hell Ass Kings and later Amalah.com and then to you. I was pregnant at the same time and wanted to read how other people were handling pregnancy w/out freaking the fuck out.
I did the whole diaryland thing back in high school after a large number of my friends joined. I really enjoyed blathering away about my meaningless life, but that eventually came to an end once my family found it (boo!). But, through diaryland, I found a lot of writers who I really enjoyed–you being one of them. I think I found yours through one of your banner ads or maybe in a recently updated list. Either way, I was hooked and have been following your stories ever since. It’s funny…(or creepy, whatever way you choose to look at it)…I’ll sometimes find myself referring to something that you said in an entry and someone will ask who I heard that from and I’ll reply “Oh, my friend in Seattle.” I know, I’m crazy!
It was 1998, I believe, when I discovered Pamie (then Squishy). Man, that makes me sound old!
After being diagnosed with PCOS a couple years ago, I was googling like crazy and stumbled on Flotsam. It was the first blog I had ever read, and I got hooked pretty quick. Her blog became my starting point. I followed the links in her blogroll, checking out different sites, then following links in those blogs. It takes a while to collect a nice set of blogs – people that you can either relate to or are just entertaining.
Your site was easy! First of all, you update frequently so each time I visited, there was something new to read. Then you made me laugh – out loud – really hard!
I started my blog when my daughter was born. It isn’t a “real” blog, more of an online baby book. It is fun to do, and my family really seems to enjoy it, so I’ll stick with it!
1999, I am pretty sure, I found someone’s Diary-x. And then Uncle Bob. And Anenigma. Pischina. Weetabix. Marn. You. I got totally absorbed within Diaryland – I even did one of the Diary Survivors (the one with Uncle Bob and Ghengis Jon), and have now lost my credibility.
I started a LJ when my real-life friends discovered The Internet, and I needed something to keep them from finding out where I was “really” writing. I’ve moved to anonymoussuperhero.com, and after a few severe crashes, I think we’re getting things worked out. Even after all this time, I’m weary of people who didn’t start writing back when D*Land could list all of its members on one page. Uh, the end.
I found you through Whinger. I’m sad that she’s no longer writing her blog!
I know I was regularly checking one or two personal sites that had occasional journal-type updates as early as 1996 – in particular there was one on Geocities, back when Geocities actually had some cool personal sites and wasn’t cluttered with advertising crap, that I found while searching for info on HTML so I could make my own home page. But I think really got into regular journal-reading in 98. A friend of my younger sister had a cool site on the New Dream Network (now better known for its DreamHost Web hosting), and that led me to check out some of the other cool sites on the Network, including Zannah’s multitude of sites. I’ve been keeping up with Zannah’s projects ever since.
I’d kept a notebook journal more or less regularly from 91 to 98, and then stopped at that point as life got too busy. After I moved to Seattle in 2002, Zannah had some LiveJournal sign-up codes to give away, so I took one and that’s when I started blogging, myself. That’s also when I started reading your blog, after our mutual friend John introduced us, as you know.
I started reading blogs at least a year before I even thought about writing one, so I guess that was sometime in 2003. I think I first read you a long time ago after following a link from Miss Zoot, but my feed reader refused to acknowledge you back then, so I couldn’t remember to read you regularly. I started reading regularly after I started reading Purple is a Fruit. Probably reverse from most people, but there you go.
Message boards led to blogs. Message boards are gateway drugs, man. They will take you places you have never been! (And possibly never want to go)
It started out innocently enough with pregnancy information, then led to breast feeding (the horror!) and crunchy moms. Mostly, I think I chose blogs about women who I am not. That was back in ‘99/’00. Eventually I joined the ranks of d-land where I whined a lot, for a very long time. What? All the cool kids were doing it!
Please tell J.B. that it is because of him that I got a GPS. Well, because you wrote about him doing the whole ‘geocaching’ thing – and I got hooked. Apparently GPS is a gateway drug as well!
I read an article about the woman who created blogspot in maybe 2001. I started reading random blogs everyday. It didn’t take me long to figure out that some were much better than others (in terms of daily reading). I think I found you through invinciblegirl? I do remember reading all your archives during a really tough temp job and it saved my sanity.
I was doing an assignment for Midwifery and I googled “Lotus Birth” – and you came up!!! To date I still think it’s one of your funniest entries. I tell my ante-natal clients to read your blog starting March 2005 and they love it – particularly your honesty about how pregnancy, birth and parenting might not always be pretty or text book – but that we wouldn’t have it any other way.
My husband had a blog back when we met in 1999, back when they were personal homepages, or some such crap like that. It’s a long, exceedingly dorky story, but something he wrote on his site (that I later realized was about meeting me!) made me look for more blogs, which means that in some ridiculously nerdy way, his blog was instrumental in getting us together and oh God, that is GEEK.AY.
Anyway, at the time, there weren’t many at all, but I kept my eye on a few sites here and there (I read TWoP and Pamie too), and then, in 2001-ish, I found Dooce because she posted a picture of herself that looked JUST like my friend A., and all of my friends started reading her, etc. etc. and that was that.
I didn’t pony up and start my own blog until 2003 – I don’t even know where those archives are, as I was doing it on some crappy page set up by my now-husband, and it blew up one day. 2004, I started anew on Blogger, and later moved to Wordpress, and off we go!
I entered the blogosphere with the help of a friend of mine who’s a crafter. She sent me a few links to crafty mom blogs after I had my daughter 1 year ago and was desperate for mom wit and wisdom (”Operating Instructions” SAVED me in the first few months and I felt the same salvation when I found your blogs). I then found the club mom website and sifted through the lot of ‘em till I found yours. Then I found dooce and her bad mother and on and on and on. Just a few weeks ago, I decided that my personal online journal might as well be public.
I was searching for cat pictures and Bitchypoo came up, and you were one of her links! Back in the diaryland days, woo!
And actually, two critical things I feel compelled to add:
1) I had already known my husband when I found out about his blog, so it wasn’t like we met via blogging. I mean, we were geeky, but not THAT geeky
2) I had a Diaryland account back in 2002 that I forgot about, and GOD, that was about a year of random, exceedingly dramatic blather that I am glad is now gone, though where it is, I’ve no idea
3) Despite reading an assload of Diaryland blogs (including Mimi Smartypants, before she was, you know, MIMI SMARTYPANTS), I somehow missed yours, and I didn’t find you until (oh my God) AFTER Riley was born, via the blogger formerly known as Whinger (and who is actually a friend of mine now, hooray!) which makes me kind of sad, as I missed out on so much while it was happening, like JB leaving the hand in the sausage which, as you know, never fails to crack me up. I have the page bookmarked for when I need to giggle, no shit.
And oh christ, that was three things. I am wicked smaht.
Wow. Wendy @ Poundy was my first blog experience, too – I found her searching for weight watchers recipes, needless to say the ones she had were not exactly what I was looking for. That led me to Weetabix and you and writing my own for a couple of years and then moving it and then quitting it and then starting it up again along with two more on which I chronical events in the lives of my daughters.
I had googles Bare Minerals Foundation and it lead me to you!
My husband sent me a link to a funny post about learning to knit on http://www.bobofett.com/index.html, and she had you in her link list and that’s how I found you. And furthermore, that’s pretty much how I got into reading blogs, by continuing to follow links in blogrolls. I still remember not understanding the concept of the blog. I was like, “So…it’s like a diary? But public? I don’t get it.”
