20th Birthday of My Blog: Chicana on the Edge

Please, take a minute to go back with me in time to June 2004:

♦ John Kerry is working to prevent George W. Bush’s second term.

♦ The pop charts are dominated by The Black Eyed Peas, Avril Lavigne, and Maroon 5.

♦ MySpace is the site for connecting with others, while Facebook is still only available on college campuses

♦ Grey’s Anatomy won’t debut on ABC for another nine months.

♦ You can smoke in restaurants and bars (and many movie theaters).

♦ Texting happens by pressing the (actual, physical) number buttons on your phone.

♦ Renewed for another season: The West Wing and That ’70s Show

♦ And I decide it’s time I have my own blog.

The very first blog is believed to have been created in 1994, and Blogger.com started in 1999. People treated blogs (from “web logs”) like personal journals, and for a while new blogs sprouted at the startling rate of any cultural fad. But — as I like reminding people — in 2004 the word was that blogs were over. Experts said they’d run their course and we were all moving on.

Nevertheless, I believed I deserved a place for my dazzling insights and daring opinions, plus, as with just about everything in this…