Confessions and then to bed with Mussolini

I have a strange confession to make. I just spent a few minutes browsing on the internet and found a site that compiles blogs from various expats (www.expat-blog.com). Considering the fact that I have been (am?) an expat twice in two rather very different countries, I am slightly fascinated by other people's expat experiences. Moreover, I am confused about what being an expat truly means as I am facing my (in essence) sixth (!) transatlantic move, but this time "back" to Belgium, i.e. "home." Odd, because I think of it as yet another expat experience whereas I don't think of myself as such at the moment, living in Texas. Oh dear, I truly have been here long! Anyway, for anyone interested the site lists blogs by country of current residence and nicely shows by means of a flag where the author is from. Here's some trivia: there were 910 blogs for Western Europe, of which 24 for Belgium, 84 for Italy, and 214 for France! Does that mean that there is more to write about as a foreigner in France (or should I say, more to gripe about? ha, kidding!) Or do more people move to France? Obviously, these numbers mean nothing, but for some reason (maybe because it is late and I am tired....) I thought they were interesting. More than half of the authors writing about Italy were American. And from a first glance it seems that the majority of authors for both Italy and France were women who had fallen in love with a native and followed them home. Ha! I guess that is what I did way back when in 1993. If only there had been blogs then.

So what is my "confession"? I am strangly fascinated by the fact that so many people have no problem at all with going public with these things. They are filled with pictures, thoughts, etc. for just anyone to read and look at. Here is me, and here is my house and my dog, and here is a picture of what I cooked for dinner..... Some of the blogs are actually geared towards being useful to others, for instance people collecting information about an upcoming move to Italy and wanting to make it available to others. (Hey, I could help out all those other people who would want to buy a house in Belgium and then try to renovate it while living in Texas! Yeah, I betcha I would fill a real gap there!) But most of them seem to be blablabla-blogs. Like mine, actually. Although I must also say that looking at them I was actually not interested in reading any of them. Feels like a waste of time... so then, why do people do this--writing blogs I mean. (And why in the world would I think any of you are interested in what I rant about!) And what is the attraction of going public? Now, I suppose in order to get an sort of reply to this, I oughta go public, no? Several bloggers have numbers on their blogs indicating how many people have looked at their rantings. Wow, some are up there in the 800s. How bizarre that is. Yet also how fascinating. I guess they make the world yet again a bit smaller. What an incredibly strange phenomenon this internet is. I will never understand it really.

I will have to think some more on expatness. Can you ever un-become one? Have I lived here in the US long enough not to feel like an expat anymore? And can you be one in your home country? Aha, that is the biggest question of all. I will have to wait and see. There is the title for my next novel "A foreigner in my native land." I will keep you posted. For now, I head to bed. Mussolini lays there waiting for me. (well... his biography that is. Yes, I suppose it is an odd choice for evening reading, but oh well, I have my reasons.) Benito, here I come. Buona notte, da Texas.