Oh my god get out of my head! I was with a friend tonight walking our dogs and she asked the exact same question. Back in the mid to late 90s I somehow found Dawson’s Recap (now TWoP) through the magic of many idle hours at a desk job. I read it faithfully and hated to wait a week for the next installment so through links in the text I found Tomato Nation and Hissyfit. I think Darn Tootin’ was my first non-television-related blog, back when Schuyler was just a toddler. I would love to tell you how I got to SundryMourning but sadly the whole internet is a blur and I can’t remember. I didn’t start blogging until 2004, held off as long as I could but finally couldn’t resist the pull.
You said something in Amalah’s comments that made me click on your link. I don’t remember what it was but it wasn’t bad. :) I realized you lived in my area and you were funny so I kept reading!
Your blog (online journal, rather) remains the only one that I read to this day (though I do dabble in the occasional online comic *cough*Achewood*cough*). I was introduced to it by an ex-girlfriend who said to me one day, “You’ve got to check out this pregnant lady’s website. She’s totally hilarious.” A few months later, you did the night time schedule entry (jimmy leg!) and about died laughing, or felt a great deal of sympathy, whichever makes you feel better.
I did not even know what a Blog was untill four months ago when my son was 14 months old and had his first all out tantrum. I googled “14 month tantrum” and I got a blog posting on sundrymourning where a Riley tantrum was detailed to a T. It also resembled my son’s tantrum so much that I started reading every single day!
I moved out of town for graduate school in 1999 to Richmond, VA. I bought my first very own computer when I moved, and spent many, many hours on it and the internet, as Richmond, VA was a horrible place full of unfriendly people and I needed some way to keep in touch with humanity. I believe the first blog I found and started reading was Robyn’s Bitchypoo, and through her blog, I think I found yours, but it wasn’t until several years later.
I didn’t have the time to figure out how to make my own blog while I was in grad school, but I wanted to create one from the first time I encountered one. I started selfpassage.com in 2002 and have been keeping it ever since.
My friend Kate referred me to your blog. She insisted I read an entry (I can’t remember which) and the next thing I knew I was shuffling through all of your achives, laughing my ass off.
As for my own awakening to the blogging world, she and I both love to write, and she suggested I try it online, since I’m too much of a wimp to actually publish anything with a spine and some ink. So I did, and I’ll just say my first few attempts were beyond pathetic. I’ve gotten better, thankfully, so hopefully now people who stop to read it will just roll their eyes rather than make gagging motions.
I have no freaking idea, other than I associate my early blogging days with Darn Tootin, Mighty Big TV and Tomato Nation. This would have been in…2000? 1999? Everything else pretty much grew from there.
I know the first site I found was also Wendy’s- I was looking for the number of weight watchers points in phad thai and found her journal in the result. But from there, it gets fuzzy. I’m sure through some strange chain I found Weetabix, Trancejen, Pamie, Dooce, you, mimismartypants, darn-tootin, disco the kid, chauffi, big yellow house, bitchypoo, twop, tomatonation and a few others. I’ve probably picked up (and sometimes dropped) another 20 or so since then.
I found out I was pregnant right around the time Riley was born I think- though I later miscarried. Now I have a boy of my own (6 months) and I started a private journal to document my pregnancy, and have a more public one so that friends and family can keep up with the boy. I’m not witty though, and prefer reading to writing. The irony is that I started reading your blog when I lived in CT, and now I’m living in the Seattle area (Navy transfer) so you’ve helped me adapt to the wet and cold PNW just as much as motherhood.
Your blog was actually the first I ever read. My girlfriend created a blog that was open only to six of us and she posted a link to your blog. I was instantly hooked and stunned that I’d never even heard of such a thing. I still read every post you write but have only taken to reading a few so frequently. I finally started my own a few months ago.
I started reading blogs thanks to freshell.com – man that seems like eons ago. I don’t remember how I ended up here but thankful I did. I remember one night I was supposed to be working on a major paper for a class but had to read your archives until I passed out at my desk. I had to call in sick to work to get the paper done. Oops. Somedays, I wonder how I made it through college.
Um, man, I got the internet way back in 1998 for my 14th birthday and I started a website about then, although it wasn’t a journal, and I guess I don’t have to tell you that the content wasn’t that fantastic (not that anythings changed).
I stil call them online journals…anyway, I actually have no idea how I found my first one. I had a diaryland account of my own at some stage, then another one, then a LiveJournal (which I still use occasionally) which is when I kept at it. I do remember the first couple I read, miss-edith.diaryland.com and pura-vida.diaryland.com and I think what happened is pura-vida was nominated for an award, so I went to the awards site and you were also nominated for an award.
Someone had written “Sundry is the like the popular cheerleader of the journal community” or something, and I thought “I bet I am going to hate this girl,” and I automatically and stupidly imagined you all peppy and annoying and shallow (sorry). But then I went over to your page and you were so funny and awesome and I voted for you for homecoming queen or something.
Oh, and I mean I found you way back at the old diaryland site, by the way, because apparently I exclusively read diaryland journals only.
I was doing a random google search for something and ended up stumbling upon Leah’s blog (agirlandaboy.com) and spent the next few hours poring over her archives and marveling at how her whole life was documented on the web. Then I started reading her links and got addicted. Then I started my own blog and have been in love with this crazy online world ever since.
I first found you via Kristin (Tall ‘n’ Lucky) because she always raved about you.
I just started Weight Watchers this week and you, along with Jonniker and a few other great bloggers out there, played a big role in motivating me to get off my chubby arse. So, thanks for that. :)
This is so embarassing, but since you asked….
I came across your lovely blog when I Googled “big calves boots” or something along those incriminating lines.
Thank God it’s Summer so I don’t hafta worry about finding boots for the time being.
I got started by reading Bring Up Ben and Birdy on Babycenter.com. Catherine Newman is the bomb, and I was quickly addicted. I read a few of the other weekly journal there too, like Tending Violet, but never any blogs. I started to get this feeling the C was wrapping things up w/ Babycenter, and sure enough, she wrote her last entry there. I was LITERALLY sick to my stomach.
But Then! Someone linked to her new gig at Wondertime and also her blog. So for awhile, I only read her. But then I started reading her comments, and Swistle kept popping up, and so I started reading Swistle. I *think* that’s how I found your ClubMom site.
It’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? Because now I read lots of blogs, and have even started my own (mostly so I could stop lurking and speak up). I think like 2 people are reading my blog, but hey. It’s good mental exercise to write, right?
I really love your blog- it’s hoenst, funny, self-depricating (which I always find hilarious), and interesting. Keep writing- I love it!
What a great question! Four or five years ago, I googled “Clinique Bonus Time” because I was out of makeup and wondered if anyone was offering any freebies to go with it. I came across a journal that had Grace in the title and started reading it – for an hour, I think! As I worked through the archives, I discovered Grace’s journal had become Abeyance. I started reading Abeyance and discovered several other links to journals there, and started reading some of them. I think one of those journals linked here. I only read a couple of personal blogs now that aren’t people I know, but yours is one of my favorites, in part because of your sense of language and humor, and in part for the cute baby pics!
I’ve been blogging since about 2001 myself, I think. It’s been a while. Several incarnations, name changes, cause I’m flakey like that. Mmmm…croissants.
