salon's cary tennis on why we have online diaries

This is along the lines of what I've been thinking about lately. I haven't looked back at ten-plus years of entries, but I'm fairly sure they would be well described as angsty oversharing. That said, i have always appreciated this little community here. There are so many people whose words truly impressed and/or delighted me on a daily/monthly/sporadic basis for years, and there are quite a few people who came and went over the last decade who i still wonder about.

These days, my take on this thing is expressed perfectly by sidewaysrain: "There's a sort of curve in a blog's life, from the questioning twenties - who am I? what are we doing here? why did I drink so much? why don't I ever have any money? As a person gets her life in order this dies down and gets replaced by sporadic smug updates about how great everything is all the time and vacation photos, because we have all learned (from our twenties) that honesty is well and good and truth telling has its merits, but oversharing is BAD."

And oh, did i ever learn those lessons. Once in a while i have to sheepishly explain how i lost one of my best friends when I was 21 because of a site called diaryland, and that's always a bit awkward and stupid. So here we are: vague non-identifying allusions to drama, the odd existentialist blathering, a little political commentary, and a whole lot of anecdotes. Maybe I've erred too much on the side of vague... it has been hard to find that balance.

*

Did someone say anecdotes? On the plane last night, the guy next to me looked normal, but listened to live's "lightning crashes" on repeat almost the whole flight from DC to mtl.

12:41 p.m. - 2011-02-10