Why Do I Write a Blog?

That's a darned good question. Specifically, can I come up with five good reasons that I spend a couple of hours a night PhotoShopping pictures and writing about my small adventures. Came from my daughter, by way of being "tagged". She's written an articulate short essay on the subject, and I have to keep up so here I go.

#1. I'm a journalist. Have been all my working life. This means that I am curious (i.e., nosey), like variety, small adventures and surprises in my life. But I was never paid to write about such personal experiences; I was paid to write about business. Now that I have the time, I can write whatever I please. Currently, that is Walking Prescott.

2. When my husband died, a large hole opened up in my life. Working on the blog has helped fill that vacancy.

3. Wherever I land, I find the place or the event interesting. For the past quarter of a century, that place has been Prescott. So I write about Prescott. Mainly.

4. Vanity. I can't help spotting the quirky -- it jumps out and shouts "Look at me! Tell everybody about me!" It's plain fun to share what I see with others; in the past, that was always an intimate partner. Now that I am alone, Walking Prescott is a way to talk with friends, friendly strangers and anyone who passes this way.

5. As a magazine journalist, I almost always worked with words and pictures in telling a story. But taking my own pictures this past year has been an education and has sharpened my seeing immeasurably. It's been a ball! Now my 103 year old Mom is buying me a new camera; when it arrives, I may be able to get a good picture of this year's Courthouse raven brood.

Now to get a grump off my chest. For some strange reason, this tagging of a cluster of bloggers with some sort of question or request for a list or what have you is called a "meme". Guys, it isn't.

First, a couple of quotes starting with the American Heritage Dictionary. A meme is: "an idea, thought or piece of information that is passed from generation to generation through imitation and behavioral replication. Coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, memes and memetics are the cultural counterpart to the biological study of genes and genetics. Using the evolution analogy, Dawkins observed that human cultures evolve via 'contagious' communications in a manner similar to the gene pool of populations over time."

And another quote, this time from a very long Wikipedia article, via Answers.com: Proponents of memes suggest that memes evolve via natural selection — in a way very similar to Charles Darwin's ideas concerning biological evolution — on the premise that variation, mutation, competition, and "inheritance" influence their replicative success. For example, while one idea may become extinct, other ideas will survive, spread and mutate — for better or for worse — through modification.

Sorry if I've been too pedantic but it's a very useful idea and I hate to see it misused so casually.