I found you years ago through Diaryland, which was where I originally started blogging. I’ve been hooked ever since. :-)
I just felt the desire to keep an online journal. I don’t remember finding out about them, it’s like they always just sort…were THERE. I did a search for free online journals or something, and got started on Diaryland. That’s where I found you, of course. I’ve done my LiveJournal and Xanga time, too, but have settled in at Blogger. I didn’t really read very many blogs (just a few) until my time at Xanga, though, because it was so easy, what with the subscription feature.
Also, I guess I’ve been blogging since around 1999 or 2000.
I belong to an online Mommy group and someone mentioned Dooce one day. I started reading and found others. I found yours through ClubMom.
My must reads are yours, Amalah, Dooce, and MissZoot! It’s funny how 3 of you all have babies about the same age.
I used to visit Mediarama bulletin boards back in the nineties where Danny Drennan wrote hilarious recaps of Beverly Hills 90210. (The founders of TWOP used to hang out there before they started TWOP.) Anyway, met Jenistar there and started reading her on diaryland. Pretty much all the blogs I read now started with one of Jenistar’s links. I read you, The Family Blender (used to be Go Figure,) Plain Jane, Smitten Kitchen, Happily Ever Now which I found through your comments (she was living near us for awhile,) and then a bunch of my real life friends on Xanga and Myspace.
I started my own when we moved to Hawaii and I couldn’t keep up with the email from everyone wanting to know about our crazy adventure. It is mostly a way to keep up with friends and family- I keep a lock on it so my husband is more comfortable with the way I am pretty free with personal information :)
in 1998 i was 16 and spending a summer in Brazil with a host family. I was so very homesick and I had one “Mademoiselle” magazine I had bought to read on the plane. I practically memorized the magazine I read it so many times over the summer (Heather Graham on the cover, article inside discussing her part in Swingers). On the last page of the magazine was a Facts about Claire Danes blurb. One of the facts linked to a girl’s diary who went to Yale with the quote “Claire Danes was falling asleep in class today..” I went online to find the website. I kept reading that girl’s journal and one day she linked to Diaryland and there you go!
I can’t believe no one said Plain Layne! I actually had a reporter email me wanting to interview me about the whole thing, freeky deeky shit there……
Actually I think it was layne to slickery, to darntootin, to you. And strip mining for whimsy and ryan rhodes, and a small victory and rachel lucas, and eject eject eject. And a 12 point font.
I totally am a blog whore, I’d read them all if I could. Or maybe a voyeur….I dunno but BLOOD, NOT FUNNY! I laughed hard and then had to see the chick with the alien baby in her tummy. You tube is my new addiction, I. just. cannot. get. off. their. website.!
I was looking up parenting articles when I discovered your other blog (Purple is a Fruit) It was one of your parenting poetry posts. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. I had to keep checking back for more, and now I am hooked. I read you and Swistle religiously.
I was introduced to Diaryland by a friend in 2000, though I never got into writing consistently until 2002. My diaryland diary was paper-rose; it’s locked now. I switched to LiveJournal when I stopped being able to update Diaryland without paying $100/yr for it.
I found your journal way-back-when on Diaryland, though I’m not sure if I ever commented in it. I started reading you regularly when you started this blog. I was checking up on old diaryland favorites & saw you had moved base. :)
I found diaryland back in 2003 when I did a google search fro some song lyrics. The first I read regularly was might’s (no longer there!). She was a librarian who wrote very frequent clever and witty entries of just one or two lines. I came across yours about 2 years ago, got interested because of the photos you posted of Seattle and Tokyo (two places I have visited) and have stayed because of your brilliant writing. Currently yours is one of only two blogs I read as others have stopped writing. Don’t even think about doing likewise!!
I think I came acrossed your blog when I went to parentdish. I haven’t stopped laughing since! We have the same sense of humor.
I have a 5 year old son and Riley reminds me a lot of him, some of his expressions.
I also noticed some of your references to They Might be Giants! I am also a fan, I saw them in Boston when I was in HS.
“I’m your only friend I’m not your only friend but I’m a little glowing friend but really I’m not actually your friend………”
Hey! I also somehow found Wendy and she was the first blog I read…funny…
Yours was the first blog I ever read, and it, along with your others, remains my very favorite. My sister told me about it, who found out about it from her brother-in-law, so it’s all in the family with us!
My first “online journal” was on DiaryLand. It was the blog of an estranged friend of mine. We were really close, and our relationship abruptly ended. I needed some closure, so I broke into her e-mail account (stupid, I know, but it was high school), and read a few e-mails, eventually stumbling upon her URL. Well, since it was on a blog network, after I read hers, I explored around and found myself hooked. That was also 2001. I have tried to start a couple blogs, but nothing ever stuck; I am more of a reader than a writer. I found your blog linked by somebody on DiaryLand, but I have been reading you for so long, I cannot for the life of me remember who it was. Thanks for sharing your stories, I love your blog!
I stumbled upon Bitchypoo.com while doing a weight loss search back in 2002 (I still read her everyday!) and somehow that linked me to you in a 6 degrees of separation way. I do not blog on my own, maybe I will try it this summer and add one more thing to my already full life–2 pre teen boys, a demanding full time job which I LOVE, a BF who travels 2 weeks a month, football, soccer, baseball, my horse….. OK- maybe NOT!
I love what journals have brought to my life- the humor, the compassion, the tears, the laugh out loud ridiculousness of “normal” life. It’s good to see that my kids and my relationships are just like everyone elses! Dysfunction-palooza all around!!
Thanks Linda!
Pamie’s was the first blog (we used to call them “journals”) I found, and I was intrigued enough to start my own angelfire site, the first of many free blog sites I sampled. I waffle between liking the mental benefits of writing publicly and freaking out about privacy. I figure now there are so many blogs…I’M INVISIBLE!
I’m not sure how I found yours, probably from TranceJen. I do know that I was immediately hooked by your honest and entertainig writing, and how you just went ahead and posted JBs butt! Now it’s all about Riley. Kidding. I love the way coming to your site is like visiting a friend and that is so cliche and stalkerish but also true.
Way back in 2002 I googled something about weight loss (desperately) and somehow ended up at ….whats’s her name?? The really popular Twinkie girl at Diaryland? Anyways, I ended up there and she was so funny. I clicked on her favorites and there you were. Your humor and honesty really struck me and I followed you from Diaryland to this fine site, and now to Purple Is A Fruit and Sundry Buzz. And to the ends of the earth baby! Heh.
I was young, and immature and dating a guy that was still jaded from his last relationship. I wanted to know everything I could about the girl and it just so happens she had a livejournal as well as a diaryland. So I created a diaryland. Livejournal was paid accounts only at the time, which ended up being a good thing because diaryland is how I discovered you! I can be one of the most nosey people, so blogging helps me to keep my “real life” relationships from crossing any “too personal!” lines but also fills my nosey little heart with all the nosing food it needs. And since finding you I have found so many cool blogs that I read on a daily basis. I’ve been reading you for about 4 years now and it has been a total and complete pleasure to watch your little family grow. :)
My girlfriend had a blog about her life. She is a HUGE DMB fan and would follow the band around so mostly it was about that then she got pregnant and it was about pregnancy and now it is about her son and her life. I have been looking for a creative way to pour my heart out to what seems like no one since I do not have any readership barely (ahh poooor me) but it has been good for me. It pushes me to think outside of the box, to work on my grammar and story content and that all makes me happy as a lark. Plus it gives me a place to express myself because as a full time working mommy I sometimes feel like there is none of me left to give so my blog is my place to go and be me for the most part.
