Maimed by Myopia

Every time I go home and hang out with my family, they ask me if our current conversation will make it on to the blog. In a way, it's flattering - I'm glad they all read and enjoy the blog, and that they seem to find it entertaining.

But in another way, it's kind of weird. Whenever someone mentions it, I feel like I should really start paying attention to what happens. Because if it is blog-worthy and then I don't write about it, will they see it as a personal slight?

Or then there's the other side of the coin. Maybe people are bringing it up specifically because they don't want me to talk about them so much on the blog, and they're hoping they'll kind of queer the spontaneity of writing about something later if it has already been mentioned as a possible blog subject.

With my parents, there's always an added odd dimension to these conversations. They embarrass rather easily, and often ask me not to write about this or that thing in the blog. Usually, it's something uninteresting that I wouldn't mention on the blog anyway.

Like, "Oh, Lonnie, I talked to your grandmother today and she has a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I promised to go with her, and I'll probably stop at the market afterwards and get some grapes to snack on later after dinner. Please don't write about any of this on your blog."

So it has become quite a complex situation to navigate. They are often asking if I'm going to include certain things in the blog and also frequently telling me not to include certain things in the blog. Plus, my uncle tonight told me that by far his favorite blog content are the humorous autobiographical stories about my life.

But every time I want to write something like that, I have to watch out not to offend anyone or embarass anyone or upset anyone. It's pretty difficult. Add into that a desire to actually be funny, and a desire not to come off on here like too much of a whiny self-involved egomaniac, and you get a fairly limiting style of prose in which I can write.

Which kind of defeats the purpose of having a blog in the first place. Maybe I'll invent a new blog for my really deep, dark, personal thoughts, the kind I don't feel comfortable sharing here, and not tell anyone that it's mine. Like "Maimed by Myopia." Yeah, that's not bad.