Everything But the Vatican

I encountered a new co-worker the other day who seemed nice enough.

Then I read her blog.

Wow, she’s not very nice to my co-workers. Her grammar is awful, too. She also announces when she has written something when she is naked.

These transgressions are not truly crimes (of law, though grammar violations should have more serious consequences than just my derision). Everyone can misspell, use incorrect grammar and be mean. I just didn’t expect to have it sent to me by Google.

You see, Google has this great service: the company will comb blogs and Web sites for keywords upon request, and return with one or more hits whenever the keywords are found. I have four such searches conducted by Google every day: one for work and three for subjects of interest to me. Work is sent to my work e-mail and the rest are sent home.

You, my readers of this and my other blogs, have benefited from this: many news stories I post are from those very sources. This excellent resource allows me to save some time while remaining surprisingly well-informed.

And now it allows me to read what at least one co-worker thinks.

I sent the link to a couple interested parties of authority in the workplace. If they saw nothing wrong with it, no harm, no foul. I also was possibly shooting myself in the foot: I blog. If the Big Boss decided there is to be a blog policy, well, that wouldn’t necessarily bode well for me.

However, I have a few things this other blogger doesn’t.

First, I have a little smarts: I don’t put information in that makes me spot-on recognizable, such as my last name and workplace. I doubt she blogs under her real name (if so, her parents are very cruel), but I do know where she works and for how long.

Secondly, my boss has seen my blog. More than once. In fact, I hope he has checked out the puppy haikus.

Thirdly, I don’t write about work. I love my blogable job (and does anyone else think there should be a second "g" in that word?), but no one would believe half of what I write about it, anyway. It would sound nearly as fantastic as a Dan Brown novel, with people who are too beautiful and too smart and perfect for real life, not to mention close Vatican ties. And it stars Tom Hanks — so how believable is it?

So, really, I can’t blog about work with any credibility.

But I can plug reading and libraries, animals, poetry, pedicures, fitness and common sense (á la Chris), beg drivers to stay out of my left lane on the highway and pray that I’m not enough of a celebrity to get anywhere near 15 minutes of fame. It’s fleeting and fickle, fame and public adoration, so I’ll just skip it all and live a life of obscurity.

That is, until the Coen Brothers, George Clooney and/or Amy Heckerling read my blog and hire me to write for her/him/them, adding to his/her/their fame and/or fortune — then, well, who am I to refuse her/him/them such talent? (With as much ambiguity in that last sentence and way too many slashes, I'm sure my opportunity is shot. At least, I hope it is. Oh, well, see previous reference to "fleeting and fickle." At least I got it over with quickly and relatively painlessly before I got used to it.)