About blogging; plus, an interesting confluence

While I love comments, each and every one of them*, I was thinking about the concept, the heart of blogging, the whole "is this a conversation or a monologue" question, and what I decided is this.

*Except not the spam ones, but so far (knock wood) I've only had a couple of those.

My blog is my Pensieve. When I write about things, whether silly or serious, some of the steam is let out of the pressure cooker. Sometimes, just arranging events or my thoughts into a (hopefully) coherent story to blog helps me understand myself, or make a decision. Sometimes it helps me calm down, or realize that being upset is in fact the right response. And, of course, sometimes you wonderful people solve a problem for me, even if I didn't realize I was asking.

So: I love to hear from you, and I do mean you. But if not, that's fine: I'm amusing myself. Welcome to you.

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I get a couple of daily e-mails, book clubs and word of the day and things.

Today's word of the day was:

distaff \DISS-taff\ adjective

1 a : related through a mother b : inherited or derived from the female parent
*2 : female

Example sentence:
The Solheim Cup pits America's best distaff golfers against the top European women.

Did you know?
A distaff was originally a short staff that held a bundle of fibers — of flax or wool, for example — ready to be spun into yarn or thread. Since spinning was a basic daily task customarily done by women, the distaff came to be the symbol for the work or domain of women. This symbolic use of the noun "distaff" dates back to the time of Chaucer and is found in several works by Shakespeare. Eventually "distaff" came to be used for the female branch of a family and then as an adjective, as in "the distaff side of the family."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Then I opened the Stitch 'n Bitch page-a-day calendar for today:

A STITCH IN TIME

There is sometimes a reference in history or literature to someone being from the “distaff side of the family” (meaning the maternal side). A distaff is a device constructed to hold unspun fiber as it’s fed onto the spindle or into the spinning wheel. The use of this term has its origins in the Middle Ages. It comes from a reference in the Bible calling a virtuous woman one who seeks wool and works willingly with her hands on the spindle and distaff. That makes us all pretty virtuous!

To quote Douglas Adams (and doubtless others): It's a funny old thing, life.