Sabbatical

Hello dear neglected blog...I can only offer my humblest apologies.

I was reminded this morning that it's now been over a week since my last blog - if I was an alcoholic and you were my drowsy sweet amber nectar then I would be doing well. But you are (probably) bored people, and I am a fairly insignificant feature in your day. And so I feel I have let you down.

The reminder came as a bit of a surprise if I'm honest. For two reasons -
1. It's been over a week since I last blogged. That's a long time for me to not do something I love. I think the main reason is, all the things that have happened to me in the last week are really cool but not things I'm allowed to talk about online yet...but watch this space for some really exciting changes to my life.

2. Someone noticed I wasn't blogging.


Number 2 may seem like I'm being unnecessarily down on myself in order to provoke mass commentary below going - "I love your blog, Laura. I read it everyday..." tra la la la cue 50/50 shame and pleasure from Laura.

I'm not being like that, although beign a self confessed mentalist I'm generally ok with praise and conflicted emotions concerning praise.

Writing a blog is weird, because it runs a fineline between lots of very uncool things.

* Are you basically writing a diary but really narcissistic and so you publish it?
* Are you a horrible person that likes to belittle others anonymously online?
* Are you funny and people actually want to read it or do people read it because they feel sorry that you write under the sad delusion folks are interested?

It's difficult to tell - obviously a blog takes a long time to build up a following, so how long do you blog before you admit that no one is struggling to find you, they all found you and then went back to watching Married With Children because it was better quality?

To combat this problem, in my mind I write for four people. These four people read my blog everyday and are the only interested parties in what comes out of the end of my fingers.

Person 1 - Maisy. Maisy is secretly very insecure. She is blonde and wears her hair in pigtails. She often wears wellies (red ones) because she'd very much like to be retro but doesn't really understand how to and so just selects items that small children wear more than adults and then wears those. She used to have a brace and so she never shows her teeth when she smiles now. Maisy reads the blog because it calms her down that other people worry about inane things too. This is why sometimes I neglect the funny and write her something about how I worry so much I'd given myself IBS by the age of 21. She loves me for it. Maisy also only reads my blogs in coffee shops. She does this for two reasons -
1. She hopes eligible batchelors will see over her shoulder that she reads obscure comedy blogs. This will lead to Maisy being directly involved in boosting my readership which makes her feel like a vigilante. She also hopes the eligible batchelors will then strike up a conversation and she can have children who will also wear red wellies and adore their doting mother.
2. When Maisy laughs it is a short bark which immediately embarrasses her. She secretly enjoys the quizzical looks this earns her in public when people look up from their lattes. If she laughs out loud at things she's reading at home it just causes her father to ask what she's reading and then not get why it was funny. People in coffee shops never do this.

Person 2 - Hannah. Hannah is an old friend I went to school/sunday school/Debenhams/the zoo with once that I have now sadly lost contact with. Hannah remembers me and we are now friends on Facebook which is how she knows about my blog. Hannah reads the blog because she hopes that one day I'll get famous and she can be on the E4 documentary about my life and say that although we sadly don't see enough of each other, she knows everything about me and we are great friends. Hannah doesn't really find the blogs funny but she does find them interesting. Hannah's quite interested in how people have changed since we stopped seeing each other in school/sunday school/Debenhams/the zoo and is quite freaked out that I'm an adult now just like she is. It's quite odd for Hannah that anyone would get in to stand-up, let alone the runty girl called Laura that had bad hair and flew completely under everybody's radar for the vast majority of years before she started shamelessly self-promoting.

Person 3 - Sam. Sam is my only male follower. Sam is unsure why he follows my blog. He's never met me, probably never will and doesn't really remember which link warren he followed to stumble upon the wittering of a girl he clearly has nothing in common with. He'd never tell anybody he read a blog. Let alone that he read a girl's blog. The main things that keep him hanging on are that it gives him a satisfying sense of voyeur that it's difficult to get from reading people's Facebook statuses. As a general rule, Sam dislikes social media and the constant need for people to advertise their every move. However, this blog seems to be more thought out. It's for Sam's benefit that I'm incredibly hypocritical and flighty in my opinions on things that I haven't worked out my opinion on yet. I like to make sure he understands the complexity of writing a blog that is both your public front and your honest communication with people who are gratifyingly interested in what I actually think. Sam appreciates this and continues to read. Sam doesn't read daily, he doesn't log on to the computer that often. But he does binge read when he's missed and feels this makes up for his lack of communication. In an alternate universe Sam and I know that if we met up we'd not get on well initially until the frost had thawed and then we'd probably have more in common than any of my other readers.

Person 4 - Angela. Angela is great. She's active, she loves to laugh and she is the most supportive person on the planet. She is also the hardest person to write for. Angela is my shadow. She knows my every move and will often know what I'm blogging about before I do. Mainly because she was present at the time of the event of which I will later blog about. Angela is my twin. She knows me and my life so well that sometimes it's tough to make her understand a blog. I worry she'll question why a point has been embellished or exaggerated for comic effect - she'll post below that 'I didn't happen like that...'. She may not see the line between me and my blog. It also makes it difficult to sometimes write a viewpoint I'm still playing with - in case Angela reads it and says 'You don't think that' and I'll be caught between explaining that I chose to blog it before even talking to her about it, or that she doesn't actually know that particular view of mine. It's difficult. In all honesty I don't even know if Angela reads my blog. She might do, she might not. But she's always in my mind when I work out what to publish. Can I talk about the one night stand I had last night or will this cause an eruption of reaction from Angela because I haven't told her yet?