WonL
The random thoughts of an architect-turned- lawyer from the deep south living in Washington, DC...
Friday, June 23, 2006
Life After Blogging - Idlegrasshopper
[Ed. note: Today's post is the last in a Life After Blogging series. I hope you are enjoying reading as much as enjoyed delving into these three gentlemen's minds.Man oh man. When it comes to Idlegrasshopper, I just don't know where to begin. I had heard through the grapevine this guy in my law school class had a blog and wrote about law school stuff, so I went on a mission to find it. After I failed miserably, he just sent me a link. He then told me I should start a blog, which I did. When I asked him for some start-up advice on things like blogrolls and sitemeter, he sent me a comprehensive email with the subject line "How to make your blog cooler." I thought the irony in that subject line was hilarious so I kept it. That is exactly what the grasshopper did though, he made it cool to be dorky.
Grasshopper and I became like peas and carrots in the law school blogworld over at GW (which is admittedly pretty small). If you read one of us, you read the other. WonL fed off of Idlegrasshopper and vice-versa (or so I think.) Hell, we even did a tag-team blog post about our inadvertent experience with an "addult" group looking for "friends" at a local bar. I felt like when grasshopper walked away, he took a part of WonL with him and I even considered closing shop in his wake. I'm glad I didn't but I'm even more glad that grasshopper and I have maintained such a close offline friendship. This enables me to still get weekly, or sometimes daily, doses of his hilarity and self-deprecation. I have been begging him to guest post here ever since he left. He finally agreed when I wrapped it up in a the blanket of this "Life After Blogging" series. My little grasshopper, your turn to entertain my readers...]
What was the name of your blog?
I was, and shall remain, the pseudonymous Idlegrasshopper.
How long did you blog? How long since you left blogging?
I blogged for approximately 14 months, from June 2004 until September 2005. I have been on hiatus since then.
How did you leave blogging?
I didn't "leave" blogging. I'm just on hiatus. My hiatus began in a quietly abrupt manner, sans grand finale. I simply decided to pull the plug. I will come back one day. I'm not dead yet.
Why did you leave blogging?
Several reasons:
(A). Time. I was spending a good deal of time writing posts (not that you could tell. For example, I spent over two hours on this thing). This was cutting into time I normally spent on other activities, such as surfing for porn. As an evening law student who works full time, time is a precious commodity. I took a break from blogging at the beginning of what turned out to be a busy semester.
(A)(1) I spent a lot of time on my blog, around 5-10 hours per week. But the stuff I blog about wasn't something that could help me in my career (ala Patently-O), or something that could lead to a sweet book deal (ala Blachman and Anonymous Lawyer). Maybe one day charming but irrelevant blogs will become socially acceptable, and worthy of a resume line, but because they aren't, I decided that my time would be better spent doing something that could go on my resume. With a GPA like mine, I need all the help I can get.
(B). My blog was mostly about law school. Law school is stupid. I hate law school.
(C). You're stupid.
(D). I hate you.
How do you think you and your blog are remembered?
I'm pretty sure I know how my blog persona and my blog are remembered. I'm remembered as the kid who got outed as a blogger on the last day of class. This is because of my publicly amusing outing as a blogger on the last day of class, followed by a post describing said outing that was linked to by the national wires. Sadly, there was no corn-holing involved, or I may have been linked to by Wonkette, back when it was run by the love of my life, Ana Marie Cox. Even today, former classmates and other law students ask "Are you the guy who..." to which I reply "I am." Of course they could be talking about that incident with the associate professor, a midget, a1L and a jumbo tub of lard in the faculty lounge, but what do I care - if I can't have fame, infamy is preferable to obscurity.
Long term, I'll probably be remembered as the Wooderson of law school blogs. "That's what I like about them law school girls - I keep getting older, and they stay the same age."
What is the most important thing you got out of or took away from blogging?
I'm not sure I got anything out of it or took anything away. I would love to say "a sense of accomplishment," or "the knowledge that if I shoot for the stars, I may reach them," or "the love and adulation of my reader," or even "a raging case of the clap." But alas, I'm not sure that I was changed in such a profound way by my experience, or that my life was changed.
Do you miss it?
Every damn day. I no longer have a forum to tell my stupid little stories, like the one about the time when my drunk neighbor locked herself out of her apartment, or the one about the lovely blood donor volunteer checker-inner girl wearing a shirt cut entirely too low for sitting at a table while talking to men who are standing, or about the time I got beat up on the metro.
But there are things I don't miss, too, like the pressure I would sometimes feel to not only write something, but to try and write something that I thought would amuse people.
Would you change anything?
Sure, I'd change stuff. I could stand to lose a few pounds, especially around the middle, and generally firm up a bit.
Oh, you mean about the blogging experience? Yeah, I would do things differently if I blog again. My blog didn't really have a purpose, or theme. Having the blog was a nice way to share things, like funny links I found, my love of David Hasselhoff, and stories about scary law school professors. Maybe that sort of blog could be a formula for blog "success," but I was always a bit worried that it was too esoteric, or, even worse, pseudo-narcissistic, and that I was too amused at my own perceived cleverness, which in reality was nothing more than the banal drivel of a nearly middle-aged has-been. So I would like to have a better theme the next time, maybe be more focused. Or not.
[Ed. note: Thanks Idlegrasshopper! No words. Still laughing.
Also check out the other two in the series: A_Unique_Alias & Samer.]
*I realize I misspelled the word, but within 2 minutes of posting the first version I got three hits from folks that were not going to find what they were looking for over here.