For all the gossip-dumps and daily gab-rendering that husbands have to suffer through from their wives, wives have to suffer the apparently ineradicable male tendency to have an opinion, rating or evaluation (usually negative) of EVERY SINGLE THING IN THE ENTIRE SIDEREAL UNIVERSE, including things the man couldn't possibly know anything about.

So it amused me to see the Wife recognizing, with apparent relief, that blogging allows her to not have to listen to you go on and on and on about everything. Everything that is, except (of course) the things you absolutely hate talking about and She might actually enjoy listening to: you, your feelings, your most recent conversations, the dream you had last night, the little things that happen up close in the present moment or recent past. Those things.

The Wife would probably love to hear you talk about those things, Michael. The stuff on the blog: keep it there. She's right: it's good for your marriage.

The Wife speaks wisdom, O Man of Many Opinions. Heed her. Heed the Wife.

Posted by: PatrickH on September 16, 2008 2:17 PM

"It has certainly helped our marriage." Good one! Yes, one of my favorite expressions is "I have a theory about that ...," and I apply it to a wide array of random topics. My wife is pretty good at putting up with it, but everyone has his or her limits.

Posted by: Lester Hunt on September 16, 2008 2:39 PM

I don't use my blog for op-ed pieces. I view it entirely as an artist's diary. From time to time, I get all opinionated.

I usual do my op-eding here.

Opinions really are like assholes. The presidential election was boring the hell out of me until Sarah Palin showed up. Now that the assholes are yapping like a pack of dogs, things are looking up, at least in terms of entertainment.

The sad part is that there is virtually no blog audience for anything except controversy. I'm attracted to controversy, too, although I don't want to be. Controversy is an utter bore. I know that that seems contradictory, but it is.

In my life, I've probably suffered through tens of millions of controversies. Fills up the time, I guess.

Where do blogs go when they die?

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on September 16, 2008 2:51 PM

My wife has said that, too. I no longer build up opinion pressure and then rant for an hour about every two weeks like I used to. (Reminds me of the joke about why women don't fart as much as men do - they don't stop talking long enough to build up the pressure.)

Conversely, though, when I go to a party, I'm often "all chatted out" because I've said my piece on my lil ole blog.

Posted by: yahmdallah on September 16, 2008 3:06 PM

I set up a blog just so I could post a comment at Althouse. Yes, I thought my comment was that important. I don't event remember the name of it.

Posted by: alan on September 16, 2008 8:34 PM

What about the implication that women are quitters, blogwise?

Sexism! Sexism!

Posted by: Sister Wolf on September 17, 2008 4:28 AM

It's hard to tell for sure from the linked article, but it's entirely possible that some of the "abandoned" blogs were moved to other blog hosts without being actually abandoned. For instance, a blogger who has a blog on Blogger decides to start blogging on Wordpress; the former is classified as abandoned, but in reality it was moved.

Posted by: Peter on September 17, 2008 6:24 PM

Define blog.
The wife's hunch will fail at sites like Livejournal.

Posted by: TW on September 18, 2008 2:24 PM






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