This same girlfriend (http://www.weenino.blogspot.com/) has your Purple Is a Fruit website linked to her blog. I started reading that one and some how I stumbled on this one (which I like much better but mostly because you are a little more loose on this site both with language and thoughts which I like.) You are funny, relaxed, and interesting and I think the thing that probably most people like about you is that we can all see ourselves hanging out with you because most of the reason I read what you write – it is what I am also thinking most of the time!
Finally, I never had a chance to say thank you for your help with things to do in Seattle. My dad/bro actually live in Everett and my mom in Mukiteo – so they are fairly suburban as well but we had a great time checking out a few really cool parks in that area (omg but one in Everett had condoms – USED – hanging off it early one morning… we left needless to say!) We visited downtown a bunch and our son was wonderful the whole time – he loved the Aquarium and Children’s Museum the most and we had oodles of fresh fish and coffee (which just delighted me beyond words – I grew up in the bay area and I so miss fresh fish…) At any rate, thank you for getting back to me and sorry I never got back to you to say so!
yeah. so. my best friend started cutting a pasting bits from your blog into emails for me and sending them on to make me laugh…frankly, i’m a bit suspicious of the internet in general, so i was very unlikely to find them on my own. they were so funny…and so like…well…like us…that i started reading the archives when i wasn’t busy at work and now it’s part of what i do everyday. there’s something lovely and reassuring that there are other people out there going through the same crap and feeling the same sorts of discomfort/anxiety/strangeness as you [well, me, in this case].
this morning she had sent me a paste from when you were first pregnant and reading about people who EAT the placenta which absolutely freaked me out. i’m a vegetarian anyway…that people eat a PART of their own body is just beyond foul.
thank you for being so generous with your own life…and well…with the inside of your own head.
I’m not entirely sure how or when I found your blog, although I know it was before Riley was born. Your writing style hooked me and I’ve been reading ever since. I was introduced to the concept of online journal back in 1999, when someone pointed me at Pamie’s. I started mine in January of 2000, and I’ve been posting online ever since.
I believe I found you through TranceJen too. I read you here and there but it wasn’t until after we both had babies that I started reading daily, or whenever you update.
You are definitely one of my faves.
Wow – some people have been blogging/reading blogs for a long time!
I’ve come in pretty late in the game. My MIL sent me to Amalah’s site since we were pregnant at the same time. I think she had a link to Purple is a Fruit in her blog (or her ClubMom roundup) & I now spend a good chunk of my workday reading these & a few others!
Maybe I’ll start a blog someday, but being a math person, am a terrible writer & don’t think anyone would want to read my ramblings.
I was so late to the blogging party! I started a LiveJournal (heh) back in…2005? Or late 2004, something like that. I wished I’d had a clue and discovered blogging circa 2003, as I was on a leave of absence from work and doing the struggling actor/writer/dancer thing, which would have been fun to blather about online. Anyway, from a friend’s LiveJournal, I linked to an entry on Dooce (the crazy peeing pregnant lady post) and was all, “Hello, what’s this?” and I read her archives and up to the then-current stuff, and then I probably somehow found Amalah and Mimi Smartypants (swoon!).
I started my own site in early 2006, and then from a comment on Dooce, I think, I linked to Jonniker, who is now a close friend, and from Jonna I found … you!
I got introduced to blogging by googling the name of the guy I had just started dating. He had a pretty cool blog, actually, and linked to this other person, who had an even cooler blog. He told me she was his “working partner”. Yeah. I found out later they’d been dating for years. Well, she linked Robyn of Tampa Tantrum, so I discovered Robyn that way, and therein followed the rabbit down the hole. Robyn, Todd, Statia, and Yvonne built me my first blog about five years ago, and I’ve been at it more or less ever since.
I would say my blogging has “devolved” though. I used to spend time trying to write interesting, funny posts. Now I just write about my day, mostly. Not as interesting. Not as many people read. I’m ok with that.
At first I only read some blogs my friends from college created, as a way to stay in touch with their lives as we got further flung around the country. Then one day my friend linked to Dooce (hers was a knitting blog but she was very upset about some work situation but held her tongue, citing Ms. Armstrong). Being curious I followed it and spent most of the rest of the day laughing my ass off at her stories of being pregnant (I was pregnant at the time and was the first in my circle of friends, so had no one to really commiserate with). In the beginning I just read her but then she linked to finslippy and fussy, and I was hooked from there. I found your blog through ClubMom mainly, though I’d seen you linked elsewhere.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. My current tasks for the day are a giant wave of boredom looming over me, and now I have all these comments to read instead. Phew. I thought I was going to have to do some actual work today, and it’s against my religion to do anything productive on a Friday.
A family friend moved from NYC to Amsterdam for work about 2 years ago, and she started a blog to keep in touch with her friends over here. I’d never heard of these blog-thingies before that. I was immediately hooked on hers, and it didn’t take long before I was also reading several of the blogs she linked to, including Amalah. I got here via Amalah’s links page, and I’ve been reading here for about a year or so.
Wanna hear how dumb I am?
I used to read your site when you were still on diaryland. Just TODAY I realized that your blog wasn’t on DAIRYland. I would literally read it as DAIRYland.
I am stoopie.
Hi Linda,
I just recently found your blog through Amalah, and LOVE your writing. I have read all of your archives since back when you found out you were pregnant with Riley, and it has definitely saved me from boredom at work :) I’m also totally inspired by your diet and exercise plan, you rock!
I had been reading Catherine Newman forever, and one day Swistle commented to Catherine that she should read Jonniker’s site (during the great menstral cup incident), which led me there and then from there to you. Thanks for such a great blog!
I read other blogs for years before finally starting my own due to Beth (So the Fish Said) badgering me. I really don’t remember who I read first although Xeney and pamie were up there. I don’t remember how I found your site now since I’ve been reading for quite some time. I’m sure it was on someone’s recommendation, but again I have no idea from whom, but its been an interesting trip.
I was extremely bored at work and decided to google random words and/or phrases. The only thing that could come to mind was “goo”.
So, I googled goo. Up came Rob Rummel-Hudson’s REALLY old site “Pages of Goo”, which I began to read. It took me close to 6 months to get through all the archives and by then he had already finished up Kalamazoo Days – which I also had to read – and so on and so forth.
This introduction led to many more blogs where I lurked and read and lived vicariously through the exploits of all you wonderful writers.
Googling goo really was a worthwhile exercise after all.
Well, truthfully, you were the 1st blogger that I ever started reading. I never really thought about blogging until I came upon your site. I’m a regular on an elephant support board and one of our members was pregnant at the time. During a discussion of her pregnancy, another member posted a link to your site when you had the 4D ultrasound pictures taken of Riley and I’ve been hooked ever since. Now there are several different blog sites I read regularly. But yours is always the 1st I visit. So thank you! Due to your excellent writing capablities my work production has decreased by 10.7%! :o)
I worked at a university where we launched some online student ‘journals,’ and in the name of research, I surfed around to see if anyone else in the world was doing the same thing. Duh. I found some blog award site, which led me to Dooce, which sucked up about three days of my time as I read through her archives. Then I started my own blog when we moved overseas in 2005. I had more time to read more blogs (they all link to one another! why, it’s like a web! a world-wide-web!). I found you through Jonniker’s link to the Shrink-Yer-Butt salad (which I made for dinner two nights ago).
