The Wider Audience

Dear Son,

The other day I was talking to someone who'd happened across this blog while looking for the Federalist Society one. She told me she enjoyed it, and that it was well written, and even that she had pointed someone else to it who thought all conservatives were terrible human beings with no soul. (That made me laugh, honestly - nothing like the tolerant, non-judgmental, and understanding liberals who value diversity and respect for all...)

It was an odd kind of sense of exposure, and kind of unexpected, weirdly enough. I'd heard it a couple times before, and every time it was always with that odd kind of jolt. This, however, was thus far the most distant person I knew who'd read it (even though she's still a good friend).

Not that I mind, mind you. If I did, I wouldn't have (a) made it easy to find, (b) used my real name, (c) let it show up on my profile on the FedSoc page, etc. If part of me didn't want people to read it, it wouldn't be on a blog.

The first time I had that feeling was when I worked up the courage to tell your mom about it. The funny thing is that she'd already read it, but didn't want to tell me about it because she didn't know if I wanted her to know about it. The truth was, I didn't think it was good enough for her to see yet, or maybe that I hadn't said enough nice things about her (not that years of blog entries would be enough for that). But I was glad that she had seen it, and that she'd enjoyed it.

After I knew she knew about it, I even linked it on my MySpace page. I figured after that, I didn't really care who read it.

I imagine other people will read it eventually. One of these days I'll get around to putting a hit counter on the thing. I don't know if I'll be scared at how many people are looking over our shoulders, in a way, or disappointed that it isn't more of them. I suspect it'll be a little of both.

So there it is. For whatever it's worth, you won't be the first person to have read this. But honestly, I still think almost exclusively of you as my audience when I'm writing this - the other readers are a background I'm only faintly conscious of as I type. (Your mom is the only exception to this - she's the better writer, and I fear her disappointment with every grammatical error that I let seep through - and, after all, I want her to think I'll be a good Dad!) And at the end of the day, you will be the only reader I really care about impressing, and the only blog audience that really matters.

Love, Dad.