Concerned I might not know the etiquette of blogging, I perused the Internet in search of answers.

Blog Rules 101

1. Don’t vent personal issues about someone else.

2. Take the time to comment without calling names.

3. Don’t drag people into your drama.

4. Mix in a video.

5. Make meaningful charts, articles, tables, and pictures.

6. Monopolizing, hijacking, or steamrolling prohibited.

7. Keep commentary on topic.

8. Don’t gang up on anyone.

9. Racial, ethnic slurs, stereotyping of any kind not tolerated.

10. You can’t copy and paste copyrighted stuff.

11. Be safe—do not share personal information about residence, phone, etc.

12.  Keep religion out of discussions.

13. Say what everyone else thinks. {Psychic!}

14. If someone asks for a critique, offer constructive criticism.

15. Remove constructive negative comments.

16. Have a thoughtful discussion with courtesy and discourse. {discourse means discussion}

17. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

18. If I overlook a question, ask me again. {Really?}

19. Start all statements with “People are Stupid and here’s why?” {Copied word-for-word.}

20. Include interesting links.

21. Be more creative than the rest.

22. Post at least one guiding question in the blog. {I don’t know why I find that funny.}

23. Have a bigger vision. {I’m going to rule the world!}

24. Let’s agree to be honest but still “sisterly.” {giggling}

25. Don’t be racist or morally offensive.

26. Threats, slander, and violence prohibited.

27. Make sense.

28.  No trolling.

29. No inappropriately long, rambling rants.  {Good thing rants was included.}

30. No threats of any kind.

31. No name calling, particularly if I’m the recipient. {Love the last part.}

32. No nasty, snide, snarcky tone. {It’s snarky.}

33. Be Ladies and Gentlemen.

34. Passion without wallowing in mire. {One of my favorites.}

35. Don’t cyberbully.

36. No real names.

37. Be careful who you talk to. {whom}

38. No inappropriate pictures.

39. Avoid legal entanglement. {laughing again}

40. Cite your sources, check your facts, respect copyright law. {Does this include the copying of super cute images?}

41. Don’t have any private “convosations.”

42. Consider the implications.

43. Purposely don’t follow blogging rules. {Say what?}

44. Add your own rules.  {Okay?}

45. Traditional blogging doesn’t exist. {Oh, no!}

46. Keep posts short. {Oops}

47. Keep posts as long as they have to be. {Deep sigh of relief}

48. Use correct grammar. {I’m dyslexic.}

49. Challenge yourself and others using your critical thinking skills.

50.  Provide value, something worthwhile.

51. Focus on a niche.

52. Insults are not tolerated and will be subject to edit or deletion.

53. Be opinionated. {What’s left to be opinionated about?}

54. Be more extreme than others. {I’m thinking sports.}

55. Get personal.

56. Be more personal than the others. {The mysterious others on the other side of blog island? Lost reference.}

57. Be transparent.

58. Remember kids might read the content.

59. You have to know what you are talking about.

60. You have to want to write it.

61. You have to care about your readers {This from a blog filled with half-naked photos of women.}

62.  Be the best teacher in your niche. {I want an easy niche!}

63. When competitors begin sending customers to your site to understand a topic, you’ll know you’ve won. {So not making sense.}

64.  Be funnier than the others. {Does dorky count?} {More mysterious others.}

65. Your blog should be easy to navigate.

66.  Don’t focus on widgets. {Crap, I seriously love widgets!}

67.  Be the source of timely news.

68. Develop your own strategies.

69. Posting the same thing over and over again is annoying.

70. Posting the same thing over and over again is annoying.

71.  No flaming. {Or hosing}

72. No soliciting. {Try some vita-juice!}

73. Do not engage in criminal behavior.

74. Don’t drag visitors off with comments.

75. Use good judgment.

76. Blog frequently and intelligently.

77. Be trustworthy.

78. Be respectful of other people, especially when you disagree.

79. People will disagree, and might be really mad at you. {Yikes!}

80. Be right.

Conclusion: Blog rules, like all rules in life (especially the social arena rules), sometimes involve basic common sense but can also be restrictive, contradicting, ambiguous, confusing, debatable, and sometimes just downright laughable.

                                                

My Blog Rules:

 1.   Be yourself

2.    If you are a dumb butt or poop head, prepare for deletion.

Just incase you’re wondering: 101 means introductory to something. The reference is to a college course with the course code 101, which in the American system indicates an introductory course, often with no prerequisites.

