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mg

the longest post ever

by mg at 04:10 PM on January 19, 2001

I've spent the past week putting together coherent posts of significant length and containing a general sort of grammatical correctness. So, please forgive today's random rambling and ranting.

It was raining this morning. A cold and grey sort of winter rain. A cold rain is really the only kind of weather I don't like. Especially since I'll be sitting here in this subway car in these wet clothes for another 30 minutes. I probably should invest in an umbrella.

Like I've mentioned before, I write most of what goes on this site on my Palm Pilot while sitting on the subway going to or from somewhere, usually work. People on the subway seem to be really interested in seeing, what, exactly, I'm doing when writing on my Palm. I always catch people standing or sitting next to me looking over my shoulder watching me and reading what I'm writing.

And it really bothers me.

Now, I'm guilty of looking over people's shoulder to read newspapers, magazines and books. Everybody does it. Everybody has had it done to them. It is an accepted practice and no one seems to mind.

But reading anything handwritten? That is just a no-no, you know?

It could be a letter from a lover or the person could be writing in their journal (like I'm usually doing) or it could just be some math homework. But whatever it is they are doing, it is their own business, so you shouldn't be looking.

Last night on the train some guy was looking over my shoulder. And it really bothered me.

I looked at him and shot him my best "if you keep looking I am going to jam this stylus through your eye socket straight into your brain" glare with a little "I wouldn't really do that, but stop looking, 'kay?" smile.

I obviously didn't combine the proper ratio of glare and smile because as I looked back down to start writing again the guy nudged me.

I looked up, pulled the headphone out of my ear and said Yes?

What are you doing, he asked.

Fuck, I thought.

It didn't end up being that bad a conversation. He wasn't a freak after all. His kid has attention deficit disorder and has trouble being reading the notes he takes in class. The man thought that if his kid could take notes on Palm Pilot, he would have less trouble in school. I think the kid definitely could do better. I'm ADD and dyslexic. Being able to read what I write in digital form definitely helps me out.

Anyway, I was relaying that story to my friend Kathryn (whom, I need to talk about again a little later). And she asked me why I was bothered by someone looking over my shoulder and reading what I was writing when that same writing, in most cases, was going to end up on the internet where millions of complete strangers could potentially read it.

I wasn't really able to come up with a good answer. It probably has something to do with the fact that when I post things to this site I don't really expect people to read it. I may check my hit counter almost obsessively throughout the day. So people do come here. They do read my daily blather. But I don't see them doing it. Which is what, I think, it comes down to in the end.

When I'm on the train, with some old lady peeking over my shoulder, reading about my life while sitting right there next to me, well, it kind of feels weird, and sometimes a little icky.

What doesn't feel at all icky, but a hundred times more weird, is reading about myself in other people's weblogs. Okay, it has only happened once so far, but my feelings are probably pretty representative of how I'll feel if it ever happens again.

Lilly, over at Kiss My Lilly White Ass (lord do I love that name) has been reading my site since almost the begining, which is odd, because back in the day (okay, October), the only people that came around were my real-life friends. Now none of them come around anymore and my readership is a made up of a bunch of strangers. Anyhow, Lilly and I have emailed back and forth a couple times before. So we aren't total strangers. She sent me an email earlier this week with a URL. It was a link to a post on her blog that commented on a post here about the whole getting dumped my girlfriend story.

It was strange reading it. She posted a couple more comments as the week went on. Following the "story" as it was unfolding. If it wasn't me she was writing about... It pretty much felt as if I was reading a synopsis of an episode of Dawson's Creek. First, MG did this, and then his girlfriend said this and then... Like it wasn't even really about me at all. It definitely put things in perspective.

I'm going to talk more about Lilly at some point, but it turns out today isn't a ramble, I've actually got a point to make. (And if you are keeping score I've got to eventually write about Lilly and Kathryn).

It really is a strange kind of schism. I write these things and put them on a website that everyone in the world can read. I want people to read my site. I know that people do read my site. But getting emails from people who read me, or reading people who read me, and god forbid, ever randomly running into someone who reads me... I'm not sure if I could deal with that.

Jason Pettus wrote an essay on his site just yesterday about this. I generally tend to shy away from reading writing on the subject of the weblogging community (though here I am contributing more words on the subject), but it seemed particularly fitting yesterday, so I continued reading.

His piece talked about how reading confessional writing allows the reader to feel a sense of intimacy with the writer, but that intimacy is false (which I don't necessarily agree with). He says it is an intimacy of one (a term I think I just made up). The reader feels the intimacy because they are being exposed to the bared sole of the writer. The writer, however, feels nothing. The writer doesn't know the read even exists.

Which is why it is so freaky to get emails from folks making comments on the site. Or reading about myself on other people's sites. Or like I said before, god forbid running into someone who reads me (like what happened to Jason). The person on the end knows everything (or at the very least, a lot of things) about you, but you know nothing about them.

So, I don't know where I am going with this. Reading over my shoulder is bad. It will always be bad. If you do that, you are taking something from me that I am not willingly giving you. However, if you read the site, as weird as it may feel for me, I'm giving myself to you. And I think I can accept that.

If you, my readers, feel an intimacy toward me, I'd like to feel a little of that toward you. So send me an email, or a URL to your page, I'd love to get to know you.