How a Thought Becomes a Blog

Sometimes I go a while without writing anything in this blog, as you may have noticed. It's not that ideas don't abound-- they definitely abound-- but there's a certain weeding-out process that any blog inspiration has to go through before it becomes a post. Let's follow a sample idea through the blog post-writing system, a la School House Rock.

Example inspiration: I just ate an overripe persimmon.

Obstacle one: Who will it offend?

This obstacle stops most blog post inspirations dead in its tracks, for I am not merely offending people by my own cynicism and apathy, I'm offending them in the name of the US government. It's my contention that some people will be offended by anything-- and that they should have the sense to read the disclaimer at the top of the page before they blame all 300 million Americans for something I carp about-- but nonetheless I won't write anything without scanning it thoroughly for possibly offensive clauses or sentence fragments. Exceptions include posts that are offensive to other Peace Corps volunteers named Heidi and Ryan.

Will my story about an overripe persimmon aversely affect my standing with the persimmon benefactors, the teachers at the 12th school of Samtredia who gifted it to me three days ago? Probably not, since they don't have internet. Is it offensive to say that they don't have internet? No. Because they don't. Is it offensive to say that it's not offensive to say that they don't have internet, implying that it's a given fact? Et cetera.

Obstacle two: Is it substantial enough to warrant an entire post?

Rarely are the thoughts that pass through my head coherent enough to congeal into a post. Rarely are the coherent thoughts remembered long enough to congeal into a post. It takes a special thought to blossom into a blog post, one that occupies my mind while I should be teaching, or one that comes to me while I'm within arms' reach of my laptop. I've wanted to write a blog post about the bazaar for a long time, and yet nothing. Here I am, writing this instead.

The persimmon story is rather short. It consists of: I was given a persimmon by the teachers at the 12th school because every time I go there, they feel obligated to gift me with food. They've also offered to put a plaque on the wall with my name if I can help them get funding for an English language laboratory. I took the persimmon home and let it ripen for two more excessive days, then sliced/mushed it into pieces with the help of a dull butterknife that I keep in my room for the purpose of eating straight peanut butter. The inside of the persimmon was translucent and gooey, either like a glazed sashimi if you're sophisticated, or like the alien cadavers from the Texas morgue in X-Files: Fight the Future if you're me ("Mulder, it's completely edematous.")

Obstacle three: What does it say about Georgian culture?

The only thing that stops this blog from completely dissolving into a self-indulgent diary is that it's supposed to be edifying, dispensing occasional tidbits about the trials and tribulations of living in Georgian society. Of course, once we start discussing "Georgian society" as a whole, a bunch of ambulance-chasing disclaimers come into play, just to drive the point home that I know that not every Georgian behaves the same way, not every Georgian compliments my looks by telling me I'm going to be bridenapped, not every Georgian has a two-degree range of temperatures that they find comfortable and relegate all else to "freezing" or "very hot," not all Georgians think Chinese people are being sent by the government of China to take their jobs, and so on.

The persimmon story is absolutely without value in this regard and would not even suffice as a blog post on a normal blog. Perhaps I could take the example of the gift persimmon and use it to talk about the selfless generosity and hospitality of Georgian society as shown by the broker-than-broke teachers at the 12th school who make $60 a month and insist on spending what little they have on their American "guest," much to that guest's shame and burden of gratitude... but that's depressing without an uplifting note about how karma resolved itself and they won the lottery the next day. But they didn't.

Obstacle four: Who will read it?

I don't put much thought into this last obstacle. If the inspiration has made it past my short term memory lapses and the first three obstacles, then it's time to give it a break and turn it into a post. Somehow, despite their own best interests, people end up reading the post anyway. You, for example, have just read a post about someone describing the way they wrote a post about eating a piece of fruit. I applaud you for it.

Congratulations! The mushy, oversweet persimmon I just ate has become a full-fledged blog post. The only thing it lacks now is a hard-hitting and overarching conclusion, which I can't quite come up with. Just a SLICE of life, I guess! Ha, ha! No. Life's kinda FRUITY like that! Oh... definitely not. Perhaps I'll just end it here.

And that's how the persimmon crumbles!