What is blog? Baby, don't hurt me.

EMILY GOULD is a soul-sex goddess, and she doesn't even know what that is.

The ten page NY Times Magazine foray into her life (something like "I'm Anne Hathaway in the Devil Wears Prada except instead of a fashion magazine, I deal in BLOGGING and I have tattoos") makes me realize two things.

1. Blogs are Zach Morris at "The Max". He goes everyday to make sure that Slater doesn't steal his woman. Sometimes, the Saved By the Bell viewer gets the extra special treat of watching real time "freeze" as Zach breaks the fourth-wall (as they say in the biz). "Time out!" Zach tells it like it is. According to Zach. Then he pulls a little caper to manipulate the scene to his favor. "Time In!" And Tiffani Amber Theissen struggles with physical comedy as her character's limbs have been reapportioned to land in Zach's waiting embrace.

So, this is news? Bloggers are narcissists. We like to go to the predictably streamered and smelly gym that is the open-forum of the internet. In our own corner, near the locker rooms (the blog hosting real-estate for the young and broke), we are allowed to be the coolest kids at the seventh-grade dance - plus - we get executive editing rights to the re-telling of how the first slow dance goes down.

Sanctity of the TIMES aside (the argument that Gould's article doesn't reflect a 'standard' that the publication upholds is one of snobbery, not to mention it is a larger can-of-worms issue that frankly, is not as interesting), what did we really expect from this article? From Gould? Did we expect anything else from ourselves as readers? As bloggers?

I, like Gould, have posted my public life more times than not. Soul-sex, I named it in college one day to the giggles of my private-liberal-arts-Lutheran-all-girled-dormitory pals.

When you connect with a dude intellectually, on some very special and revered level - when you deliever any sentence starting with "I know we just met, but..." - when he agrees with you that Howard Dean's outdoor voice was inspiring and not terroristic - when first date conversation turns all "I'm afraid to love again! Who is God! Where is God?" and so on and so forth.

I was an unabashed soul-sex slut. Some girls were chasing the female orgasm; count on me to be fishing for original poems and reported shout-outs in therapy. "I think your thoughts on Respighi are really changing my world, I told Dr. McPsychoanalyzesalot so; he thinks you're good for me" and I was a satisfied woman.

My xanga blog seemed like a great way to be doted on as a truth-revealer to the scams of relationships (among a few funny bits here and there). I loved tales of my bitter and angst-ridden soul-sex insecurities. Although the writing was definitely a cathartic exercise, such a small school should make one pause before stapling internal organs on the outside of their sweaters. Cause those things don't come off easily, and I learned that a couple years later, while attempting to shove my heart back into my chest.

Emily Gould learned it too but decided to keep talking about it.

I haven't yet decided if that was ultra sweet or if she's a moron. No matter. If we've learned anything from her musings, it's that what I think as an anonymous spectator of her issues isn't important...but she did make me (and 1120 commentators on the nytimes.com site) THINK and that is irrefutably cool.

Another thing for sure? Her blog is great, and she is an impressive young writer. I am jealous, yet I love. Which brings me to the second thing Emily Gould taught me today.

2. Blog entries are not meant to be autobiographical essays. This is how I know I'm not blogging correctly. (Sasha Frere-Jones). It's also how I know I'm not a real writer, not yet. First there happens to be that whole issue of being unpublished. (Potato. Poh-tah-toe.) Second - blogs are precise. Short. They are the Accuradio 30-second BBC news spots to Dan Rather's rambling hour. The time it takes, even, to obviously state that my blogs are anything but sparkling gems of brevity...

So I believe that this post will conclude "Message in a Bottle". I gotta move. I'm not traveling anymore, so it's a good time to transition... AND! I am tired of humming the Police everytime I log on. Literarily, it's time that I learned to maneuver this genre just as I am giving fiction and reporting and editorial comment and essay the same effort.

I'll let you know when I have the address of my new, cramped apartment: the one that forces me to exercise the closet-shoe organizer, saying what I need to say but being wiser about using the space that I have.