The thing about things

Rule #1: Do your own thing.

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Every now and then, I get into a phase. Some might call it obsession. Me, I just call it enthusiasm.

Among my past phases: Sanrio, the Spice Girls, boys, and Harry Potter. Because I’m extremely nostalgic, and still a kid at heart, I will love each and every one of them until the day I die, but (thankfully) the intensity of that love will fade.

(Making room for NEW intensity!)

Right now I think my friends would agree, Dooce is my big obsession current phase.

I’ll be honest, I’m addicted. But I do think I’m learning a lot by reading each and every post in her archives. Sometimes it’s useless info (like what she was reading on July 30th of 2004) but sometimes it’s truly brave, or hopeful, or heartbreaking (in the most beautiful way), or just plain hysterical.

Her ability to turn anything — the ordinary — into a captivating story, it’s spectacular. It’s what I’m enjoying, and what I’m trying to learn.

That’s why I originally had “learning to be funny one dooce at a time” as the subtitle in my header image. But as Andy pointed out, that sort of gives the impression that I’m copying her, that I’m not that original, that I’m not doing my own thing. And that isn’t true.

(I’ve since changed the subtitle to “always leaping before she looks,” which IS true. I plan to change the header every few months anyway.)

The thing about things is, you can’t take someone else’s. I might like Amy Tan’s and Paulo Coelho’s things, or LOVE Dooce’s thing, or occasionally laugh at Dave Barry’s thing, but I can’t take any of those and pass them off as my own. That’s unethical! (And stupid, given that I’ve just named them all here…)

However, I can learn from them, and I can be inspired by them, and I can even try my hand at them once or twice. But at the end of the day, those things belong to someone else, and I have to find/create/agonize over my own.

And I guess that’s more or less what this site is about. My thing. A thing to call my own. A “thang,” if you will.

I don’t know what my thing is yet, but I think this site is going to help me find/create/agonize over it.

And maybe someday I’ll end up on this list. Or this list! Or these lists!!

Who knows.

What I do know is that this is most definitely my thing, and you can’t take it. (Not that you’d probably want to…)

(Can you find me?)