There's something that's both very vain and very voyeuristic about blogging. Unlike a diary you have to be aware (even hope) that someone else is reading what you write. On one hand it has to be personal and on the other there are still personal limits that you can choose to impose or not.

Every so often when the mood takes me (and deadlines don't) I hit that button at the top of the blog page that says 'Next Blog' and it takes to me to random pages. It's a great exercise in life and it takes you to places and people that you'd probably never visit by everyday choice. Most you flick past, some you don't. In the last year I've witnessed the musings of people in tens of different countries and sometimes in languages that I barely understand. There's been everyday stories of a family's life, the diary of a New York photogrpaher, pages advertising stocks and shares, the chroniciling of an international couple's illicit affair (note to self: don't have affair and certainly don't create a permenant dialogue on-line). A few months back I saw a picture of a beautiful asian face and decided to save it to my drive for art reference whenever I got around to painting or illustrating again. The site was run by a blogger called Lisa, an openly gay writer who explained to her readers that after a wild and crazy life she's apparently just fallen in love with a girl named Ayumi. This week, cycling back to the page, I glanced at the latest entries and saw, in Ayumi's broken English, the news that Lisa had gone missing, been found mugged and had been in hospital with severe brain injuries for several weeks. She died a few days ago.

I never met Lisa. I'll never meet Ayumi. The international affair couple seem to have broken up and gone their separate ways. Someone is still advertising stocks in some vague profit scheme.

It occurs to me that we touch each other's lives in brief and distant ways, often softly colliding without noticing or brushing past against shared moments, never knowing what meetings or people will be the important firsts, lasts or forevers until later, if at all. Perhaps if we paid more attention we'd know how much they affect both the people we meet everyday and those who simply, briefly skirt the edges. Perhaps we'd take a moment to realise that, even a little distance off, they can matter.