Web logs . . .

     There went another day (or three) reading other people's blogs.

     How do you browse blogs? Perhaps you're sensible and eschew reading others' blogs to concentrate on writing your own. Do you just keep clicking 'next blog' until you find one that is so intriguing you stay for more than five seconds? Or perhaps you use other strategies like following links from one blog to another or following links to followers profiles. Too much following? Do you dismiss a blog because there are no followers or the profile has had only a few views in a year or two. Perhaps someone's comment on a blog intrigues you enough to find out more about the poster. This sometimes leads to disappointment as they've only registered to publish a post; or perhaps they deleted their own blog long ago in favour of just reading and commenting on others' blogs; or perhaps they've kept their profile private; maybe even their blog too if they have one.

     In the little time I've been in blogland-ether-ather-osphere- ? what do you call it? I've noted some trends. Some bloggers collect, that is link to and follow blogs like their own exclusively. Very handy when looking for blogs expressing differing ideas about the same subject.

     Serendipity happened for me today linking through comments to others' blogs. One received a 'Blog of Note' citation last week and the other has just eleven public followers. I think they complement each other in that one is the expression of a magical, mysterious created world and the other, from what little I have read of it so far, is a thoughtful lamentation of the loss of magic, mystery, tradition and goodness of the world and our place in it and what writers and thinkers have to say about this loss.

     I hope I can stop reading others' blogs for a while so that I can catch some inspiration of my own. I am still imagining myself in the middle of a silent desert . . .