About a week and a half ago, someone I know sent me a message asking me why I don't write my blog anymore. I responded by saying that it's not that I don't actively write my blog, I've just been super busy and haven't really had time. I then posted Story of a Stupid Kel the next day...and haven't posted since. Over the next few days, I realized something. My response about not having time to blog was sort of true...but also sort of not. The problem wasn't lack of time as much as surplus of audience, and in the days following my response to that reader, I realized that over and over again.
Of course I'm not complaining about too many people reading my blog. What does a writer want more than readers? Nor am I complaining about the people who read my blog...except that I sort of am. See, despite the fact that one measly person follows my blog, it's been read almost 6,000 times. I know in the world of the Internet that's a fraction of a blip, but in the world of me, it's a ton, and exactly what it's a ton of is people I see and talk to all the time.
What does that mean?
Censorship, people. Censorship is what it means.
('Cause when you find out that your students are putting links to your blog up on their facebook pages, you don't have much choice but to censor.)
(And when you say to your mom, I'm not sure when I wrote my last blog,
and her immediate response is, November 22, it's pretty obvious
that censorship is the only option.)
And I hate being censored.
I started this blog because I love to say what I want when I want however I want.
But now I can't.
I constantly find myself in situations I want to write about, but I can't. I can't complain about the bitchy pair of __, who I absolutely can't stand, who absolutely turn my stomach every time I see them, because I know they read my blog.
I can't write about the time that __sat there and __while I __because I know __ reads my blog.
I can't write about my opinion on __ because I know some people who read my blog are actually in that situation, and now that I know those people read my blog, it would be cruel and insensitive to exercise my usual judgment on the matter.
(It's like Mad Libs without the funny. Hardy fuckin' har.)
And so, it's without further ado that to this blog, and also to you, I say my goodbyes.
FOR GOD'S SAKE, DON'T PANIC!
I'll never stop writing.
I just don't want to know that you're reading.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Story of a Stupid Kel
Stop, think, and ask, so Kelly will be safe.
This catchy little saying comes from a Montessori summer camp my parents sent me to when I was somewhere between three and five. I don't remember exactly what it is that I used to do wrong at that particular summer camp, but I remember plenty of other wrongdoings. To give you an idea of what kind of kid I was and the type of thing that may have prompted those words, here's a little history: in nursery school I huffed and puffed and moaned and groaned and pulled a doll out from between my legs; in preschool, I got caught playing with my friend Timothy's penis in the bathroom; in elementary school, I got in trouble for peeing on the floor in the girls' bathroom; when I was seven or eight, I got chased around a Hari Krishna temple for making sex sounds on the intercom; and at four, when I used to get sent to the second-grade reading class and the third-grade math class, I got up and kissed all the boys often enough that my time in those classes was short lived. So even though I don't remember just what I did to make my counselor say those words so much that they're embedded in my and my mother's brains and to write them in my summer-camp photo album, I can definitely say that they weren't unwarranted. Really, it doesn't matter what I did anyway; what matters is that my impulsive actions were getting me in trouble then and that they still, in some way or another, get me in trouble now.
I don't know why I do some of the things that I do or say some of the things that I say. I only know that when I do them or say them, they seem like perfectly acceptable things at the time. From telling personal stories I shouldn't tell to giving people essays they shouldn't read to making inappropriate comments I shouldn't make, and even, yes, to writing blogs I shouldn't write, I've got impulsive action written all over me. Over the past few years, I've done more impulsive things than most people do over an entire lifetime, and for the life of me, I don't understand why.
The thing is, at the time I do whatever it is that I do, my actions seem perfectly rational. Even for a while after the fact, they continue to seem so (at least some of them) until one day--bam!--I realize that I did something stupid--something dangerous--something potentially damaging--something that could lead to destruction. And at that moment, just for a second, I lambast myself for my stupidity and swear I'll never make that same type of mistake again.
But then I do.
You'd think over the last thirty plus years I'd have learned a thing or two.
(...)
This catchy little saying comes from a Montessori summer camp my parents sent me to when I was somewhere between three and five. I don't remember exactly what it is that I used to do wrong at that particular summer camp, but I remember plenty of other wrongdoings. To give you an idea of what kind of kid I was and the type of thing that may have prompted those words, here's a little history: in nursery school I huffed and puffed and moaned and groaned and pulled a doll out from between my legs; in preschool, I got caught playing with my friend Timothy's penis in the bathroom; in elementary school, I got in trouble for peeing on the floor in the girls' bathroom; when I was seven or eight, I got chased around a Hari Krishna temple for making sex sounds on the intercom; and at four, when I used to get sent to the second-grade reading class and the third-grade math class, I got up and kissed all the boys often enough that my time in those classes was short lived. So even though I don't remember just what I did to make my counselor say those words so much that they're embedded in my and my mother's brains and to write them in my summer-camp photo album, I can definitely say that they weren't unwarranted. Really, it doesn't matter what I did anyway; what matters is that my impulsive actions were getting me in trouble then and that they still, in some way or another, get me in trouble now.
I don't know why I do some of the things that I do or say some of the things that I say. I only know that when I do them or say them, they seem like perfectly acceptable things at the time. From telling personal stories I shouldn't tell to giving people essays they shouldn't read to making inappropriate comments I shouldn't make, and even, yes, to writing blogs I shouldn't write, I've got impulsive action written all over me. Over the past few years, I've done more impulsive things than most people do over an entire lifetime, and for the life of me, I don't understand why.
The thing is, at the time I do whatever it is that I do, my actions seem perfectly rational. Even for a while after the fact, they continue to seem so (at least some of them) until one day--bam!--I realize that I did something stupid--something dangerous--something potentially damaging--something that could lead to destruction. And at that moment, just for a second, I lambast myself for my stupidity and swear I'll never make that same type of mistake again.
But then I do.
You'd think over the last thirty plus years I'd have learned a thing or two.
(...)
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