Hot Topics and Headlines vs. Online Hospitality

Starting a new blog is the internet’s version of the proverbial blank slate. As a new blogger for the Patch, I have the rare opportunity to post my words where someone might actually read them. Instead of signing up for a Blogger.com account, sending my new blog URL to my family and friends and waiting for the page count clicker to show “2 visitors”, I have the Lorton Patch audience at my new doorstep. If I want you to ring the bell, wipe your feet and come inside, I need to be a hospitable host, an interesting conversationalist and a good listener all wrapped up into one neat package. First impressions count online as much as they do in real life. The difference is that in real life I can say, “Wait, let’s try this again!”, whereas online, if I mess up once, the chance of you coming back again for another visit is slim to none. 

Many a blogger has grandiose dreams of blogging notoriety. Perhaps they invoke the power of “The Secret” and visualize guest blog spots on Huffington Post, or achieving the overnight success of The Pioneer Woman. But for my little corner of the Patch, I envisioned nothing quite as extravagant. After all, If I were to show you step-by-step pictures of my adventures in the kitchen, it would be titled “When Real Moms Bake” and show images of lopsided cakes and slightly dark cookies. Because, let’s face it, I don’t live on a million dollar ranch, nor do I rub noses with the Glitterati. I live in Lorton and spend my time on the PTA, run my small business and raise my family. 

Blogging for the Patch is new for our local website, and to be asked to help get this project off the ground was exciting to me. When the email arrived Sunday night from my editor saying that our first blogs were due Monday at 8pm, I was ready! Twenty-four hours is a decent amount of time to gather up my thoughts and write something fairly thought provoking, community oriented or just plain cute. Then my daughter had an asthma attack in the middle of the night. Being one of “those people” who is addicted to their iPhones, I scrolled through Facebook while giving her a nebulizer treatment at 1:42 a.m.  “Ding dong, the witch is dead!” and “Holy ____!” was the general theme of the wee hours in my newsfeed. Suddenly the idea of blogging about schools or dogs and families became ridiculous when America was about to experience one of the biggest news days in a decade.

I woke up the next morning with a new goal. Of course, I was going to blog about Bin Laden’s death. From what I’d seen on CNN and pretty much every cable news channel on Cox, Americans were celebrating from coast to coast, most prominently at the World Trade Center and outside the White House. It was almost as surreal as watching 9-11 replay on my TV so many years ago. The difference being, I couldn’t pinpoint exactly how I felt. My emotions ranged from disbelief (I want to see the body!) to my heart swelling with patriotism. However, my thoughts also buzzed with the knowledge that his death probably be responded to with an attempt of retaliation, especially when the terrorists sit down to their evening news and witness Americans partying on the Ellipse. 

Topic overload! How could I possibly focus on one particular aspect of this news story when so many things are wrapped around it? Did I want my first foray into Patch blogging to be emotionally charged and politically loaded? What happened to my benign-yet-interesting blogging about the community we all live in? Ideas were scrapped once again, and here we are.

I’ve not completely decided the direction my blog will take in the coming weeks, but I’m fairly sure it won’t be a place where politics run rampant and explosive current events are dissected. Chances are the only thing you’ll be offended by will be my run-on sentences or my possible ad nauseam referral to my cute kid and dog. We’ve all heard that you shouldn’t mix politics and friends, so I’m going to leave a headline as big as Bin Laden’s death to the talking heads on cable news and the political blogs that make my eyes glaze over. That’s not to say that I have nothing important on my mind. I’m just saying that the importance and beauty of everyday life in Lorton will supersede national hot topics in my little neck of the woods. So the next time I open my door, come on in! Grab a virtual Coke Zero (or a coffee from my super-cool new Keurig machine), and spend some time with your Lorton neighbor.