2007-03-29

Have I mentioned how much I hate cellphones?

Look, I'm someone who's maintained an online journal since Hector was a pup. If there's anyone less suited to criticize others for publicly vomiting up all manner of way-too-personal information, you'd be looking at her. My battle with the bottle is all up there on teh internets for anyone to see, and don't think it hasn't occurred to me that this would make a jimdandy of a trade paperback.

There's revealing one's turmoil in a somewhat graceful (and grammatically correct) way, and then there's being a straight-up attention whore. One really must needs exercise some selectivity and restraint in thought, word and deed, electronically speaking. Unless you WANT people to think you're unicycling on a very shaky cable across a canyon of CRAZY. I don't know.

The proliferation of sites offering everyone and his Aunt Griselda a li'l corner of the web has its pros and cons. On the plus side, anyone can put his or her writing out there and be reasonably assured that there will be an audience. On the minus side, anyone can put his or her writing out there and be reasonably assured that there will be an audience. I have a love/hate relationship with it all, in much the same vein as my mixed feelings for the "personal memoir" genre, where for every "All Souls" there are a dozen books like "Please Stop Laughing At Me." Just because you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD.

At least on the online front, I can simply choose to NOT READ the glut of crappy, uninteresting and stupefyingly wrist-to-forehead "blogs" permeating the internerds. It's a different story when I'm stuck in the YMCA locker room with someone who's letting everyone within a 20 yard radius in on her rully SUCKY life, via cellphone.

Listen, I tried to dress as quickly as possible and beat a hasty retreat as this girl languidly towelled off and moisturized, all while delivering a monologue that covered her mysterious rashes, her lack of interest in therapy ("I mean, like, all it is, is like talking to someone about your problems and figuring out why you have your problems, and, like, I already do that with you."), and her appointment to participate in a medical study for depression ("I could get up to $300, and they'll put me on, like, Lexapro or Zoloft or something.").

I DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT ALL OF THIS. All I want to do is roll up my sweaty gym clothes, stuff them in my bag, and get dressed in relative peace and quiet. Don't you have a livejournal or something where you can get this out?

Christ almighty.

lisamcc at 8:11 a.m.

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