Why do I blog?

This being the week of my 8th anniversary of blogging, I've been all reflective and shit. Writers like to be reflective. It gives us a legitimate reason to indulge our moody brooding, one of our favorite, favorite things.


Wah! Look how angsty I am, because I'm a writer, although rarely do I actually sit down and write anything. But still; wah.

 First, I prefer to self-label myself as a writer, not a blogger. I don't look down on bloggers, but what traditional bloggers do is not what I do, even though this is a blog and it's mine and by definition, I am indeed a blogger. But what I do is more along the lines of posting a writer's journal for public consumption and I write about whatever happens to strike me. Most bloggers tend to focus on something specific and write about just that.
From what I've been told, most bloggers live in their mom's basement. I do not. I live in Florida where we don't even have basements. I've never lived in anybody's basement, although I kind of wanted to. When I lived in Michigan, lots of people had turned their basements into small underground playrooms or even apartments and sometimes, they let their kids live down there. They had pool tables and air hockey, a bed and usually a TV. Sure, there might be a washer and dryer down there too, but still; basically a private underground lair. What kid, blogger or not, wouldn't want that? My family only lived in one house that had a basement and it was pretty sad. It was a wide-open space with a cold concrete slab of a floor and cinderblock walls. More often than not, depending on the time of year, it was flooded, not suitable for washing machines or air hockey. Picture a concrete room the size and shape of a house's footprint under two feet of water. We didn't go down there very often because it was creepy and depressing.
Aside from online journaling and subterranean living accomodations, why blog? There are therapeutic aspects. I get to rant and rave about things that distress me. I get to praise things I like. I meet women (that hasn't really worked out that well...yet... I mean, it kinda has, on a short term basis, which is fine but... well, you never know). I meet cool people in general (this has worked out VERY well).
Those are all pretty solid reasons. Solid enough that I'll stick with it.