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Ever read about yourself?

Blog
I should be working right now. I'm up late specifically so that I can do work, and I'm not doing it. Every since Mom visited middle of last month, I've been in bed nominally by 11:00 pm and up around 7:30 am. Which is pretty good for me, and a far cry from my 2:00 am bedtime and 10:00 am wake up time.

But I have work to do, and I'm not doing it.

Instead, I'm surfing around the 'net, looking at various sites, catching up on reading blogs I've missed recently, and generally having a relaxing time. Maybe I shouldn't be so gung-ho all the time. Maybe I should actually schedule downtime, instead of feeling guilty about it when I do.

At least I'm not watching that accursed television. Damn TiVo to hell, I say. I've watched more television since we got that damned appliance than all the television of the previous 5 years combined.

And I'm not kidding.

At least it was quality television.

Mostly.

But I'm not watching television, or catching up on my magazine a day. I'm surfing and reading Paul's blog.

Paul emailed me this past weekend. I didn't get the email until yesterday because of the tournament at Quincy, but when I read it, I was admittedly a little surprised: Paul, too, has an online journal (blog, if you must).

And he told me where it is.

Hop, skip and a jump, and I'm over reading it. Who can resist such an offer? The ultimate in vanity! A chance to see someone else write about you. What a deal!

Or not.

I think I now find it awkward. I wasn't specfically named in the blog, which is kinda nice, but I can hear his voice, I can see his mannerisms, I can feel his presence when I read his writings, and it's strange.

His journal is much more of a private journal than this one is for me. He doesn't publish it. It's not linked to his name. He doesn't use his friends' names. If I didn't know who he was, the blog would be completely anonymous (unless, of course, I had access to the server logs: then all bets are off).

But I do know who's writing, and it's like peering into another person's vulnerabilities, seeing his weaknesses. You're never supposed to show weaknesses, right? Chest thump, macho this and macho that, king of the world, take no prisoners crap.

Yet, here is a bit of someone's soul showing through. A hint of the self-torture in deciding whether or not to reveal personal thoughts, feelings, self-doubt or emotions that, up until now, have been show to only two other friends, neither of them ex-girlfriends.

It's fascinating, and a little bit uncomfortable to realize that I'm the cause of that internal twisting.

I don't know why I think people don't go through the same thing I go through. I have all the same "Should I put this out there?" doubts and internal struggles. I eventually decided that this is my personal blog, and kitt.hodsden.com will be my more public blog. I'll link to that one. I won't link to this one. You can't find this one through Google, and I'm fighting to get it off Yahoo and MSN (amazing what a $47000 invoice sent to a public company will do). So, my quirks go here, my tutorials go there and I have some segregation. But what goes where, and how do I decide what to say, and what not to say?

Because some of the personal tragedies are actually very funny after the fact.

I should be asleep now.