Are you really my friend if you don't read my blog?

Whitney Pastorek, the editor of Pindeldyboz, which he calls "a barely solvent literary magazine," has written a hilarious rant in the Village Voice from the perspective of a non-blogger who sees all his friends and associates turning into bloggers and frets about the consequences.

On his list of "The Way Blogs Are Ruining My Life":

2. No one tells me anything anymore.

There was a time when my friends and I got together to chat about our lives, a time when any problem could be resolved in the warm light of our camaraderie and beer. And then my friends became bloggers. These days, I do not even hear about the stupid stuff that's going on--"I got a haircut" or "My apartment burned down"--because the bloggers assume that I have read about it on their blog. Which I have not. And then I wonder why they are not answering their home phone, and immediately assume we are in a fight.

This one hit home with me, except that I'm the blogger, and other people in my life are the Whitney Pastoreks. When I write my blog I feel like I'm talking to everyone I know (and more), so I constantly make the mistake of assuming that everyone I know has read my blog recently.

When friends ask me, "So, what's going on?" I assume they mean, "What's going on except what I already know about from reading your blog, which I do every day?"

But, no, sometimes they actually mean, "What's going on?" As in, "What's going on that you already wrote about on your blog but I want you to take the time to tell me about because I can't be bothered to visit your little area of the internet?" And then I have to tell them what's going on--even though I already wrote about it on my blog. Naturally, my heart is never in it.

ME: "Blah, blah, blah, Kucinich, DVD release, Danger Mouse."

THEM: "Danger Mouse? What's a Danger Mouse?"

ME: "He's this hip-hop producer who--uh, he took this...Well, you know the White Album? Oh, Christ on crack, you could find out about it BY JUST GOING TO MY BLOG, WHICH IS FREE OF CHARGE BY THE WAY, AND TAKING A FEW MOMENTS OF YOUR PRECIOUS TIME TO READ IT!"

THEM: "Why are you yelling at me?"

ME: "Sorry, Mom."

Ba-dum-bum. Actually, my mother reads my blog religiously, even though there are probably days when she wishes she hadn't, because she doesn't cotton to all the swearing and stuff I sometimes do. (Hi, Mom!)

But I have close friends (although I may start calling them "close friends") who probably still don't know, say, that I voted for Kucinich, or why.

In fact, yesterday an ex-girlfriend with whom I remain close ("close") actually called me up and asked me, "Who'd you vote for in the primary?"

"Kucinich," I said. "I wrote about it on my blog."

She caught the tone right away. "Oh, right," she said nervously. "I haven't been keeping up."

Yeah, whatever.

But at least she was just calling to shoot the shit breeze. (Sorry, Mom.) The fact of my blog creates an added complication for others who are calling just "to see what's going on," but, then, coincidentally, they remember that they are also calling for a favor. You know the drill: "Oh, and the second thing I was calling about was..."

Leaving aside the issue of why people perform this little charade in the first place--do they not realize it's impolite to lie to people and waste their time directly in advance of asking for a favor?--there is the small issue of my blog. Which is to say, if these callers really cared about "what's going on" with me, they would have at least visited my blog and glanced at it before calling me. Clearly, these people are liars, but I wouldn't know this with polygraph certainty if it weren't for my blog. Which is just another reason to celebrate this miracle technology.

In case any of my "friends" are reading this during their annual visit to my blog, here's what I think you should do: Put this URL in your bookmarks. Read a few of the latest entries in my blog before you call me for a chat/favor/sexual encounter (UPDATE: upon further reflection, sexual encounters have no prerequisites, except that maybe a shower would be nice, not that you wouldn't). That way, I won't have to get you up to date on all sorts of stuff that I already spent time organizing my thoughts about and delivering in a breezy conversational tone. On my blog.

I don't mean to sound snippy or anything here. I'm really just trying to make sure that we can focus our chat on you. Which is to say--what do you think about what I wrote on my blog?