Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

In 300 years, if you were to be named the patron saint of X, what would you like X to be? Places, activities, objects — all are fair game.

Google “Patron Saint of Bloggers” and see how many suggestions you receive. As with many things, saints are assigned new duties by the faithful masses using extrapolation and even whimsy. FWIW, Arianna Huffington is not on the list. I think “exposure” is probably not the best terminology for a would-be-saint to prop their work with the huddled-over-the-laptop masses. Right?  And whom better to serve as a compassionate intercessioner than a female queer blogger – talk about bottom of the heap.

As a cultural-Catholic, Saints were the order of the day. My pre-Vatican II mother knew most of them. I read a lot of Saint histories during Mass (I stole them from the church library and snuck them into my missalette.) Freakish stuff that I always thought was simply preposterous and absolutely chalked up to symbolic lessons, not literal descriptions of events. It was clear to me that miracles were lessons for the general masses, not gifts to the most deserving although it did make sense to me that Jesus (not necessarily “God”) would use humble people to teach lessons. Because we never seem to grasp that he truly does expect us to learn from those we deem lesser than us.

So I’d nominate myself to be the (a) Patron Saint of Bloggers. 300 years should be enough time for me to come up with a miracle or for the people left behind to simply take care of that for me. As I can’t predict what technology will look like in 300 years, I’ll have to use the modern world as my canvas for miraculous interventions.

First, autosave every .000001 seconds so no work is every lost. I still lament that terrific post I wrote in 2006 about a Pittsburgh Steeler and his gold pants. It was witty, it had wordplay, it was terrific. I don’t even remember the Steeler – just the feeling of dread when the power went out and poof! it was gone. I’ll find a nice 50 something blogger who has worked hard all their life to create content and gift them with the miraculous instantaneous autosave on any platform under any circumstances code so they can share it with the world and register it for a trademark.

Second, when young people turn 13 all photographic evidence of them on parental and family blogs will become invisible to anyone but their parents and themselves. No share buttons. No likes. No embarrassing google searches by classmates or potential college recruiters. It will remain locked in a vault, undamaged but unshareable, until they turn 26 and can decide what to do with it. I will allow parents to continue contributing to it, but aside from prom photos, nothing will be visible.

Third, JetPack and WordPress will be elevated to demi-gods and given the obligation to fully integrate themselves with Google, Facebook and Twitter without the intervention of plugins. Maybe Instagram, still mulling over that one. You want it to work and it shall.

Fourth, after 300 years the “curse jar” for people who use the word blog in lieu of a blog post as in “I posted a new blog today. It is fantastic” will have accumulated enough money to purchase proper domain names for everyone. Everything will be self-hosted thanks to the unwillingness of the grammatically challenged to embrace common decency. On the flip side, the Oxford comma bit the dust about 240 years ago. #tradeoff

Fifth, trolls report to Purgatory for your indoctrination.

Finally, if your blog creates a better world in any way, you shall be spared from carpal tunnel syndrome. Every morning, you shall awake with hands and wrists and fingers feeling refreshed and invigorated.