Thoughts on blogging

I am beginning to define more clearly the variety of reasons I started a blog. Initially, I had thought to use my blog to write down random thoughts and to use it as a journal of my life. I see now there are many other fruits I can pick from this tree. Muscles, when they are not used, tend to atrophy. I know I can be creative, but I have had little cause to exercise my creativity. I want to use my blog as motivation and location for creative expression. I have ideas for short stories, I have opinions on current, past, and future events, and I hope to express all this in my blog. As I've said elsewhere, I have a strong hermit instinct. And while it's all well and good to be happy with one's own company, it does get lonely sometimes. Recently, I have mustered enough courage to leave comments on other people's blogs. I hope that by exposing parts of me to others in their blogs, others will drop by my blog and share parts of themselves with me. In short, I hope to make friends via blogging. [Side note: although I work with computers for a living, I'm new to blogging and what it means to blog. The idea of meeting people via blogs didn't occur to me until recently. I can be dense like that sometimes.] The blogosphere has enlightened me regarding how many bright people there are in the world. For the most part, the people I was exposed to on a daily basis included co-workers, people in local stores and restaurants, my family, and a few friends. My opinion of the world at large was based on an inaccurate sampling of the total population. Blogs have made me realize humanity is much smarter than I thought. Up to now, my "activism" has consisted of donating money to HRC, Lambda Legal, and Equality Florida. I hope interacting with people about issues that concern the LGBT community will inspire me to do more than donate. Southwest Florida doesn't have a branch of Equality Florida, an AIDS support group, or even a GLCC. If one of these groups does exist, they're pretty well hidden. There has to be a way for me to get involved, though. I just need to keep searching. Lastly, I acknowledge that I am a moody bitch person. I sometimes feel like writing, and sometimes feel like not. Although I aspire to lofty goals with my blog, I know realistically that things will develop slowly and in alternating bursts of activity and idleness. This whole post is what I had originally intended for my blog: a place to corral and organize my meandering thoughts.