The Wonderful World of Blogs

Something of an ode to blogs and blogging written as a blog post might be a little ridiculous, but bear with me.

I love the world of blogs (which is actually called the blogosphere - how great is that?). It's the perfect place to hang out - you don't have to get dressed up because no one cares what you look like, no one interrupts you and everyone gets a chance to be heard, and you can transition from news to travel adventures to cooking to "OMG did you see that awful dress?" in a matter of seconds.

After getting myself all riled up at work with the latest round of intolerance and "we love everyone...except you're wrong and need to do this our way"-themed wisdom spewed by the religious right, I can read my coworkers' posts on the State of Belief Blog, then pop over to Hopie's Kitchen to decide what to make for dinner, maybe bounce along to the Smitten Kitchen to choose a dessert (or just drool over all the incredible recipes), make a quick detour to Parent Talk Today to get some more ideas from Kathy on the kind of mom I want to be when I grow up (I'm not really an adult yet. I refuse.) and then head over to the New York Times' blogs for my daily dose of amusement - like Christoph Niemann's witty monologue on his personal coffee saga - environmental news and research or a soccer fix, depending on my mood. And then, if my brain is awake enough to remember that English is not the only language it's capable of comprehending, I can head over to one of my new favorites: Delphine Kilhoffer's literary blog. (If you read any French at all, Delphine's observations and humor are more than worth the translation effort!)

All that without lifting more than a finger! It's probably not in vogue for someone my age, who grew up in a world saturated with technology, to be so enamored of it, but I don't care. I love having so many different voices on so many different subjects available with the click of a mouse, even if I do tend to take it for granted. And I'm sure there are still hundreds of great blogs I'm missing - what are your favorites?