It's healthy to start calling bloggers I've never met by their first names, right? And to refer to them in casual conversation as if they live down the block? Whew. Good. I knew I wasn't the only one doing it.
I follow a couple of blogs and I can't help it. I read about their pets and their kids and their asinine coworkers and I feel like I actually KNOW these people. And I talk about them to my real-life friends like they're ALSO real-life friends. Lately I've been noticing that their lives parallel mine in these really weird, really uncanny ways (which makes me feel even more weirdo kinship with them). I've never said anything about it before because I've always just chalked it up to coincidence. Also? It's weird to pretend that strangers are your friends.
(Did I just really use the word "weird" eighty times in that last paragraph?)
I suppose it's not exactly earth shattering news that any of us weird enough to tell the Internet about our flatulence issues, and our not-so-secret obsessions with pop stars, and our love for extruded corn-based snacks MIGHT share a few weird personality quirks in common. And I guess it's not that uncommon to be riddled with anxiety or paranoid about geese or spiders or annoyed by coworkers who can't form rudimentary sentences. This is all part of our shared human experience, no? The more I read, though, about this shared experience on the Internet, the more weirded out I get. It's so weird it makes me say things like "weirded out".
(Seriously. Stop it with the "weird" thing.)
So, coincidence #1: Burning hot things + plastic + us. Last month, CLH sent me another text that started with the words "Uh-oh" and ended with "I'll replace it soon". I had finally mastered the art of using an electric stove (see issue here regarding never-to-be-the-same popcorn pot). CLH, however, continued to pretend like he'd received his diploma in 1960's Appliances... and last month he left the kettle on the stove so long, the plastic lid MELTED, FELL INTO THE KETTLE, and was SCORCHED into a puddle of burning hot ooze. But not before filling the apartment with an acrid smoke that took WEEKS of Febreezing to get rid of. That and burning incense. And candles. And having the windows open all day long in the middle of winter.
Allie, it seems, has had a similar incident.
And Heather, too, is in the Almost Burn Down The House Club! Hooray for us!
Okay, then there's the leprechauns.
Last night I wrote about the leprechaun-y dude who always seems to be working out at the gym at the same time as me. And today, Heather wrote about her daughter's fear of leprechauns (and Leta, I'm with you 100%. Those dudes are creep-tastic. I don't blame you for being scared). Two uses of the word "leprechaun". Two different blogs. Same 24 hour period. Weird.
Oh sure, it's March, and the whole leprechaun thing was bound to come up soon enough, right? But, still. I was referring to a small man who insists on wearing mostly green clothing to work out in and who trims his beard in a really unflattering, elf-like way. (I know I'm going to get a hundred comments about how leprechauns are NOT elves but instead belong to some other realm of magical beings... and normally I would tell those people to get a life... except I'm the one who thinks she's friends with complete strangers who blog in other states.)
Anywho, the leprechaun dude was at the gym again tonight and I wasn't even going to mention him here (instead I was going to mention the guy who got on the elliptical machine next to mine, even though ALL THE OTHER MACHINES WERE NOT BEING USED, and who began to sweat ACTUAL sour milk). But then I jumped over to Dooce's blog... and there it was: a story about a leprechaun.
Sure, I could draw conclusions about how we're all either crazy or geniuses, or crazy geniuses, and how good story ideas just seem to hang out in the stratosphere until they find the perfect conduits... and that Ally and Heather and I... we're all perfect conduits coexisting so it's not really a coincidence that we're all writing about our melted kitchenware, but still. Leprechauns? Even the Department of Revenue couldn't make THAT shit up.
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The other day I said to my coworker, “My friend once…” and then told a story I had read from one of the blogs I follow. So yes, your blog friends are like your real friends but in cyberspace.