Resume

[constance]

You 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.

Comments

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

This post interests me, because I thought long and hard before establishing a blog, and in fact, my LJ is the second attempt. I'd been reading them for a long time, as far back as Archipelago and other early webrings of OLJs. And I looked closely at the blogs I admired and the ones I disliked, and thought a lot about what kind of blog I wanted to have, and how public to be, and all that.

And what I concluded was that my favorite blogs were pretty much like newspaper columns. A little bit personal, a little bit topical, some current events sprinkled in with a few reminiscences. The net result is that we feel as if we know Jon Carroll and Bob Greene and Anna Quindlen and even Garrison Keillor, but what we know is their crafted, public face. Nonetheless, they are still in the business of making their lives into art, and I can't help but think that a certain amount of life gets used up that way, by going straight into art, away from your control and your own living.

So newspaper columns are still my model for what I want my blog to be, but I would not want it to be my profession. As a hobbyist-level blogger, I choose how much of my life to publicize, how much of it to process, and how much of it to keep for my own use. That's enough for me.

Have fun with your pink ballet flats. It's about time for me to dig mine out fo spring!

[tinderblast.livejournal.com]

I'm curious - wuold you be able to post links to some of these journals?

people they don't know, have never met, have no connection to, are hanging about and commenting and criticizing and judging

Sounds kind of like a big extended family party :D

[soliloquia.livejournal.com]

Good to see you loving LJ, and I suppose we can forgive your little infidelities. Er, as someone who came to be paranoid about a public journal even for the possibility of strangers reading it...hmm, I guess I don't feel ready at this point to exhibit my life on a web-page, to answer your post in a way that relates to me, me, me. Think of Dalí, on the other hand, a bit of self-confidence is an interesting thing sometimes - most of all, it allows you to embellish, and to lose the euphemism, to lie quite loudly!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Well, even the professional bloggers edit, of course. But I know what you mean about your favorites: even though I know I'm not seeing everything when I read them, it feels as though I'm getting close, because the information I take in is so varied and thoughtfully put together. Not to mention fun to read.

I would think that some of the fun I have on LJ might evaporate if it became my job to write entries. I am work-resistant that way, sometimes.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd rather not post true links, just because I don't want any of them reading visits from this entry. But they are legion! I don't have any of them bookmarked at work, for obvious reasons, but I'll try to remember when I get home tonight to point you in their direction.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

hahahaha! So true, and many people use the internet to lie as loudly as they can!

[tinderblast.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that.