Megan Stielstra's Blog

1-36: How lovely your friends are.
37: How your blog can beat up Christopher's blog.

Wait? Are we really playing 37 things--because I can help!

(and, totallllly about the vulnerablity thing with blog vs. journal. There are things I would never blab (nor embarass myself or others) to the internet world.My journal also hides stories that I am not totally done with because I don't want people to take the idea that I am "so so" done with and making it better because they stole it. Does that make sense or am I paranoid?

Yes, Byron, we're really playing 37 things. Right now Kim has me writing about how great my friends are, which is really easy and wonderful and illuminating and funny ... what'd be on YOUR list?

Sometimes I feel too vulnerable in my blog, and those are generally the posts that no one responds to. Or perhaps I feel vulnerable because no one responded and I think they hate it. I don't know.

Things for you to write about:
- Your favorite spot in the world
- Your greatest accomplishment
- Your favorite things about Chicago
-The best advice you've recieved
-What gives you a feeling of peace
Not very original, I know, but I'd still like to know what you think about them (and look - they're all about you. I guess we all know which side of the blogging fence I sit on).

You mean... friends in your real life actually read your blog? Every time I tell a friend to read my blog, he answers, "Can't I just call you up on the phone?"

Hmmmmm.

I'm thinking. I'll be back shortly. The first 37 things I thought of were actually a roundabout way of you talking about how great I am, and I realized that was probably a little self-centered, and possibly a little narcissistic, and that maybe I might need to revise said list, as you might be more inclined to write about other things.

(And excuse me if you've written anything on these before. I apologize in advance for not taking the time to peruse your archives to be sure).

1. Things you love about teaching.

2. Things you don't love about teaching.

3. Things you tell your students when they're lazy fuck-ups and don't do their homework, when you're starting to get that feeling that you're going to have five students hand you 60 pages in the last two weeks of the semester, and you're thinking about feeling obligated to read 300 pages of most-likely sub-standard work (seeing as how they wrote it all during the last two weeks of the semester, and spent the previous 12 weeks coming to class after snapping off a couple one-guys while walking down Harrison from the dorm).

4. An insightful piece about how you manage to write really long sentences that make perfect sense. Like a how-to. Because my long sentences rarely make sense, but I can't seem to stop myself from writing them, and eventually I just lose track of what I had started off saying, and just type a period, and that's that.

5. Something about the totally bizarre spiderweb/cobweb thing that's developed between the top of my bookshelf and my four high school yearbooks, which has become laced with dust from the remodeling project being done in my house, and you might have to go off on a tangent about why I have my high school yearbooks on an easily accessible shelf in my living room, right next to my desk, as next year I'll be attending my 20 year high school reunion, and I never really liked high school anyway, so why would I keep my high school yearbooks so easily accessible not only to other people who come over to my house, but also to spiders and/or cobs?

Okay, that might be more about me than you, and I'm not sure what cobs are, but they make webs, so they must be something.

You can skip #5.

6. Is this a group project? Because I'm not sure I can come up with 37 things mySELF. Originally, I thought I could, but now I'm seeing that might not be possible.

You can skip #6

7. Your most favorite meal to eat ever. And then, let's go eat it in a restaurant together.

8. Something about how your husband keeps walking around in your dining room/kitchen with a level, mumbling under his breath about how things aren't level, and how he keeps feeling the wall and saying things about "not plumb" and then you hear him scribbling on said wall with a pencil.

Oh, wait. No. Sorry. That's happening in my house right now and I'm about to stick my head through the plastic zipper-door that is supposed to prevent dust and debris from entering my holy little hideaway here and shouting, "For God's sake, shut the hell up."

I'm thinking that this might be more my list than your list.

9. Something about impending homeownership?

10. Wow. 10. Look at me. Okay, so most of them have been about me. Whatever.

I'm done. I can't think of anybody but myself.

11. A post about how if Christopher starts his own blog (and it better not be better designed than this one, or there may very well be some hell to pay!), and has already a list of 37 things to write about, he could post once a week and get through more than half a year without having to think of something new to write, and that's ridiculous and unfair, but how eventually, even if he continues to add to the list, he'll eventually run out of things to write about, and then he'll rarely post and start receiving emails from random strangers and friends wondering where he's been and why he hasn't been devoting his life to his blog, and how his list of 37 things will become outdated, and he won't want to write about some of those things anymore, and there'll be a moment of sweet, sweet, something. Not revenge. I don't know what I would call it, but it'll be an I-told-you-so moment even though you never told him so.

neil's comment is funny. because most of the people who read my blog (or who i care about the fact that they read my blog) i have since met in person. so they have become real life friends. but my real life friends who don't have blogs, cannot "find the time" to read the blog. and they always call me up and ask me stupid ass questions like "what movies have you seen lately" and i say READ MY BLOG BITCH, there's a reason i post that stuff. so i don't have to answer these stupid questions!!!

so is it that i have a blog just so i don't have to talk to people who can't find the time to read it? because the people who do read it call me up and discuss what i wrote so it's not that i don't want to talk...

sometimes i put personal stuff up, sometimes inadvertently, and sometimes i think it's a self-abuse thing. which i'm really good at, you know. but those are the posts i wind up deleting later, and i don't keep archives up on the main page anymore specifically because sometimes i post things that later on i will feel too exposed by people knowing. so deleted they get.

p.s. christopher, i am so waiting for your blog. get a move on, boy!

Mojo.
More movies.
Monkeys.
M&Ms.

video store? they still have those? :)