I found you through a friend at work, she was sitting in her cubicle laughing and I looked over and said, “What?” And she told me to go to your website and I did. I think the first blog I read had a picture of Dog with a saltine box on her nose. That day I read all of your back blogs and have been hooked ever since!
Wow…Um, I read an article in Writer’s Digest about Raspberryworld.com and blogs in general seeeeeeeveral years ago. So I checked it out and that led to finding others. I started reading Rob Rummel-Hudson’s blog and Parsley and pamie and over a couple of years, my reading evolved and I started looking at links and one of them linked to you (athena? parsley? Someone…) and I started reading you! I rarely read anyone that I found back then any more, though! I think only one from that original list is still a must read for me.
Had my own right before the boy was born, but unfortunate things happened and I took it down. Way too much happening for pregnancy hormones to take! But I will probably start again sometime.
I found ljc (which is now ljcfyi.com) forever ago, probably in 2000, and when I’d get bored, I’d check what craft she was making or product she was recommending. Probably in 2002 or 2003, I was visiting my boyfriend (who lives in another state), waiting around in his apartment forever while he worked late, and so I was wasting time on the internet. I found you because someone posted on ljc’s comments that her entry on chopstick rests reminded the reader about your post about the couple at the sushi place who would make elaborate origami chopstick holders.
http://www.ljcfyi.com/2003/09/aaron-and-i-were-sitting-at-sushi-bar.html
(I bet it’s this one, but the comments have since been reset. I’m guessing I found you Nov. 2003.)
Anyway, I started reading, loved your style and humor, and read through the archives as the sun went down. I was actually kind of disappointed when my boyfriend eventually showed up because I wanted to keep reading! Something you wrote in your first post struck a cord with me:
“I’ve been unemployed since July and have far too little to do. And yes I know I should be like volunteering or giving blood or recycling or something, but I’m just a really horrible person, you know? I hate being out of work. Hate it. … I hate hearing any reference to anyone working, ever, because it makes me feel all inferior and useless and shit. I hate that I have all these feelings of self worth tied to something that takes 40 hours out of your week and usually sucks, because what the hell does that mean? ”
I was feeling kind of useless myself at the time (and to be honest, with the part-time job I currently have, I still do), so I’ve taken comfort in the fact that you once felt the same way and now you have a cool job and a cute baby and a great husband! Well, you already had the great husband, but you know what I mean. :)
Anyway, I’ve been reading ever since, and yours is the only personal blog that I consistently follow. Thanks! (I think it’s funny that I found your blog while waiting in a strange land for my boyfriend to show up, and you found blogs while waiting in a strange land for your husband to show up!)
Sorry that was WAY TOO LONG!
I don’t write, I only read. My life is far to boring to write about and my gramar sucks.
I started reading about a year and a half ago when I went back to work after the girl was born. ClubMom sent me an email with links to mommy blogs and i found you, Beth, Kristin, and Amalah. I really enjoyed those blogs because most of you (except Kristin) had little ones the same age as the girl and it was nice to know I wasn’t alone. From there I found each of your other blogs (So the Fish Said, Sundry, Amalah, and so one) which I think I enjoy much more (maybe because you all cuss on your non mommy blogs) and from there I found Swistle & Rude Cactus. Those are all the ones I try to check out each day while I am supposed to be working ;o). There are a couple of others I look at from time to time that I have found either linked from my daily blogs or by clicking links in the blog roles of my favorites.
Being a Java Programmer and reading http://www.theserverside.com I started reading blogs of Cameron Purdy (www.jroller.com/page/cpurdy). He had a list of blogs he reads, one of which was Pippy Longsuffering (www.pippasaid.com). Who like you was a mother with a sense of humor. One of her blogs refered to your blog and here we are.
I found Amalah first, and then I think I found you in her blogroll. That was back in 2005 right after you had Riley before I had Jojo. So I followed your son’s progress and development to help keep my first-time mom worries in check.
Entertainment Weekly reviewed Mimi Smartypants’ book. I googled her, discovered Diaryland, read her archives, and clicked on her link to you. So Sundrymourning is 2nd degree for me, although I am a relative newbie to the blogworld.
Hmm, good question. Let’s see. I first linked to an online journal through a writer at MSN (Dave White). But it wasn’t until I read an article about Petite Anglaise being “dooced” that the whole blogging world opened up for me.
I’m not sure how I got hooked up to your site, but I’m sure glad I did.
I found you via http://www.plain-jane.com several years ago. I think I first discovered blogs after reading an article in some publication (maybe Wall Stree Journal?) in 2001. Fairly early on something led me to Robyn’s http://www.bitchypoo.com site which led me to Jane and then to you!
Also, in random news, just saw Laurie Notaro do a reading last night. I know you said you’d enjoyed her other books, Sundry. SHE IS SO FUNNY! If anyone has the chance to catch her in person, do it! Her new book “There’s A (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going To Hell” is her first fiction book and I’m loving it so far.
A friend in one of my forums C&P’ed something from Dooce a few times and WHAM! I was hooked. From there, I started adding to my favorites list with people from her comments. I started my own blog when I found that I had a lot to say about my son’s special needs. I couldn’t find any other parents who were blogging about a kiddo with ACM1, so I decided it was time to start myself.
I found you in the comments of someone else’s site, and for the life of me, I can’t remember who! You said something about being from Washington state I think, so I decided to show some support for a fellow rain-soaked blogger. From the first day I read here, I had a bloggy girl crush. :-) I love your style.
I don’t remember how I stumbled across you, but it wasn’t long after you started blogging… I was hooked. I already had a website, but it wasn’t long before it was a “diary”. :) I can’t believe I’ve been reading you for so many years!
Like so many others I came to blogs generally through TWoP. I found yours, however, many years ago when a co-worker insisted I check it out – one read and I was hooked. Now I mostly read general blogs like gofugyourself, but I can’t stop being a voyeur in your personal blog because it’s just so damned funny. I will never blog for myself because I’m just not funny enough to meet my own standards of readability. I’m sure my diary would bore the crap out of anyone but me (hell half the time it bores me too ;-)
I wanted to take my husband out for indian for his birthday but wanted something new and exciting so I did a web search for best indian in DC. DCfoodies.com popped up and one of Jason’s reviews linked to his wife Amy (Amalah). From there I found most of what I now read. Still don’t have a blog myself, it seems like it would take up too much time.
Man, I don’t think that video’s funny at all. That poor little boy! He thinks his sister’s bleeding and no one will clear it up for him… they just laugh at him! Gah. Maybe I’m in a maudlin mood.
I found you through Plain Jane, whom I found through Uncle Bob, whom I found through Damn Hell Ass Kings, which I found through Tomato Nation, which I don’t remember how I found her. :)
I don’t know how I got exposed to blogging; I guess I heard about them long before I actually read one. To be honest, I don’t even remember the first web log I read. I hate the word “blog”. When I type “blog” in Word, I have it Auto-Correct to “web log”.
