4 posts tagged “blogging”
Does my inability (or unwillingness) to maintain several blogs simultaneously make me a serial blogamist? Does my inability to choose just one, and stick to it, make me unfaithful - or just a tease? As they say on Twitter - follow me! I haven't left Vox, but these days I'm focusing on http://jahangiri.us/news, so drop by and join me for blogrolls and coffee some time.
My reply to Honoring Filters:
As I keep trying to explain to my teenager, very few people in your life will keep your "secrets." Why she's surprised, anymore, when her "BFF" spills the beans or shares a confidence in her ten other BFFs is beyond me. Trusting someone is always a risk. A better rule would be "Don't post anything publicly, even 'filtered,' if it's going to cause you heartburn in the morning." (Imagine growing up to be a writer - your mom encouraging you, at every turn, yet saying in the same breath, "Never put it in writing, lest it come back to haunt you!" Oy. There's a recipe for schizophrenia.) As corporate ethics classes teach us, "Will it pass the headline test?" If you see your post on the front page of the morning newspaper, will it cause you to spew your coffee? Will you be humiliated? Feel guilty? Start thinking up far-fetched explanations to your boss or your spouse?
Another co-worker put it well: "If you don't respect your own secrets and keep them to yourself, why should I?" Few people are this honest about it, but she makes an excellent point. If your secret is sacred, don't share it.
That said, I do keep confidences. I find that's the only reliable way to continue being let in on them. ;) I like being "in the know" as much as the next person. I suppose it's a little unfair that the rumors stop somewhere between my ears. I know I'm expected to share in return, but I guard my little treasures selfishly. I hoard them. This means that, over time, the only rumors I'm privy to, I got straight from the horse's mouth. Gossips don't like it when you don't reciprocate, so I'm out of the loop with the office rumor mill, for the most part. Now and then, someone just can't contain themselves, and little tidbits spill forth from their lips within earshot. But I see them furtively look my way and clam up. My sister-in-law once said, "That's the bad thing about you only children. You don't know how to share." Sometimes, that's a good thing.
I'd have made an excellent priest, lawyer, or psychologist (though admittedly, there comes a point in all this where I'm struck by an urge to cover my ears with my hands and sing out "La la la la la - I'm not hearing this!") But that's just me. There's another, less noble, reason for my trustworthiness: I have a remarkably short memory and I just don't give a damn. No, really - I care about you and your heartaches, but by tomorrow, I'll have forgotten the juicier details and I've simply no desire to cause you heartache in the first place. Look, if I hate you so badly it'd be worth my time to spread rumors and tell tales in order to hurt you, you already know - because I've told you to your face, in clear, simple, direct, monosyllabic words any moron can understand. Takes a lot to get to that point, and trust me - you'll know. At that point, I just can't see you sharing confidences with me - but if you do, all bets are off.
When sharing confidences, I follow my parents' rules for Las Vegas (no, not "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"): Never gamble more than you can afford to lose.
Originally posted on stormport.spaces.live.com, in response to MSN’s 31 Ways to Use Your Blog?
How about 31 ways not to use your blog?
31) Spread office gossip. Really - don't we all get enough of this at the water cooler? Okay, just don't name names. Unless you have a subconscious desire to watch your career go down in flames.
30) Talk about your sex life (unless it's so interesting it brings out the voyeur in your uptight, grandmotherly church secretary).
29) Discuss bodily functions and fluids - particularly their odor, color, texture, and frequency. As my teenaged daughter would say, "Eww. Overshare."
28) Call your ex a "whore," a "slut," a "tool," a "jerk-off," a "@#$%" - oh, you fill in the blank. It's been done; the shock value's all wrung out of it by now. Besides, wouldn't it be more fun to let the ex's current lover find this out for himself or herself?
27) Keep a daily journal of your food intake, household cleaning chores, and other mundane items on your to-do list. Unless you're competing with Ambien CR and Lunesta for "Best Sleep Aid."
26) Post quotes from Uncle Al or Aunt Mildred. Unless they're particularly pithy quotes from particularly eccentric old relatives, in which case, do entertain and enlighten us. It's about time we came up with a line of fortune cookies that'd give ol' Confucious a run for his money.
25) Post a list of your enemies. I mean, why tip 'em off?
24) Post pictures of the dust bunnies under your bed. Unless you mount them on colored paper, immortalize them on digital media, Photoshop them, and call them "art."
23) Describe a recent sexual adventure. On second thought... Well, see #30. Only if it's really interesting. Alternatively, make stuff up.
22) Compliment your dog. It's not as if your dog can read. I guarantee you'll have more success with a large box of Milk-Bone doggie treats.
21) Compliment your cat. See #22. On the other hand... maybe that's who's been going through my mail at night. @#$%! "Fluffy!!"
