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constanceYou know, I love livejournal. I love my livejournal, and in case you were wondering because I'm not around so much these days, I love your livejournal as well. But I have some sad news for you--are you sitting down? because I think you should sit down--and it is that I've been unfaithful to you. Yes, it is true. Sometimes I take off my ring and the car seat from my info page and lurk in the Land of the Professional Bloggers. Not your Daily Kos types, either. No, I lurk on the pages of people who make their livings writing about their personal lives. Making posts like you and I make. And they are articulate and funny, but so are you, and so am I, even, sometimes. They make posts about music and books and their kids and their cars and their for-god's-sake feelings, and I read them and I'm entertained (and sometimes saddened or moved) by them, and the most shameful thing of all is not that I'm cheating on my beloved livejournal and enjoying it, and not that I'm lurking without ever making my presence known. It's that most of the time I'm reading, I'm thinking, okay, where do I sign up?
Because goddamn, the idea of getting paid to write about my life and interests and insights, it does seriously appeal. I mean, disregarding for a moment the thought of whether or not my life or my writing are worth enough for me to quit my day job, just the idea of opting for ad space and hanging around all day long thinking of things to write about me and still being able to buy groceries and pay the mortgage, good lord, it sounds to me like a dream come true.
Except that when I start thinking about it, really thinking about it, it's not such a fabulous idea after all. These professional bloggers, they quit their day jobs and get interviewed for fluff pieces on the state of the blog and speak at conferences and make their posts about their lives, and people they don't know, have never met, have no connection to, are hanging about and commenting and criticizing and judging. And that part, the standing out naked on some busy corner of the information superhighway, all flaws and eccentricities laid open for discussion, well. Not so great after all, I'm thinking.
:::
I'll be out of town for the weekend, embarking on a pilgrimage that's twenty years overdue and making an occasion for wearing my pink ballerina flats. Hope you all have a lovely weekend. Hope you stay out of trouble. Or maybe that you get into trouble, but only the good kind.
Because goddamn, the idea of getting paid to write about my life and interests and insights, it does seriously appeal. I mean, disregarding for a moment the thought of whether or not my life or my writing are worth enough for me to quit my day job, just the idea of opting for ad space and hanging around all day long thinking of things to write about me and still being able to buy groceries and pay the mortgage, good lord, it sounds to me like a dream come true.
Except that when I start thinking about it, really thinking about it, it's not such a fabulous idea after all. These professional bloggers, they quit their day jobs and get interviewed for fluff pieces on the state of the blog and speak at conferences and make their posts about their lives, and people they don't know, have never met, have no connection to, are hanging about and commenting and criticizing and judging. And that part, the standing out naked on some busy corner of the information superhighway, all flaws and eccentricities laid open for discussion, well. Not so great after all, I'm thinking.
:::
I'll be out of town for the weekend, embarking on a pilgrimage that's twenty years overdue and making an occasion for wearing my pink ballerina flats. Hope you all have a lovely weekend. Hope you stay out of trouble. Or maybe that you get into trouble, but only the good kind.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 02:27 pm (UTC)