Well…

Nothing in this song is relevant to my feelings right now except for the chorus. The guy is heartbroken because he’s stuck on a lovely girl, who’s with another guy. Yeah, it doesn’t really fit, unless this site could be a metaphor for the lovely girl (which is it could be) and the other guy is non-existence.

The chorus is pretty dead-on:

Please, please, please do not go.

It’s repeated three times. It sounds so sad and desperate. I like to sing the harmony, but that’s beside the point.

I can’t even describe how I feel about this news of Open Diary leaving forever. It’s very similar to how I felt when my improv theatre closed in 2007. We knew that it was going to close eventually. We weren’t getting butts in the seats. It was hemorrhaging money. So it wasn’t a surprise, but it still knocked the air from me. It was such a major part of my life at that time that I couldn’t imagine being without it.

Granted, it’s been years since OD has been that big of a part of my daily life. But even when I disappeared for weeks or months at a time, it was always there in the background of my thoughts. Just there. For almost 14 years, which works out to almost 40% of my life. (39.799%, if I wanted to be accurate to the day, which apparently, I do.)

This, too, was not that big of a surprise. I know there were problems. I don’t know if the site has been down more than it hasn’t or if it has just been down on the odd times I’ve wanted to log in. Either way, it’s not a good sign. In fact, it’s because of the frequent down times that I learned of a website that tells you whether or not a site is down.

I’m very thankful that I’ve had Open Diary. It’s been a place for me to just vent my random thoughts. It’s been a place where I could connect with complete strangers in a way that I would never have if I had known them in real life. I feel shitty for not holding up that latter part. I’ve been a pretty bad noter, which means I’ve been most certainly not reading as must has I have been read. I just looked at my note history and I’m pretty disgusted with myself to find that the last bunch of notes (less than ten) I’ve sent begin with "ryn:." Then there’s literally a 3-year window where I left no notes at all.

I feel like a selfish prick.

Everyone out there who I have had the pleasure of connecting with through the years, it’s been amazing. I’m sorry if you’ve felt I’ve abandoned you. Regardless of how you feel, I feel I have and I’ve always felt guilty about it, but not guilty enough to do anything about it… which starts this spiral of shame where I know I’m doing something that I don’t feel great about, but I don’t change, but I should, but I don’t… To quote another song, you were always on my mind.

Yes, I went with the Pet Shop Boys’ version. It’s not the best version of that song, but it’s probably my favorite. Willie Nelson’s is probably the best version of that song (in my opinion), but it’s entirely too depressing for me to listen to even on a good day. Full disclosure, even with it’s poppy, electronic sounds, I couldn’t get through the Pet Shop Boys’ version of the song today. I wasn’t feeling all that emotionally great even before getting this bit of news.

Thank you, Open Diarists.

And Thank you, Open Diary.

I absolutely refuse to end diary on a downer.

A few weeks ago, I had written a private entry dated for late February. I had the intention of making it public on that date. Now since it looks like Open Diary won’t be around to see that date, I might as well let everyone in on what that entry was about.

Lilith is pregnant. She is due Aug. 22. I’m elated beyond words.

Okay, don’t tell Lilith that I told you. We’re not going public with this for another few weeks and should would straight-up murder me if she found out I told people here before I was supposed to.

She’s about 10 1/2 weeks along, which means that Hodorcup is somewhere between the size of a prune and a lime (according to a ridiculous chart I found online) and the doctor says (s)he is doing fine.

And yes, I referred to my unborn child as Hodorcup. That’s what Lilith and I are doing.

We have a short list of names at the ready, but we’re not going to tell people what they are until after (s)he is born. Basically, because people are judgy and we’re sure that we’ll come across a few assholes who have opinions about our names who are less likely to share those opinions after the child is born and named.

So we’ve come with the jokey solution of telling people that we will be naming it Hodor if it’s a boy and Buttercup if it’s a girl. Because those are two things we would never name our child, but they’re from books / a show / a movie that we both enjoy. We’ve combined the two and went with calling it that.

We’ve also decided not to tell people if it’s a boy or a girl (yeah, we’re the smug couple from that Garfunkel & Oates song), because we don’t want to get flooded with gender-specific gifts. So we’ll be using the name "Hodorcup" for the entirety of the pregnancy, so that we don’t slip and accidentally use the correct pronoun thereby revealing the sex early.

BUT AGAIN, and I can’t stress this enough: Don’t tell Lilith I’ve told you any of this. Basically, I’m saying don’t find me on Facebook (if you can) and congratulate me.

I’m sad that I won’t be able to share my life of fatherhood on Open Diary, But quite honestly, if I had to pick one, fatherhood or Open Diary, I would happily say good bye part of my last 14 years to go into this great unknown.

That would be really weird if I had to make that decision, though. Think about how messed up that would be.

It bears repeating, and I can’t say it enough:

Thank you, Open Diary!

 

 

–Doug

P.S. I’ve made the plunge and I’m on Prosebox. Same name!
Send me a private note if you’d like me to find you on Facebook.