Catching Up with Friends, Indirectly

My cousin James and his wife Amy (it's probably more appropriate to say Amy and my cousin James... James: "I'm helping!") have been maintaining a blog ever since their son Caleb was born about seven months ago. The time between their posts ranges from days to weeks (or minutes, in the case of their last giant blogsplotion of babies, bridges, bread and beaches), but they keep up with it consistently, and I'm always glad when I see a new post from them pop up in my Blogger Dashboard. I love the micro-publishing world for just this reason. It makes it so easy to keep up with people, at least indirectly, when you don't talk to them in person often enough. Here's their blog address if any of you are interested:

http://theajduo.blogspot.com

I mean this truly. I know more about life at the AJ Duo Fortress of Familyhood than I do about the lives of many other people that I see in person on a consistent basis. Blogging allows you to grant media-rich peaks into your daily life to many other people at once. My sister and brother-in-law's site for my nephew Jackson is another good example, which I've mentioned in previous blog posts. I don't see the three of them nearly often enough. There's the phone, of course. But the Jackson blog gives a much deeper picture of his life and those of his foot servants than a quick phone conversation can share.

I think personal blogs are a great addition to the paraphernalia of modern life. Along with Twitter, they represent the best in indirect personal communications, and I'd love to see more people I know start their own blogs. I can tell you that, after this year long experiment is over, Kate and I will start maintaining a smaller-scale blog to share our lives with our friends and family.