Nearly twenty years ago, on Friday, July 11, 2003, Steve showed me his favorite political blogs – Andrew Sullivan, James Lileks, and other long forgotten sites. I thought they were cool, so I promptly set up a free blogspot account and began writing little things for my husband to read at lunch time. I never expected anybody to find it and read it. It was always just for fun.
But people did find my blog and read it, despite the fact that I refused to commit to one type of blogging, and, thus, confused everyone. Some days I was an academic blogger, other days I was political blogger. And some days, I was a personal blogger, who talked about raising kids in a four floor walk-up in Manhattan, while teaching a graduate school class at Columbia.
Personal blogging, sometimes called mommyblogging, was a huge thing back then. Women wrote irreverent, self-deprecating essays about raising kids, a welcome relief from the old-school, saccharine parenting books and magazines. Dooce was the OG mommyblogger, one of my daily reads, and she killed herself this week. I’m heartbroken.
Read more at Apt. 11D, the newsletter
Apt. 11d 