Three cups of coffee after 8pm is a bad plan: Meta-Blog
The coffee was go good at the time that reason got away from me. Whoa, it's March. I guess it's almost "mid-March." I hadn't really paid attention to the date until I finally re-set my watch today to make up for an abbreviated February. I had lost about 3 days that I won't get back. By the same token, I am just about approaching my one-year blog anniversary. Ironically, the first anniversary is traditionally marked with paper, if I am not mistaken.
This blog is the opposite of paper. It's also my first year without a pen to paper journal, a tradition about my life I sort of miss, but the convenience of typing and much clearer fonts are only achieved by this computer doppleganger. The thing is, you fill up a journal. Since you have to move onto new editions, you don't have the benefit of pulling it out and catching up on old times. At best, you can only catch up a few months' worth of entries when you are away from home, traveling on a train, away on vacation, at college and the rest of your self-proclaimed library is growing dusty in your Connecticut bedroom. In this format, it's nice that I can click back to any month, scroll, and there it is, available at any computer. Granted I don't have wireless web hooked up to my brain so I am constrained accordingly, but the internet is usually close and reliable enough to feel in touch.
I don't know what has necessarily changed about the content of my journal and what you see here. It's probably less personal, I am reluctant to use some names here, recite everything about my life, especially things that are very uncertain, hurtful, potentially damaging, or embarassing. For that reason, my journal is probably more sultry, vicious, and melodramatic. I include a lot of rants in my blog and, truth be told, I've never written one in my hand-written journal. But the rants I include are likely things that I would bring up in conversation - so the blog is inbetween personal and personable. Both conversational and literary. Also, every time I write in my journal I always begin with the same headline: day, date, year, weather. I've never used the same kind of 'weather' report in my title line, although it comes up in passing. Maybe I'll start doing that in the next year, maybe not.
The whole blog thing is very Truman Showesque, only without the innocence. There's no mistake that there's an audience (and the audience is potentially infinite and unwelcome), whereas with my journal, there was no mistake that the book, the words, the memories, the insights belong(ed) exclusively for me. I would feel mortified, violated, overly exposed and just awful if I ever caught someone reading / or found out that someone else had read my journal. I don't think I could ever talk to that person again. Now, I make a habit of writing for others. That's a big internal shift, but for me, I still think I get out of this blog what I want. I don't think I've given up myself as my most faithful fan and sharp critic - so it remains mine, although I've moved past coveting and the mortal sin of kindergardeners everywhere:
a reluctance to share. But deep down inside, I think it's worth admitting that there are two very different types of sharing. It's one thing to share your grapes at lunch when you don't really like green grapes and you aren't that hungry anyway, then it's just a generous gesture and others smile favorably on your act. This does fit the definition of sharing - you are (willingly) giving something of yours to another person. However, it's another thing entirely when you are dealing with something precious, rare, and more cherished, like
cornbread. When someone asks you for a piece, you cock your eyebrow, sternly, and say: "I don't share that. You got to get your own." (if you know Nathan Davis, the last part makes much more sense, but even if you don't, pretend to follow my late-hour loopy logic). It might even be more subtle than that. A friend hints that s/he is dying for a soda. Meanwhile, you know that you have a single diet coke hidden in your fridge, you've been hoarding it, and you plan to drink it on your way to your 11am class tomorrow. They ask / hint and you don't flinch, stay locked on your poker face. They get over it, move on, rummage through pockets and raid the soda machine. The next day you drink your diet coke and feel no guilt. This blog might be an exchange - me making a gesture to an anonymous (and in cases known) reader. Up until this point, I think I've been kind, but I probably offer up grapes more than cornbread. Don't even suggest that your itching for a diet coke.
Strategically, I think this last post is important. Therefore, I am going on hiatus again and going to let this rest at the top of the pecking order of entries to get the exposure it deserves. Plus, I've been writing too much lately, a lousy side-effect of my boredom. I'll only break my promise if I get a job, into grad school, fall in love, or I witness a miracle -- and yes, all of the above COUNT as miracles
posted by lmjasinski at 1:48 AM
