Columns

At the risk of sounding really silly, I am going to state an interesting and obvious fact. The newspaper column preceded the blog.

This morning I was reading my favorite column in the Bergen Record written by Bill Ervolino. As I was reading, I had those feelings I often have while reading blogs- that sense of knowing someone that you have never met. As I began reading I wondered how Bill's dad's birthday went- he had mentioned it was coming last week. I was excited to learn a new and funny fact about Bill's mom. I knew she loved to clean- now I know she takes forever to choose her vegetables. I felt like I could say, "Me too, Bill!" I learned that he can stay in a library until they kick him out- me too, me too!

Just as I am excited when one of my favorite bloggers has posted again, with an update about a family member, a funny story about how potty training is going, or a recipe that their whole family loved, I can't wait to check out the Better Living section every Sunday. As if checking in on another friend I have never met, I turn the page to find my window into a stranger's life.

It seems this whole blog thing isn't all that new after all. People have been reading about imaginary friends (as Rob calls all these bloggers whose writing I read faithfully) since the beginning of the column not, after all, since the beginning of the blog.