Why blog?

This post is in answer to Foolery's post about blogging. I like Foolery - she's neat. Go have a look, I'll keep.
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I started blogging as a way to release some built up anger, resentment, frustration, and creative bursts, and it turned into a daily record of the things my family gets up to. I like having one place to put memories and photographs, too.

I started with MySpace, because I was reading a blog there that tickled me. I now double post on both MySpace and Blogger, although sometimes MySpace gets left behind a little. Lazy and forgetful, me.

I have found blogging to be a way to connect with folks I would otherwise never have met. I've found so many blogs to read that it can take an entire morning to get through them all. Sometimes I just can't, and then I feel guilty...like I'm letting them down. I try to comment, but only when I actually feel I can add to the conversation or have a salient point - I'm not into commenting to generate traffic. I also don't like to just jump in - I prefer to read a little about someone, get a feel for them, before inserting my big fat opinion into their comment page. Sometimes I'm silent because I'm intimidated - there are some wickedly smart people out there, and I'm not sure I can keep up with them...better not to draw their attention (or snark) to little ol' me.

As a side bonus, some of my farther flung family have been reading my bits and pieces, and have been contributing to my memory-store of family anecdotes. It's neat to get e-mails from people I haven't seen in over a decade, catching me up on their goings-on and filling in blank spots of family history to boot.

Foolery gets about 150 hits a day, give or take. Probably three or four of them are me, nosing about for something new to read. 150 a day?? Holy cow! I was delighted to have a dozen or so...and I still am! Every time a new reader comments, I am in a tizzy. I even point to the screen and call people over to look. Heh...such a geek, me. When someone comments here, I try to go visit them and have a read - never know what I'm going to find, and that's half the fun. I read my readers, although sometimes only in weekly chunks when time gets away from me.

While I will post pictures of The Evil Genius, I don't put any up of other folks' kids, nor of grown-ups, and I use nicknames or first initials unless specifically told I don't need to. Heck, I don't even use my own real name, although Kyddryn is my pseudonym for my every online endeavor. I even thought about changing my name to Kyddryn, but was too lazy to do the paper work. I'll freely link to other folks' pages until they tell me not to - I figure, it's the least I can do for being entertained on a regular basis, hook them up with one or two more readers.

Ultimately, I find blogging to be cathartic. I'm so easily riled, of late, that having a place to write out my ire instead of taking it out on my family is a very good thing. I make my Mum laugh, too, which is a nice little extra. I'm saving all of my blogs, because Mum thinks that some day, someone will want to read them. Maybe...but maybe I'm also saving them because I am a pack rat...in real life and electronically. At least a computer is harder to fill up than a house...

So this turned into as much a "how" as a "why" post, but y'all know I tend to blather. Why do you blog?