And So It Goes

Calvin: I feel I have an obligation to keep a journal of my thoughts.
Hobbes: Oh?
Calvin: Being a genius, my ideas are naturally more important and interesting than people's. So I figure the world would benefit from a record of my mental activities.
Hobbes: How philanthropic of you.
Calvin: Well, the world isn't going to get it cheap.
Hobbes: So what are you writing today?
Calvin: I couldn't really think of anything, so I'm drawing some Martians attacking Indianapolis.
- from Calvin & Hobbes

So what is the point of this particular exercise? What am doing here in this corner of cyberspace? I'm tossing out electronic messages in HTML bottles, sending them adrift in the sea of cyberspace, and I'd better stop with the stupid metaphors while I'm still able.

I apologize. What I mean, is that I write this stuff and I don't know who actually reads it or what they're looking for. My intended readership, for those just joining us, are my Stateside friends, who wonder what's up with me personally. I find myself torn between attempting the profoundly anthropological ("Cats have had a long metaphorical significance in Japanese culture...") to just writing the banally personally trivial ("My cat coughed up another hairball today!").

So what can I write about? Some stuff that's happened recently, includes my taking of the Foreign Service Written Examination, my annual shipment of "Best American" anthologies, the recent typhoon, The West Wing, my new keitai, yet another commuter train delay (probably because of suicide), a couple museums I'll be visiting this weekend, movies in Japan, and my weekend shopping trip to the "no-brand"-brand store. I could also write--more generally--about coffee, train nuts, and why I don't have a telephone at home.

Also, there's the question of background information. Given my intended readership (not you, Karl) I find myself caught in a bit of trap, in that the references that I, as a three-year resident of Tokyo, immediately understand, requires an explanation for most people.

So I get sidetracked by my compulsion to explain the references; of course, if I didn't explain, many of you reading this--probably most--would be utterly baffled without the context. I mean, what do you, the reader, know about references to keitai, Ebisu, otaku, i-Mode, or the Chuo Line? (Again, I'm not talking to you, Karl.)

And then there's the question of form. I realize, from my skimming of other weblogs, that the typical format is a daily entry of a couple hundred words of whatever is on the mind of the blogger. However, being an old-fashioned old-media type, I tend to think of structured 500-word essays, newspaper column style, and that's the standard I aim for (and usually miss).

So feedback is what I crave. I'd like to know who's reading this (especially if my friends are really doing so) and what you expect to see from me. I can't promise I'll alter what I say, but I would like to know.

Links of the Day:

Jon Carroll: Daily columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and my ideal for a daily column. His subjects run the gamut from cats to foreign policy, his tone from utterly frivolous to tightly argued. Something enjoyable but different every day, you can't be sure what you'll get (though he has taken to posting warnings about the cat columns).
Dave Barry: Weekly humor columnist for the Miami Herald. Not merely a joke-teller, but a very funny writer who structures his columns to great effect. Author of numerous books, including the 1992 clueless traveler class Dave Barry Does Japan