Anyway. I started *journaling online* when I got iWeb with my new Mac. It’s so easy! My first one was a waiting-to-try-to-conceive log, which morphed into my current trying-to-conceive log. I also have prepped the baby’s web log, and I keep a construction log about our remodel for the ‘rents and anyone else who cares. I am…how do you say…and emotional exhibitionist, I guess. I could talk about myself all. day. long. So web logging is my cup of tea. But I don’t log my daily life online; I do it in the journal I’ve been keeping since 1984. I don’t know why I’m not “out there” except that I vent big-time in my offline journal, and it would not be good for my friends or family to stumble on that.
I found Sundry Mourning via a link on a bulletin board I was visiting when I was planning my wedding. I sent the link to everyone I knew because the first entry I read (about the personal lubricant in your bathroom) was so hysterically funny, and so were your readers’ comments, I had to share.
I was in email, friendly contact with a woman who worked at one of my clients in the US (I’m British) who sent me her blog address and said please, please, pretty please would I start one too. We both had to shut down those blogs because one of her coworkers found hers, passed the address to her boss and really, I didn’t potentially want one of my clients reading mine.
I came across yours via jillymel.blogspot.com who I came across having done a search to see who also blogged in my geographical area. Jilly and I are now good friends.
I also met up with a couple of other people via blogging (a mother and daughter) who introduced me, via Flickr, to a male friend of theirs. He and I are now an item, me having left my partner not for my new man but because of him.
I googled Queer as Folk, which landed me on TWoP, which was then Might Mighty Big TV. In the forums, I discovered timbrat, who led me to Weetabix. Somehow, in the way that these things happen, you and me and Chauffi and Weetabix ended up going out together in Austin, and having a delightful time. I followed you from dland, and my entire staff at work is now in love with Riley.
Back in 2002 I had a really boring job, so I needed the internet to entertain me. I would go to cool site of the day everyonce in a while to see if there was any interesting websites. That is how I came across “all about jen” which is now http://www.jennsylvania.com, she was linked to http://www.thekaetlancaresnot.blogspot.com, who is linked to you. That is how I discovered the big world of blogs and I couldn’t believe how many there were. Unfortunately I can’t write at all, so I don’t have my own blog. But I love to read and hate it when a book ends, so I look at all the blogs I read as books that never end.
I actually only found this blog the other day, because it was linked from Swistle’s blog, but I only ever found Swistle’s blog because I read your other blog, and you mentioned Swistle in one of your posts. The way I found your other blog was through a series of links… I don’t remember the exact process, but I did write a post on my own blog about finding your blog. You can see it here: http://duwaxloolu.blogspot.com/2007/04/on-motherhood.html
In terms of my own blog, I started writing it at the beginning of this year because I liked the more adult feel than the more angsty LiveJournal blogs that I was used to from college. And I like having an outlet to write about whatever I’m thinking about.
When Riley and my son were starting to teeth, I was complaining to a friend, she had just read your first post about Riley’s teething, so she gave me your link. I have been reading religiously here, club mom, swistle, etc since.
Parenting blogs now keep me sane!
I found you when I was pregnant. My sister sent me a link and I was hooked right away. Read back in your archives to catch up…that was in the spring of 2005. I’m a faithful reader and love that you are so real and honest. You and my favorite guilty pleasure Trent from Pink is the New Blog are the only blogs I get into. Tried a blog of my own but honestly the blank page looked best. :)
my brother in law asked me why i didn’t have a blog, because it was free publishing. and i was all, “yeah…why don’t i have one?” so…after that, my site was born.
My first blog that I read and laughed my ass off was dusty from porktornado with his 10 worst album cover ever. I read all of his archives over the weekend (2003?maybe 2004)I was utterly mesmerized by the fact that I don’t know this person personally but yet have this feeling like I knew him since kindergarden. He was on diaryland…so maybe i just stumbled upon your blog there? Did mimi smartypants link to you? I don’t know.
Through your blog I found amalah and then it just exploded on me. How messy. Yet wonderful.
I was reading Gentry de Paris a few years ago, and she mentioned that you sent her a home-made Christmas card. I followed your link and was hooked. I only check in with Gentry sporatically, but check in with you every day. I’ve really enjoyed “watching” your life evolve these last several years, and I love your excellent writing and frankness.
I heard about your blog through MRW — who contrary to her assertions otherwise, is very funny and should indeed host her own blog (plus she has the whole Zombie issue thing going on….sigh). This is coming from the woman who did start her own blog that is not, er…funny. Hey, its to keep the parents from out of state in tune with the bebe, I am a lawyer – not paid to be funny. See my non-funniness at http://www.ittlelively.blogspot.com. Ahem, anyhow, MRW told me how funny your blog was — and I started reading it right after I got pregnant and I loved LOVED following your tales of pregnancy (I was 5 mos. behind you). Now I am a devoted fan who has pushed your blog onto others. You must write a book, seriously.
Gosh, I don’t really remember. I always hesitate to add comments here because….well….you get so many. I fear my paltry addition will just be lost in the crowd. My sister started a blog a million years ago. And I started reading Gwen Zepeda’s original blog (1997?). Then, I had my second child in 2004 and realized that there was never going to be another baby book (it’s still pretty empty) and I wanted a record of my girls’ childhood and the angst of being a parent and a separate person all at once. And so I started mine when Juliette was about 7 weeks old. I recently moved it to freshhell.wordpress.com. And there you have it. I don’t remember how I started reading yours – probably my sister linked to it originally. Long before Riley.
Came back to read all the comments and remembered that I *DID* used to read other journals when I had that library deskjob. You linked to 12% Beer and DHAK which got me reading LadeeLeroy (SO funny, it’s almost like she had to stop writing or the world would implode from the funny) and also Disco the Kid, and biensoul and Weetabix…are any of them still writing now?
Your blog was the first blog I began reading. A friend told me I would be interested in reading it and it would make me laugh and sent me a link. It only took one link. *grin*
I don’t really do much in the way of my own blog. I have considered it and, someday when I have the time, I probably will.
I found http://www.shelleyness.com sometime around 1997, from there I followed the link to Kymm, then Pamie (squishy), then Dave Van (some guy in Canada with 2 horrible kids that he constantly defended and then showed you where they kicked a hole in the wall, I think they were 3 year old twins), then Xeney, and then, and then, and then. I started writing at least 2 of them but found that I wasn’t happy about seeing my privates up there on the screen (someday I will get past that). So I have wast….I mean spent 10 years reading about the lives of others. So this year is my “journal-readingversary”. Happy me.
Hi again. Ever since I left that comment this morning I have been racking my brain to remember who that girl was…the TWINKIE girl…..on Diaryland. Very popular. Very funny. It is driving me insane. You know, with the Twinkies! If you happen to remember, would you let me know so I can think and process other information again? Thanks.
You don’t mean the popular, funny girl with a TINKERBELL image on her journal do you? That would be Weetabix, but Twinkies . . . I’m drawing a blank.
