 |
2006-07-08 @ 5:44 p.m. |
Three years ago today, I signed onto Diaryland for the first time. I had no idea what a blog was. I had read an article in the newspaper that day about millions of people who signed onto the internet everyday and wrote blogs. The idea was thrilling to me, since I have this incurable disease. Its called write-us non-interruptus. Previously I had driven both my friends and therapists crazy with all my lengthy e-mails and letters. For instance, when I moved 40 miles from my best friend when I was 14, she suggested that we write everyday. I don't think she realized what she was in for. I took it to heart. She couldn't keep up. When somebody I was dating moved to Buffalo for an internship at a theatre and suggested that we write in a notebook and send it back and forth. I quickly filled it up with stories and drawings from home. I'd write 8-10 pages. He'd write 2-3 pages. But I didn't mind. I just loved to write. It was something I was good at in school. I was always the STAR in all my creative writing classes. When I later moved into journalism, thinking I was going to be a reporter for a newspaper, I had a very wise journalism teacher, Catherine Mitchell (her and her husband won a Pulitzer Prize for their series of articles on a religious sect in Northern California). She took me aside and said, "witty, you're a really good writer, but you're just not a reporter. You're too opinionated. You're probably more of an editorial writer or an entertainment writer." I was somewhat crushed, but I heeded her advice and soon became an entertainment writer for various newspapers around Northern California. I still had a lot of creative juices left after writing a measly review of some local play, so I started writing scripts. I always wanted to go to Hollywood. I mean, totally. I loved movies. I wrote three scripts in the 1980's. I even went to L.A. briefly to try and get an agent. I didn't give it enough time though, nor was I aggressive enough. The only interest I had in any of my scripts was from the head writer of "Moonlighting". I wrote a spec script for "Moonlighting" and sent her 10 pages from it. It was a take-off on "Casablanca" for Maddie and David. She really liked it, but was unable to use it. But she did want me to call her "when I moved to L.A." and gave me her phone number. Was that a brush off? Or legitimate. Not really sure. Needless to say, I just never moved to L.A. Too anxious. Too much traffic. Too many earthquakes. Okay, the truth was I didn't want to fail. I didn't want to end up working at KINKO's, running off other writer's scripts, when I was 48. Of course the choice I did make was sooo much better. Being on disability, working P/T for $8.24/hr. and having to rely on food stamps and section eight. Yay me! But I have been keeping a diary since I was 12. I still have it. It has bright yellow daisies on it. Very 1970�s. I love the dire warning I have on the inside cover..  I even invoke legal action if my privacy is infringed upon. Pretty heady stuff for a 12 year old who signs herself �The Management�. I had to. My mom used to snoop in my diary. It was so boring though. �I ate toast for breakfast. I petted my cat Little One. I watched �Wild, Wild West� tonight. I love Ross Martin (an actor on the show). I hope he will marry me and we can have children. Maybe we can named the boy Artemeus Gordon....� Why would anyone want to read that? But I was a very private little kid, as I am a private adult. No one knows about my diary in real life. I like to tell myself that at least. I find it....umm....comforting. But dang, why do I keep getting hits from the local internet company here in town? Over and over and over. And being the somewhat obsessive person that I am, I�m always checking it too. Well, I know I wasn�t up at 7:36 a.m. looking at my diary. So its either some random person with good taste who lives in town or someone has found my diary. I think its the latter. And I�ve narrowed it down to four people. Two at work. Two not at work. And I�ll leave it at that. Having fun? But I guess that�s the chance you take when you send your thoughts up over the internet. When I first signed onto Diaryland, I had no idea that people were reading my writing. I was so naive. And then I started getting notes from a very sweet teenager in Florida. And I was like....why would a teenager like the writing of an angtsy, forty something woman? I was usually just bitching and complaining like I always do, but they seem to like it. Hmm. Strange. And then I started getting more and more people adding me. And then I had a sort of strange quandary. Having written columns for newspapers I was wondering... Do I just write this as an honest-to-god diary or do I start writing this for an audience? Because when I was writing for newspaper on a regular basis in the 1980�s, I had noticed my diary at home was being written like I was writing for a newspaper audience. I just couldn�t shake it. It was weird, I was showing off in my own freaking diary. I was making jokes. I was giving people in real life funny names like The Weird Smoking Lady. And I didn�t even have to. Its not like I had to come up with a pseudonym to protect someone�s identity. This was my own diary at home ferchissakes! I guess I was training for my future adventures at diaryland. When I first came to diaryland, I never had any problem commenting in other people�s diaries. I loved it! I was a regular at the now defunct �Uncle Bob�s�. I could always do good zingers and one liners. Once I realized how things worked, I wanted to be noticed. Who doesn�t? I wasn�t obnoxious about it. Or mean. I just wanted to join in. Be part of something, especially since my social life, at that point, consisted solely of idolizing a married man. Oy! Also at that point, I had never really �met� anyone on diaryland, i.e., given myself permission to punch a teeny tiny pinhole in my massive paranoia protective gear, until the super spectacular HissandTell convinced me to answer an e-mail. I was so afraid she would be able to trace my whereabouts by merely knowing my e-mail address. Yeah, I was that scared of being found at that point. But she was so kind and encouraging and funny, of course and I finally let my guard down and met a most special person. Although when she wanted to send me something, I made her swear and promise she wasn�t really a serial killer who was going to break into my house and slash me with a large slashing instrument of death. And she did. Promise me that is. I�m still here, aren�t I? Since then I have finally started to communicate with various people with little notes here and there. And I�ve also gotten to know some people better over at MySpace and Flickr. I�ve really bloomed over the last three years, gaining confidence and realizing that there are a lot of good people out there. I�m still not quite to the point, in real life, where I can stick my toe into the proverbial waters of actual face-to-face socializing. My social anxiety is fairly significant. But at least I�ve made some internet friends, and that is a step in the right direction. Thanks for being there everyone. :-) Older Entries |
Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney. All angst copyright by awittykitty |
>