Feel free to continue onward

 

Warning: Last night I had a dream. I had extreme pressure in my head. To release the pressure, I held one nostril closed and then shot out gunk from my opposite nostril. Two objects flew out of the hole: one unrecognizable and small, the other about two-feet in length. Both were cornhusk-like, but heavy. The larger of the two looked like a cornhusk doll, except it was shaped into a giant creepy stiff insect. The pressure in my head was gone. Interpretation: To relieve pressure in my brain, unidentifiable and unknown chunks of information are flying onto my blog posts. Proceed with caution. (It just occurred to me that Freud would perchance interpret this dream differently.)

If you’ve perused my posts…

Shoot. I must absolutely stop right there. Because, most fascinatingly enough, the word perused, has two polar opposite meanings. I am quite enamored with this little self-discovery, as I found an anomaly—just like me. Wait a second. I just looked up the word anomaly. I take that back, I don’t like the related meaning glitch. It rhymes with…

Back to perused.  Many people are unaware that perused means both the common recognized: to read something quickly, and also means: to read something carefully. So explain, please, how can one word mean: read thoroughly/pore over, and at the same time also mean: skim? Don’t believe me? I’ll pause and collect my overflowing thoughts, while you click dictionary under Tools on the computer.

The reason I’m so haughty about perused, is because my university professor used the word in an assignment, when she asked us to list what textbook readings we had perused. I wrote the two definitions of perused down for her, asking for clarification. Then I deleted the question and pretended to not know there were two opposing meanings. I tend to do that a lot in life, reveal and delete.

Rewinding my prose to the first fragmented sentence at the top of the post, you probably are tuned into the fact that sometimes  often times, people with Aspergers (like me), and people without Aspergers {like my husband}, escape the overload of environmental stimuli and/or emotions, phobias, deadlines, expectations, in-laws, dirty dishes, and such, by fixating on something or another.

I’ve known of a few mates to get so self-absorbed in fixit projects that conveniently their children, wife, and dog temporarily vaporize. But I’m not mentioning any names, especially about my adoring Spock-like significant other. Any information of the personal happenings of my family (besides me), that are casually mentioned on this here blog, I blame on the paint fumes wafting from the yonder hallway (where my husband currently stands with brush in hand).

I don’t like to paint, or clean, or fix things, or make dinner, or do laundry, or pick up poop or junk off the van floor, or do any boring things that don’t qualify as intellectual stimuli. (I realize, as a result of sentence-structure, it appears I have poop on my van floor. I don’t.)  I did manage for a few months to love daily chores, when I was fixating on Buddhism, and practicing being present in the moment. I had the best spot of tea ever—the mug, the temperature of the water, the peppermint smell…all so divinely scrumptious. Can’t say the same about being in the moment with poop, though.

Typically, for a-typical me, typical things are typically drab. Which in review limits my chances of ever qualifying for wife of the year.

As I was trying to say before, my fixations have varied in timespan and subject matter; but whether obsessively searching the Internet for the best real town to live in, or creating the best imaginary farm on Farmville (Facebook application), it’s accurate to report my fixations preoccupy my waking hours, and somewhat my dream state, as well, (flying cartoon cows—MOOO).

That is, until one day, out of the blue (or purple, or green), I rise in the morning and a light bulb in my head clicks from fixation on to fixation off, and all desire to proceed has vanished.

Which leads me to this blog: my current light bulb on highest wattage fixation.

Hmmmm? What does this mean, Sam Craft? I ask myself using my fictitious name.

I am now pausing to daydream about changing my legal name to Sam Craft. Full name: Samantha Alexandria Craft. Initials SAC, which are better initials than SIC or SOC or SUC or SYC. Sam Craft, because the name truly fits my personality; and no one mispronounces it or asks: “Is that Italian?” (Of course, it’s Italian. You dumb butt. You knew that before you asked.)

What this means is my current fixation (this blog) IS the exact tool I’m using to explore my current fixation. It’s a riddle.

While exploring my Asperger’s trait of fixation, through blogging, I’m actively participating in the Asperger’s trait of fixation. Which is somewhat as mentally perplexing as exploring the concept of latching on to identities (Asperger’s trait), as I latch onto the identity of a person with Aspergers.

Get the picture? It’s a step up from the whole perused discussion. I could sketch the riddle, or you could picture an Italian chick (my dad’s 100%) with enormously large brown eyes, pulling her hair out and screaming.

Part of my hair loss is due to the blog fixation. Fine, call it an obsession. Or even call it poop. It is what it is. And with the poop comes this nifty Aspergerian gift of searching for rules and guidelines. Which results in researching rules for blogging. Which involves reading others’ blogs, and actually typing in the search term “Blog Rules.”

With all that’s transpired—blog fixation leading to blog rule fixation—I have constructed a list of blog rules: Blog Rules 101