LilZ mentioned yesterday that a friend of his from school has a MySpace account. He didn’t point blank come out and ask for one, but he did ask about what MySpace is and how it compares to having a blog. I was pretty sure he was putting his feelers out to see how I felt about it amd whether or not it seemed worthwhile to ask for one. He opted not to ask but I’m not sure what I would say if he did. I mean, other than “HELL NO!” of course.

But seriously - we’ve talked about when it will be okay for him to have his own cell phone (when it makes MY life easier) but we’ve not discussed when he can have his own webpage. Parenting is very tricky in the internet age. You don’t want your kid ignorant of the internet because it’s a useful tool and you don’t want them being behind - but you also don’t want the freaks to have easy access to them via webpages or chatting. We also have to worry about the pr0n - we don’t want him having access to that - accidentally or otherwise. And finally? Those freaky “bloggers” I hear so much about. How do I make sure he’s not mingling with any of them? Damn freaks.

NikkiZ got herself kind twisted in her jammies the other night. MrZ was holding her when he noticed and he started immediately laughing. He pointed it out to LilZ and I and we both almost peed we were laughing so hard. NikkiZ? Was not laughing. As a matter of fact…when I grabbed the camera and started taking pictures, we got laughing so loud that she got scared and might have started crying. might. And then I might have instructed MrZ to lift her faux leg up for one last picture before we tended to the crying baby.

(Four trillion dollars to the person who knows where the title comes from. MrZ and his brother are not allowed to compete.)

(I don’t really have four trillion dollars.)

(Does anyone? If so - can I borrow ten bucks?)

I was checking my stats awhile back and found this blog entry that linked to my entries about High School Musical. I noticed I have still been getting hits from that entry long after it was written, but I have also noticed there are always new comments there when I check back. I decided to peruse the comments to see what everyone is saying about the movie which I may or may not know all the dance moves to. (I’ll never tell.)

Oh my. You must read them. NOW. If there is any part of you that has lost touch with your inner pre-teen (the one who had the posters of Corey Haim on your walls) then reading those comments will bring you back to that point in a heartbeat. And you will giggle to yourself. I can not imagine what damage I would have done in cyberspace if I had found a forum where I could have professed my undying love for Sean Astin as freely as these kids do for the disney stars. Or how many Ricky Shroeder fan sites I would have commented on. The internet has probably eliminated the existence of notebook doodles because why write Mrs. Jon Bon Jovi all over your math folder when you can type it on the web for the whole world to see.

I’m so glad I’m not 12 anymore.

Remember when MrZ and LilZ made something for dessert that supposedly tasted like glue and looked profain? Fun times. Well, something oozed from that dessert onto the bottom of my oven that night, and it’s caused the smoke alarm to go off several times since. The first few times the smoke alarm went off I thought it was because I was using my new silicone bakeware (have you seen that stuff? It rocks my world.) and I thought that maybe there was some coating that was burning off of it. I thought this because along with the smoke, there was a strange chemical smell. When I finally realized it was some mystery goo on the botton of my stove, the chemical smell made me glad no one actually ate the mystery dessert from that fateful night.

Luckily - there was aluminum foil on the bottom of my stove to catch the goo. This weekend, I pulled that aluminum foil out and replaced it with some new stuff. While I had my head in the oven (hee) I thought, “Is this considered ‘cleaning’ an oven?”

Seriously. Switching out that one piece of aluminum foil for another is the closest I’ve ever come to cleaning an oven. EVER. And if you don’t consider that “cleaning” then I’ve never actually done it. It’s just not something I ever think about. Maybe this is because I’m a clean cook and my ovens have never been messy, or maybe it’s just because unless it smells up the house or produces fire, I don’t really care too much. Either way - I figure I’ve lived with 9 different ovens in my adult life and never, EVER have I cleaned any of them. I’ve seen commercials for oven cleaner - so I know it exists, but I have never bought any.

And if this isn’t proof enough that I’m possibly the worst housekeeper in the history of house keeping? After I replaced the aluminum foil on the bottom of the oven, I decided I needed to clean out the crumbs from the drawer under the oven - so do you know what I did? I vacuumed it. Seriously. I vacuumed my oven this weekend. Screw “goddess” - I’m a domestic GENIUS.

It’s hard to explain blogging to people who don’t blog. More specifically - it’s hard to explain why we do it. Why do we find ourselves so invested in the lives of strangers. Why do we discuss our personal struggles more openly online than we would with family. Why do we flock to sites to read the exploits from the lives of people we’ve never spoken to. Why do we find ourselves calling people who we’ve never even emailed “friends”.

I know that in my life, there are many things I’m kinda shy about - how I cry over shampoo commercials, my hatred of Russel Crowe, my ability to eat 12 Krispy Kreme donuts in one sitting - to name a few. These are things that are very much a part of who I am, but not things I feel like discussing with my family over dinner. So, I write about them on my blog. More importantly, however, I find blogs of other people who feel the same way. THOSE are the sites I flock to. Sites that belong to people who may have the same bizarre fear of left turns that I do. Writers who obsesses over certain stores as much as I do. Blogging allows two people who both love Big Love to find camaraderie, in cyberspace.

I may not be able to talk to my real world friends about my crush on Adam Brody, but I know someone will understand that crush and why it keeps me watching a show that started sucking ass weeks ago. I can’t necessarily talk to MrZ about how silly it seems that Moms give themselves “labels”, but I can be assured there are moms with blog entries written about that same concept. There might not be anyone in my real world life who understands why I take fifty million pictures of my dogs and four of my husband, but I can find a friend online who photographs her dogs just as much.

Where writing a blog has given me an outlet to talk about my weird habits and unusual personality traits, reading blogs gives me a way to find other people who are just as strange. And each time I find someone who makes a reference that I “get” - like how depressing Bridge to Terabithia was (found on Sundry Mourning) - and therefore adding a new link to my daily reads, it makes the blogging so worthwhile.

It’s a big and scary world out there. The more people I find who agree on how much better life is with two TiVos - the safer I feel.