Julie & Julia-A discussion about Blogging

The day after I started my blogette, my Aunt asked me how it was going. I said "Great! My reader is really enjoying it!" She snickered and looked at me, gushing with excitement and said, "You HAVE to see Julie and Julia! You have so much in common with one of the characters!"

For those of you who do not want to know anything about the movie, stop reading now and come back to this post once you've seen it.

The movie in a nutshell: The movie simultaneously follows the stories of Julia Child in the 1950's and Julie Powell in 2002. Long story short, both women had a passion for cooking and ended up writing about cooking. Julia did so in print, and Julie started a food blog. I'm pretty sure that 2002 was technically the Paleolithic era for blogging. The self-imposed project of starting a blog to document the cooking of every one of Julia's 524 recipes from the classic book entitled Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year was not for the faint of heart. (Though a coronary embolism might not be too far off). My guess: No smoothies and oatmeal with almond butter on the menu for a year. That alone would be tough.


But what prompted my Aunt to encourage me to see the film was blogging. It is astounding that anyone who can work a keyboard can start a blog. I'm not kidding. If you Google the word "blogs", the first several links that pop up are for Blogger, aka Blogspot (not surprising because Google owns Blogger). Let me save you the trouble...click here to see for yourself. You simply create a username, password, blog name, answer a few questions, pay nothing at all, agree not to sue them and boom, you're a blogger.

Even if you don't plan to blog, it's fun to just type in some silly domain names just to see if they are taken. Here are some I tried that are still available (followed by .blogspot.com of course)- if you are interested you had better hop on them, stat:

For the yogis:

• WarriorOneHurtsMyQuads
• iSweatDuringSavasana

Runners/Gym Junkies:

• ShinSplintsSuckEggs
  
• LoveMeSomeSpinning
  

General Interest:

• MyGrannyRidesAHarley
• BooksForBrainiacs
• MyKittyHasFurryButtCheeks
• ImGoodEnoughImSmartEnoughAndDogGoneIt (there is a 37-character limit- DARN it!)
  

For The Food-minded:

• StopTomatoAbuse
• HubbyLovesChickenTikkaMasala

or if you don't now what to blog about, you can still get these:

• ABlogForNoReason
  
• iHaveNoIdeaWhatIamTalkingAbout
  
• MeBlabbingAboutAbsolutelyNothing
  

Sadly, some gems were already taken:

• DorksUnite
  
• MyDumbassBlog
  
• DangerIsMyMiddleName (name the movie- this one's easy!)
• OhStewardessISpeakJive (name the movie- I was soo bummed that this one was taken!)
  

Outta luck? Not entirely because blogger is kind enough to suggest similar alternates for you, such as:

• deb-dorksunite and deb-ohstewardessIspeakjive
  
• dorksunite-deb and ohstewardessIspeakjive-deb
  

So many choices!

Now I'm not downplaying the importance of blogs at all- I just marvel at the ease with which we can share our thoughts with the entire world, in an instant. I've found blogs to be invaluable on so many levels. Informative, entertaining and even a source of emotional support, blogs are big and only getting bigger. I'm sure many can be droll, ridiculous and hate-filled as well, but I try to limit my time around negativity.


What do people think about Bloggers?

(I'm not implying that bloggers aren't people, by the way)

One group of scenes in the movie bothered me in particular. I wonder if it bothered other bloggers as well. Julie suffered a huge disappointment and ended up in a fight with her husband. Julie's husband, best friend and even Julie herself, used the following words to describe her (or similar) : narcissistic, center of the universe, bitch, self involved, all about "me, me, me". You get the point (The words may not be exact as I am recalling from memory). The hubby did find it amusing that I chose those very scenes to check my own blog's comments-page on my iPhone. Yikes, I'm hope I'm not self-absorbed! Anyway, even though I had only been a "Blogger" for about 46.5 hours, I couldn't help but feel that the movie was dissing me and my tribe!

In starting a blog, Julie was merely trying to find an outlet for one of her greatest passions, cooking. She had focus, drive and determination, which is what one needs in order to achieve a goal. Perhaps that was misinterpreted as narcissistic or self-centered. The fact that her blog was based upon her passion is probably what carried her through the ups and downs of that year. The movie was really about two women who worked very hard to follow their dreams. One of them happened to be a blogger.

One of the funniest quotes from any movie in my opinion is from Bette Midler's character in Beaches. I don't even remember if I saw the movie, I just love the quote: "Enough about me, what do YOU think about me?" Ironically when I googled the quote, almost all of the results were links to blogs....ouch! But when I read the content, it was tongue-in-cheek- all in good fun. That's what it should be about, right? Fun. And learning. And growing. An in case you're wondering, the following domain is still available:

• EnoughAboutMeWhatDoYouThinkAboutMe.blog.spot.com

:-D