I’ve tried – unsuccessfully – to commit to blogging in the past. I would start something on Blogger (at one point I had three separate blogs open, each on a different topic), but found that I wasn’t willing to share them publicly AND struggled to write in them with any regularity.
Yesterday, on my way to the bathroom at work, I think I realized why I’ve found it such a difficult habit to establish (publicly). The bottom-line: the things I find funny aren’t really appropriate for a professional woman to write about, and given how connected my company is online, it’s not only possible – but actually very likely – that whatever I write will be read by co-workers, my direct reports or even senior leadership at my company.
Additionally, there’s the whole friend-and-family hurdle: so much that’s funny is based in family dysfunction or friends’ embarrassment, but writing about it could very quickly make my life morph into the Brady Bunch episode where someone read Jan’s diary.
The following is a list of topics that I’m going to try to avoid (at least for a while):
- Work angst (Thanks, Dooce, for serving as a cautionary tale!)
- Bodily functions (Yes, all of them – at least for now.)
- Friends’ children (Just doesn’t seem wise.)
- Frustrations with real life people whom I will have to see again (Clarification: the meter maid on my street does not count, but my friends, family and co-workers do)
- Dreams (Does *anyone* enjoy hearing about someone’s dreams? Even when an author uses them in a novel to foreshadow a critical event, I skip them. Bo-ring.)
- Illnesses (Unless there’s a humorous element, I’m not going to become *that person* – you know, the one on Facebook who clogs your newsfeed with updates about his chronic medical condition as if he’s 80 years old?)
Unfortunately, it seems my natural instinct is to find humor in the things I really shouldn’t be talking about. Any other thoughts on what topics I should avoid for the time-being, lest I kick a hornet’s nest?
pithypants 
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