Two recent emails have really stroked my ego and scratched my chin. In both, a woman I’ve never met from who knows where has asked me some personal questions. She said she stumbled upon my blog and got sucked into my life. “I was telling my husband about you and my e-mail and he was like, those are awfully personal questions to be asking someone you don’t know. I said I feel like I know her! I feel like I read a good book yesterday with really interesting characters.”
Needless to say, I was flattered and astonished at the impact of my words and pictures. My blog was started so I could relate my NYC experiences to people who already know me. I love writing for an audience, and love the idea of strangers wanting to take a peek into my life. Still, I’ve wondered what people get out of the blog. It’s not just about teaching or New York. Despite the amusing comments I sometimes receive, it’s not all incendiary, either.
It’s my space to play with words or pictures or Youtube, and share what I choose to share. Funny, people who read my blog know things many people who really know me don’t. There are people I consider friends that don’t know how irregular my bowel movements are, and I don’t exactly brag about the fact that I bought a used cheese grater. It goes the other way, too. I’ve begun and ended a few relationships in the last year (not all romantic, mind you) and documented very little. Some things are just considered too personal by me or those I know.
The woman who wrote me has made me think about how much we ever really know anyone and how much of yourself you can share through writing before you’re as exposed as Lindsay Lohan’s crotch in that recent paparazzi photo. A few of the same questions keep getting asked, and I kind of want to answer. But do I even know how?
As a regular reader and leaver-of- comments, I’m compelled to speak up on this one . . . I read numerous blogs on a regular basis and their subject matter is rather eclectic . . . everything from “Life in Alaska,” musings from a former runner-up in the first season of “Top Model” (I know, shame on me), to blogs devoted to art and photography. (Perhaps one of the side effects of being masochistic enough to earn a Ph.D. in American history, is a terminal curiosity in just about everything . . . which in my case leaves me widely read but as unfocused as my ADD 7-year-old.)
I rarely comment, however, on these visited blogs. Perhaps my tendency to comment on your entries can be explained by a combination of a) geographic proximity, b) shared southern background, and c) your work in the education field.
But your blog has also prompted me to revisit a long-standing desire to start my own blog . . . as I plan it in my head, a higgeldy-piggeldy collection of photos, comments on fatherhood, reflections on growing up in the South of the 70s and 80s, and whatever else pops into my addled brain. And I too visit the question of “how much do I reveal.” Do I comment on my continued fight against clinical depression? Do I talk about the boys and their triumph/setbacks? Do I pour my heart out to the ether when my spouse and I have a spat? (Ooooo, a hint of alliteration?) Do I share my artwork? And do I answer the inevitable personal questions?
So you’re sliding along that double-edged sword of too much/too little that any autobiographical work encounters. Frankly, I think you do a good job. (But just to add a touch of bitchiness . . . show us more of the dark side.)
Ooops, got a little carried away there.
As the aforementioned woman, I feel I must defend my stalkerish e-mail to you!
You are truly a great writer. You make the mundane (cross town shopping expedition for cereal) to the exciting (explosive vomiting on a woman’s pant leg in Times Square) seem very entertaining. I got sucked in by your long entries regarding IS 666 (and the devil spawn) and stuck around because I started to care and be interested in what would happen next.
I’ve popped into other blogs and read them, but never felt compelled to write the blogger (or even keep visiting afterward). You aren’t overexposed! You share just enough to keep the reader interested.