This is a multi-parter post, as I am de-cluttering my Google Reader feeds. This is part two. Part one is here.

I have culled my blogs down. I won’t lie: it hurt. But I went from a bloated 252 feeds down to a svelte 155.

Hacking away the lifeless feeds was easy — there were lots and lots of outdated and dead feeds (including one that hadn’t updated since 2006!) I just clicked, clicked, clicked them out of existence.

Making the first pass of clearing out the living feeds was pretty easy, as well. There were a lot of blogs of limited interest to me, and a whole lot of tech gadget and/or BoingBoing-esque sites that were pretty redundant. Also: coding and web design blogs? No need for feeds — I seek out info on an as-needed basis, so out they went.

Making the second pass was hard. There were quite a few craft/lifestyle blogs that, while interesting, often didn’t pique my interest enough to click through to read. A lot of nouveau-domestic-type bloggers seem to be running out of steam; maybe real life is getting in their way, and meanwhile, I’m getting Hipstamaticked to death. I tossed a bunch of music blogs and boring, information-free blogs about nonprofits.

Then, I got tough. I got rid of a lot of feeds of friends whose blogs haven’t been updated in a long time. I was holding out hope that they’d come back, but I was also feeling a little bit like a sad, stage-door Johnny — waiting, perhaps in vain, for a new post. Some people I love too much to cut away, and I still hold onto hope that they’ll return to writing (ahem, Evany, Regina, Toni.)

Now that I’m as shorn and vulnerable as a just-styled poodle, I have fear that I’ll MISS OUT on something good, that there are shiny internet objects that won’t be called to my attention. But I shake off that feeling, trying to feel secure that if the object is meant to get to me, it will get to me.

And in terms of managing my blog-reading time, I do not ever hesitate to click the “Mark All as Read” button as much as I want.

I’m hoping this streamlining will make this info stream a little less turbulent.

More later.