20) List 100 things you don't want anybody to know about you. You know, like, your deepest, darkest secrets and fears. Lay it all out there.
19) Post your Top 10 Laws I Want to Break Before I Die, then work your way through the list. Your blog will likely become...evidence.
18) Insult your cat. See #21. It's okay to insult your dog, though. He's too busy licking his - well, and he can't read, anyway, now can he?
17) Post Webcam photos of yourself hunched over the computer at night. Look to the left...look to the right...make a funny face...stick out your tongue... It's been done. They all look alike.
16) Review the manual that came with your computer or the training video from flight school.
15) Describe a class you dropped, and the dead-end job you were not hired for.
14) Describe your snoring.
13) Rate a public bathroom. No, wait - there are actually some very entertaining Web sites built around this concept. Just make sure to "go" in some interesting places. No one cares what the inside of the Port-a-John in looks like. More accurately...we know.
12) Excuse away your daily failures.
11) Offer tips on topics you know absolutely nothing about. Like parenting, if you're a single, upwardly-mobile, transgendered eunuch. Or a twelve year old who's ticked off that Daddy won't pay for a nose-ring. Just because you had parents doesn't mean you're qualified to razz the frazzled from the peanut gallery. Go out and get a kid of your own, then tell me how easy it is. (Note to twelve year old jonesing for the nose-ring: Wait on that. I certainly can. No need to prove me right in the next 10-12 years, really. I'm patient.)
10) Document the growth rate of grass on the front lawn by the number of beers consumed while watching it grow. Especially if you just want to gloat over the government grant you won to study this.
9) Create a Christmas card letter. C'mon, how tacky is it to send out postcards with Santa ho-ho-hoing and your URL printed on the other side? At least set your page to a holiday Theme.
8) Share a poem of yours. See, I disagree with MSN on this one. Don't do it. It's so...yesterday. Share your serialized NaNoNovel, instead. On second thought, that's pretty yesterday, too.
7) Tell heartwarming pest stories. You know, like the time you caught that squirrel in the live trap, and had to argue with Uncle Ed over whether to drive 100 miles out to the country to set it free, or euthanize it in the bathtub. Or maybe that one about feeding the termites the old dining room table, resulting in a truce - they'd eat your old furniture and leave the house frame intact.
6) Describe a top-secret project you're working on. Better yet, describe a top secret project someone else is working on.
5) Post a daily report of your diet failures and lack of progress.
4) You spent how much on soy lattes last month?
3) Post a list of songs on your iPod. Or CDs in your CD collection. Or albums - those big, black vinyl discs? How about books on your bookshelf? Or cleaning supplies in your cupboard? Or number of fingernail clippings (with polish shades carefully documented) you've saved since 1972? Who cares?
2) Photos of your shoes. If your name's not Imelda Marcos, your shoe fetish is just...smelly.
1) Rant about politicians. Instead, why not rant about the lack of political activists and interested voters determined to make a difference?
It keeps me writing regularly, even when I don't have a story or a poem inside me. Sometimes, the act of writing about my day, my thoughts, and my feelings will spark a story idea or inspire a poem. It’s a good way to get unblocked, or prevent a case of writer’s block from becoming crippling. (Update 2006: WTF was I thinking? I don't believe in writer's block. Never did. And "crippling"? Could we get any more melodramatic? Okay, so blogging is a form of discipline. If I don't write anything Pulitzer-worthy, I have to blog about my day and risk public humiliation for admitting that I've done nothing, lately, that inspires a bestselling novel. Thus, blogging becomes a harsh reminder to "GET A LIFE!" Perhaps if we lived as if we were going to blog about it, we'd live more interesting lives.) It helps me to feel connected. Reading others’ journals and their responses to mine reminds me that no matter what, I’m not alone. By encouraging others to comment on my journal, I can’t sit here and wallow in private misery when I’m feeling rotten. I can get it out of my system, then get a little understanding, a little empathy, a little insight, and a much-needed kick in the seat of the pants. (Update 2006: Have you ever gotten a cramp in your thigh from kicking yourself in the ass? Ouch. "Helps me to stay connected..." Wow. Given that I'm an only child who craves solitude like most people crave oxygen, and never get enough of it, what was I thinking when I wrote that? Okay, maybe I should have been a bit more honest: "I like knowing that people read what I write. For the love of G-d, leave a comment so I don't gnaw off my fingers.") It saves going out and seeking advice. Readers are very generous with that. I love getting emails from people who read what I write. Good, bad, doesn't matter - it's a conversation starter. (Update 2006: Okay, so the one comment that went something like "This is the most boring crap I've ever read, and if I pay you will you please stop right now?" got to me - a little - until Anonymous's check bounced.) It saves having to answer the same questions twenty times. It lets me answer in as much depth as I want to, without monopolizing friends’ time. “How was your day?”