I hadn’t really jumped on the whole internet bandwagon until about a year ago. I had always refused to join Myspace. I didn’t play any multi player people online games. (uh, still don’t) I didn’t use wikipedia or photobucket or urbandictionary any of the many many rescources I have since come to rely on. What happened to spark my new found love for all things e- was one of my friends showed me a sight called askaninja.com. It was hilarious, and I went to check for new podcasts every week. One week there a shiny new link to another project these same people were doing about this rediculous little emo girl. I linked over and found my eyes adjusting to the bright warm light that shines down from heaven in that e-topia you know as YouTube. I was immediately hooked. Then I spent a few months camped in front of the computer absorbing everything I could find on the internet. It turns out there is all sorts of stuff online that doesn’t involve porn. Anyway, after I started making my own YouTube videos, I got into vlogs. I found them to be an interesting but voyeuristic window into other peoples lives. People I enjoyed, but never would have met in the real world. Well it was only a matter of time before I started reading blogs and forums and all sorts of web geek stuff. One of my lady friends showed me your blog once. I believe it was the post with ceiling cat. I thought you were hilarious, and have been following your textual tirades ever since.
I know I’m not your typical reader. Mainly because I’m not a woman and this is a very feminine (some times) blog. But even though you post on topics such as shopping and new clothes and trying to lose weight, topics I am not particularly drawn to, you do it in such a humorous way that I still get my e-tertainment. Plus you like zombies and you cuss and you’ve got a tattoo, so you’re cool. Keep on rocking the Cashbah, and I’ll keep showing up to watch.
I was introduced to the internet and online journals in 1998. I’ve been blogging in one form or another ever since.
I’m sure I found yours through the normal link route. Though I can’t remember who, exactly, started the chain. I know I really started reading when you were pregnant with Riley.
I think it was about 5 yrs ago. I was on Ivillage looking at weight loss journals and I found Bitchypoo which led me to you and Darn Tootin and Bitterhag. I’m still reading all of them plus Aunt Linda who is amazingly funny.
I started a Diaryland page in 2000 or 2001 (cuz all the cool kids were doing it, ya know), and some time later discovered your journal via Diaryland banner. It caught my attention because it was a pair of giant red lips, and hey, who wouldn’t be intrigued? I immediately thought you were one of the wittiest writers I’d ever encountered, and spent the next however many hours catching up on your previous entries. Since then, I’ve been a faithful lurker, as has my hubby. I haven’t mastered the blog thing myself yet, but I am totally addicted to Myspace.
Ah — I love this question and have left the post open on my computer all day, meaning to get to it. Although one does hesitate when you’ve already received so many comments — do you really read them all?
After reading several of Jennifer Weiner’s books I went to her website. This was probably early 2005, after my daughter was born, and I’d just read Little Earthquakes. Jennifer has a blog which is part of her site. So that was my first. Way at the bottom on the right hand side she had links to about four other blogs: Dooce, Finslippy, When In Doubt Use Parsley, and one called Bad Momma (I think) which is no longer around. I started visiting the others right away. While I like all of them very much, I think Dooce might have saved me. At that point Harper was about 3 months old. I was having a very difficult time with the isolation of not working any more, not knowing any other moms of very young children, and the fact that I wasn’t finding unicorns and rainbows of joy in the everyday tasks motherhood required. I had encountered only the group of mothers that say, “Aren’t we blessed? Isn’t everything wonderful? I didn’t know what life was before I had this bundle of joy to take care of every waking moment!” And while children are wonderful and a joy and a blessing, they are also a lot of smelly, sometimes boring, sometimes infuriating, not always life-afirming, work! I think Dooce was the first person who made me feel like it was okay to say that outloud and I’m sure that recognition saved me in some way. I LOVE the sense of community I have found through blogging. I can’t imagine what I would do without it.
Occasionally I would add another blog to my reading based on one of the blogrolls on those first few. I came to yours through either finslippy or dooce, can’t remember which. I have probably only been reading since right before Riley turned one.
I toyed with the idea of blogging myself from the beginning of reading them, but didn’t do it until October ‘05 because I wasn’t sure I’d have anything to say. My blog is really stories about my kiddo and I think that mostly friends and family of ours read it. I’m very flattered when someone who doesn’t know us comes to visit the blog and then returns for more. I don’t ever anticipate a mass audience though.
While there are lots of interesting blogs out there, I only read about 20 on a daily basis, I just don’t have time for more than that. Yours is one I do check daily, and I love it. I also read the ClubMom blog, which I followed from here.
Thanks for asking! (Sorry so long.)
A friend introduced me to LiveJournal back in 1999 and I started my own blog. A few years later I got divorced, so I started a different LiveJournal blog. Then a few years after THAT, I decided to start my own site because I was sick of LiveJournal’s skimpy design templates.
Right after I left LiveJournal, they came out with a thousmillion new templates. Of course.
Anyway, one of my first LiveJournal friends recommended your site to me, back when you were on Diaryland, so I’ve been reading you for awhile.
I followed a link from Pippa’s blog to the following post. She used your story of the hair appointment to quiz her husband on “what 3 things did JB do wrong.” Hilarious – both your story and her use of it as an educational tool!
http://www.sundrymourning.com/110705.htm
I don’t have time to do a blog… I barely have time to read any. I probably only read about 5 blogs regularly, including BackNine and Jonniker, both who I found through you. Thanks!
i had googled “robin smith” & came across a different robin smith who had a blog that was great. she was nominated for some award-diaryland maybe? and when i went to the list of nominees/winners i looked at all of them & yours was on the list. that was like…. 3 years ago maybe? after i’d been reading other people’s for a year i started my own.
I fisrst found blogs waaaayyy back before anyone really blogged, back in 1996. I was going through the now defunct Centre For the Easily Amused, where I found Terrance’s “The Loser Living Upstairs”, which was rather funny. That led me to his then current blog. He mentioned a “competitor”s diary, which I read, and that led me to actively searching for blogs. I found willa.com, which I have finally stopped reading, and then gradually there were more and more blogs. Sundry, I can’t remember exactly how I found but she was at Diaryland back then. Oh crap, and how could I have forgetten Walter Miller???!!
I don’t really read blogs, I don’t do blogs… hell…I only found out what b…l…o…g means/ less than a year ago. I found you through your AL whom has become a very good friend over the years. When she started her blog, of course, I followed it and consequently found yours. I’ve heard great things about you so I feel like I know you a little and enjoy reading about your life. Your writing is very good and you have a good eye for photography and that makes it interesting to check in and see what you and your family are up to. Also, the sense of humor helps. As Josh says, it gets a little “girly” once in a while, (like the childbirth video, but I watched it, didn’t I – OUCH!} Why a woman ever does that a second time is beyond my comprehension. Keep up the good work.
Well, I have to blame my blog habit on the Army. I was a fan of TWoP starting around 2001, maybe? and I was vaguely aware that online journals existed, but I was a very very busy resident and oblivious of many things. Then in 2005 I was deployed on a “humanitarian” mission that was really mostly a photo op, and I was stuck in a tent with NOTHING TO DO for several weeks (not that I am still bitter or anything), and the one saving grace was the wireless internet (I would have kissed the invisible floating electrons if I could have).
I can’t remember which blog I found first, but I starting reading you, Amalah, Mimi Smartypants and The Underwear Drawer (very funny, btw) at about the same time. Blogrolls have introduced many more. Oh, and I found Emily’s blog through a link on yours, which was very appropriate as she was having an even more awesome military adventure at that time (to which location I followed her the next year).
Maybe one day I will get off my ass and try this myself, but for now I really enjoy reading a variety of blogs.
