Confessions of a blogger

It was in late 2004 when I discovered my old friend Holly's blog. She's been writing it for years, and it's one of the best I've seen. While Holly and I used to regularly converse via email in the early 1990s while killing our days at Wired magazine, I never truly understood her abilities as a writer until I was introduced to her blog a decade later.

Back in 2004, I had thought about starting a blog of my own and reading Holly's gave me the motivation. Could I write as well as Holly? No. Did I have the stories she had? No. But I have my own stories, and my own writing style -- complete with incorrect grammar and spelling errors! After all, like a wise man once said, "I yam what I yam."

Who was that wise man again? Oh yeah, Popeye.

As many Walking Papers readers know, this blog was born when I saw my life heading toward a crossroads. I wanted to record my final days at a dying job that I'd had for over eight years, as well as the adventures of my soon-to-be post-job life. But I always knew unemployment (unfortunately) wouldn't last for ever, and I'd need to decide whether or not I should write about work in my blog.

Holly uses her employment as regular source of content in her blog and she does it quite well. I, on the other hand, am a bit more hesitant to do so. Actually, I made bogging about work an unofficial "don't" excluding, of course, my old job that was so unceremoniously ending.

So when I began working again, I treated work as an off limits topic. I even went so fas as to make another rule; no one I work with gets to know about my blog. I felt it was better to separate church from state, so to speak. After all, how could any of my personal indiscretions be beneficial to my fellow employees?

Well, I held tight to my rules for fairly long time. However, a couple months ago, a fellow employee -- who I think I know fairly well -- asked me if I knew anything about blogs. Seems as though she needed to brush up on the subject in order to consider it as a marketing tool.

"I have a blog," I said.

"You do?", she said. "You are such a geek."

I took that insult as a complement. But I was hesitant to reveal the URL of my blog. After all, I had my rules.

After some prodding, I caved-in and gave the Walking Papers URL to my friend. However, I made her swear over a bottle of Jagermeister that she would reveal it to no one at work. And she didn't. For a while.

As time passed, my friend forgot about her promise, and she gave this URL to another mutual co-worker friend, a.k.a. Love Sponge. When I learned of this I was both flattered and distressed. I was flattered that my fiend found Walking Papers entertaining enough to pass along, even if she was just reading it to learn was a geek I am. I was also a bit distressed, though, as I am fully aware that Walking Papers doesn't always paint the best picture of me, given the not so occasional references to booze and gambling. At least booze and gambling are legal, and you have to look harder to find more incriminating stories.

Because I was concerned that my lifestyle didn't always conform to my employers expectations, I asked Love Sponge to also keep a lid on my blog. I even went as far as to name names, and I asked her not to show it so Soandso because he lives such a clean lifestyle. The only thing I didn't realize is that I may have been too late. Soandso may have already read Walking Papers.

I thought about this a lot this weekend. Why do I care so much about who reads my blog? After all, it is fairly clean. And even people who live differently from me might find it entertaining. As a matter of fact, I would read a blog about prison life or suicide bombers, yet I have no interest in living those types of lifestyles. People are always interested, or entertained, by how others live.

Therefore, I've changed my rules. While it is unlikely that I will ever write about work (due to the threat of possible law suits), I don't care if people at work read it. If my blog gives people a taste of who I am -- even if it's from another view they might not ordinarily see or expect -- that's fine with me. After all, I yam what I yam, and I'm not ashamed of it (most of the time).

So co-workers, read on guilt-free. Rules are meant to be broken.