Thursday, December 27, 2007

Consider this blog adjourned. (“Adjourned” may be pretentious, but it’s not just pretentious. I don’t want to call this “closed” because it’s still available to be read and I’ll still use it as a home page to keep links, and I don’t call it “ended” because that implies finality.)

I haven’t posted in over a month now. I’ve taken similar breaks before, and for similar reasons: my life was routine, but was going pretty well overall. So I had very little to write about — no advice to request or tears that were looking for shoulders, but also no interesting or exciting stories to tell.

Procrastination aside, I still write plenty for work. I get to expand my horizons with non-news writing whenever it's my turn to do the Clippings column. And it's not like I've done much of that here in a while, and there's no reason I couldn't start again if I want, here or elsewhere.

And some interesting things have happened in the past couple weeks, but they’re not the sort of thing I’ve wanted to write about in real-time detail in a public way. I've mentioned this more than once before, and I realize it’s a pretty irrational concern, but still. I realize that it might not be good to present different "selves" to one family member or friend and another, but I think it's entirely reasonable to present one self to friends and family and another to anyone who might happen to Google me. An on-again, off-again flirtation with a co-worker over the past few months, for example - yes, I realize it probably is unhealthy that I'd be willing to tell one friend about it but not another, equally-good friend, but not wanting to put it out here where anyone could find it seems more reasonable. So I might start another blog about personal stuff, but in a more secure way.

You know, this whole set of restrictions in my head is really fucked up. I write almost nothing that could offend my friends, almost nothing that would get peoples' hopes up on my behalf unless it's a sure thing, really nothing that could possibly offend someone who knows me through work, and so on. Those are the habits of ... well, I'll give up on trying to find the perfect metaphor and just say those are the habits of a pretty disturbed person. Maybe it would be easier to keep a journal that's not public, but if I start another blog, I definitely won't be so paranoid. If total anonymity is the only way to bring myself to do that, the extra hassle is worth it.

So this blog might come back or I might start one elsewhere, if I get more comfortable writing about my life or if I want to do more writing than just news. And I'll definitely keep on using it to follow links to comics and other blogs I like or remind myself exactly when something happened in recent years, like a journal. And everyone is welcome to do the same. But if you find my writing entertaining, ask me to recommend something out of the links to the right. And if you're a friend and you've been using this blog to keep track of what's been going on with me, well, you'll just have to pick up the phone.