My best friend sent me a link to your blog just over two years ago, as it was an entry of hilariously-captioned photos of your cat and dog in the kitchen. I’m too lazy to look but I believe just a few days later is when you announced you were pregnant with Riley to blogland! I’ve been with you ever since. Yours, Dooce’s, and Pioneer Woman’s are the first blogs I check in the morning.
I think the first online diary I ever started reading wasn’t exactly a proper blog–it was Save Karyn. Anyone remember that site? Karyn was the first internet begger but I got hooked on her daily updates on how she was saving money. Dooce was the first proper blog for me.
I started my blog only a year and a half ago, when I was unemployed and needed an outlet to whinge about being unemployed and document my cooking attempts.
My best friend used to write short stories that I loved to read. That decreased, so when she started blogging I happily read her posts. I figured my life was too boring to share. A friend goaded me into starting my own so we could save on long-distance phone calls.
You were linked to my best friend’s blog and I randomly checked you out. It has become one of my favorites.
Last summer, I wanted to find out what a cicada looks like because we hear them all summer at our lake cabin. I googled cicada and found Cicadamology. I tried some of the links she had on her site and loved My Beloved Monster and darn tootin’ so I tried a few more. I may have found you through Pippa Said.
Are you even going to make it this far? Anyway, we were also in another country when I first read a blog. It was the summer of 2003 while visiting friends in Taiwan that my friend showed me KDunk/More Than Donuts and Dooce (whom she’d been reading since Heather began blogging). I can’t believe it’s been four years nor can I remember how I found your site, though. Perhaps a link on someone else’s site.
Twinkie Girl on diaryland = chubbychic
haha, told you I was old school! And I have a memory like an elephant.
Apparently, my poor comment back at number 33 is still languishing, awaiting moderation…
I read alllllll the comments! I don’t, however, get notified when something goes into the moderation abyss, because 98% of the time it’s spam — Philos, I just approved your comment (why it was moderated, I do not know) and a few others.
I found your blog from Amalah’s after doing searches for random miscarriage/infertility information about three years ago. I had just lost my second baby and was in a funk and looking for distractions/help/people that could relate, etc. It was Amalah and Zoot to you and now I have a list I read every day.
Also must reads: miss doxie, dooce, TWoP, tomato nation, nothing but bonfires, the list goes on and on….
How I got into blogging:
I used to work on an overnight music TV show (m2) and we had a chatroom that ran for the duration of the show. We were encouraged to interact with viewers and a little community was born. After the demise of m2, my friend suggested I start my own online journal for two reasons
1) It would give all the m2 chat room regulars somewhere to go to help retain that community
2) He needed a design project
And thus Picnic By The Motorway sprung to life in a bluster of orange and green. That was about five years ago.
How I found your site:
Jemma was one of the regulars in the m2 chatroom and also a member of Picnic By The Motorway. She has a blog of her own and would occasionally reference yours to the point where I found myself clicking through one day. I started reading and never stopped. Yay for that.
My friend Amanda (kickyboots) first told me what the heck a blog even was. I started reading Leah (a girl and a boy) and Kristin…and had heard of you now and then…but only started reading you recently. So many blogs, so little time… :)
Oh, I know you read all the comments, I was just tweaking you. And I’m sure it was moderated because I included links, I would expect that to be an automatic spam flag. Thanks for approving me!
I came over from Kristin’s site too (D&D), sometime early in ‘06 I think. (Sure do miss her. ) I think I got to hers from Karla’s (Untangling Knots) who is a real life friend. Hers must have been my first one because she gave me the link. I started mine when I moved from Toronto to England late last year. I’m a newbie. And you make me laugh every day, without fail.
Actually yours was the first blog I ever read, I actually remember the entry I first read too. It was a rant about bra sizes, a topic close to my heart :p
Even back then in my D cup days. I followed your journal sporadically for a few years, but now I check daily… I’ve become quite addicted and now check at least 10 blogs every day and try to write my own.
But you’re still the best :)
I don’t remember exactly when I found your blog. M.Giant of Velcrometer linked to your Lube post and I almost died laughing. I jumped ahead to your current stuff and realized that your Riley is exactly, to the day, the same age as my daughter and have been reading daily ever since.
I think I found your blog through Kalisah’s (http://kalisah.blogspot.com/) several months ago, and rapidly became a fan.
I’ve been blogging for a few years now. I had a free website and was entering little journal entries until they actually developed blog software for the same purpose. The whole point was for me to write about my life in such a way that when I saw Aunt Carolyn at Xmas and Easter, she could ask me about something other than my cats (I’m far too young to be considered a cat lady yet! LOL) Only thing was: she didn’t use the Internet until just recently!
But I love blogging and the community that often builds up between bloggers. I would totally love to see you show up at my next family reunion, Linda! :)
I honestly don’t remember the first blog I came across… It was sometime in 1999. I found you through a link that Rob Rummel-Hudson had on his first blog, before his daughter was even diagnosed with her illness. I think I’ve been reading you for quite a few years.
My story is not nearly as exciting as yours – a friend of mine sent me the link to her blog and I decided, “hey! I can do that!” I started reading your diaryland blog because you were on someone else’s buddy list when I was looking around for new people to read. You made me laugh, thus a fan was born.
MRW got me reading TWoP, through which I found Pamie. Pamie mentioned some blog award nominations, and I found Weetabix, who had been nominated (or won) for best romantic entry for “History” (12-04-03). Weetabix linked to your photo of the “Weetabix Rules” sign on workplace’s fridge. Your blog, like Weetabix’s had me laughing from the start. I forwarded many entries to MRW, including the one about trying on bras, which–oh man–was so damn funny. Then you got pregnant about 6 weeks after me, so that was a nice coincidence. Yours is one of the few personal blogs I still read.
I guess there are a lot of us who started with TWoP and/or Pamie.
I googled an old friends nickname – MsGuided – and thought I found her at diaryland, but it was just a hilarious blog. She had favorites, of which I believe you were one. I still come around from time to time to read how you are doing. You are a beautiful, lyrical writer.
I started in 2002. I was working full time and trying to finish my degree, so wasn’t feeling any inspiration for creative writing for myself. My friend convinced me to start so I would keep my head in a writing space, even if I only wrote a few lines in each entry. Started reading you back when you were on diaryland…probably around the same time.
I guess I ended up here through A Little Pregnant – but I cannot say for sure anymore – you are like that morning cup of coffee….couldn’t get by without it.
LOL, kinda funny Linda that your first exposure to blogs was the same as mine. A person emailed me the Weight Watcher recipe cards that Wendy posted on her blog, and I laughed my freaking ass off. I was hooked. She linked to you and to a few others that I still read: Tomato Nation (Sarah), UncleBob and Lose the Buddha (Erin). I have read you from the get-go, including a few deleted entries, and I can (honestly and semi-embarrasedly) tell you that you have run me through the gamut of emotions–from bawling my eyes out to crying laughing. I haven’t been keeping up with you lately (obviously) and am sorry this comment is so late, but I hope that you still read it. I appreciate you, your writing and your humor. Please keep up the good work!!
[...] PS: This reminded me of one of my favorite comments sections, when Sundry asked where people came from to find her. I was heartened to find so many through TWoP, mostly. Check it out if you’re so inclined. [...]
This was a really great post by you hope to come back more really soon.
You you could make changes to the blog name Wherever did you come from? : All & Sundry to more catching for your blog post you write. I enjoyed the post nevertheless.