This IS a diary, ya know

  I used to keep a written-on-paper diary (ah, but guys keep "journals") but switched to Open Diary in 2004.

One purpose of a diary, or a journal, is to remind myself of things and of what I was thinking when.  It’s kind of handy.

Online, I actually restrain myself so as not to be too misunderstood, since there are people reading it, unless I make an entry "private".  It’s still there, for me, private like that.  Sometimes I write things that later later seem embarrassing or stupid that get privatized.

With the potential "audience" in mind, I tend to try to be rational or at least not too far out there when I write, and of course, some things Never get written down at all.

With almost 4,100 entries, there is a lot of time represented here, and a lot of ideas, both good and bad and some indifferent in both cases.

I use FO entries to limit the audience – there are some things I do not feel like telling everyone.  Most of the time, I make FO entries available to both lists, but some are really personal, and I use just the one list then, of people I feel "closest" to here, or if I want to write something but don’t want the whole world to see it.

This morning, I woke up and thought "oh shit, what did I write?" and thought of privatizing some of the recent entries.  A rant doesn’t necessarily show what I feel all the time, and is sometimes a momentary condition, and of course, FO entries mean I have a bit more control over who sees what.  I used to have my entries open to all notes, so that people I know in real life, who aren’t OD members can leave notes, but a few years ago, that began getting me all kinds of spam and I closed it down to OD members only, for notes.

I’m still debating with myself over how much to leave up and open to others….

Sometimes I think better if I see it "in print".

 *****