Monday, March 31, 2008

I'm back!

Taking a vow of silence last week gave me a nice break, but gosh I missed having a place to air my thoughts and grievances!

I didn't realize how accustomed I've become to putting the constant monologue that jabbers on in my brain down somewhere. It's actually something I've been doing my entire life, starting with the tiny pink diaries I kept when was a little kid, with a lock and key that I was very careful to always seal. And while this blog was created to record my ruminations and experiences and my identity as I made the transition from brunette to blonde, it's become all encompassing (as most things relating to "identity" do.) I had no idea how much I've come to depend on my blog as my secret little microphone.

On the flip side, I really needed a break from the stream of constant criticism and snarkiness that blogs and the Internet fosters. My blog was excerpted on Universal Hub twice a few weeks ago, which was awesome and drove TONS of new readers to my site -- fabulous! Among those readers were some pretty creepy, sketchy people who left a potpourri of weird, mostly unintelligible and offensive comments on here -- NOT awesome. I began to feel like this whole blog experiment was...too public.

It got me thinking about the dichotomies inherent in a writing life. On the one hand, writing is a solitary act, involving a person, their research, their pen & paper or keyboard and screen, and their thoughts. To parlay that into a career of any sort, is to open yourself up to a lifetime of endless criticism, some of it constructive and in your best interests (when coming from friends, family, agents, editors) but most of it ruthless, judgmental, and insensitive and coming from strangers. It's a slightly schizophrenic lifestyle choice, no?

So, I needed a little break from the voyeurism and the sharing of my thoughts with the strangers. And it was nice.

Then I realized I missed venting to the ether as I do on Undercover Blonde. In my real jobs, I rarely get to say what I think. I can't say to my tables at Toro, "the reason your drinks are taking a long time is because the bartender is in the weeds and the bar back is slow as molasses; you're just going to have to be patient." Instead I have to say, "so sorry about the wait on your drinks, folks, I'll have them in just a moment," and smile. As a publicist it's worse: as a smart publicist, I will refrain from including an example here ; ) But in my little blog world, I get to pretty much say what I think, and I actually get to have an opinion.

But more specifically, I missed this kind of personal writing. I wrote in my journal until my hand cramped up and felt unsatisfied because I still had much more to say. I wrote my parents a letter. I noticed my work emails growing longer, more conversant (and most likely annoying to my all-business colleagues). I felt as though all of these ideas kept popping up in my head and rattling around in my brain with nowhere to go. It felt claustrophobic...

So I'm glad to be back in the blog-o-sphere, prattling on about nothing to the ether as we bloggers do, mildly hoping that someone out there will read and identify with what I say, and hoping if said readers don't have something nice to say, they won't say anything at all.

It's good to be back.

1 comment:

Maureen said...

Welcome Back! I for one, love being a voyeur of the unde cover blog world!!!