For someone who contemplated writing about almost crapping her pants at yoga earlier this week (note: I said ALMOST), I’m a surprisingly private person. I have virtually no boundaries when it comes to things that other people may classify as “TMI,” but I’m fiercely guarded about others. Weird, right?
As a child, I would disappear into our basement for hours on end and refuse to tell my parents what I was working on. (It generally involved a craft book and some contraband. True story: I once tried to sew a leather purse out of multiple gloves I’d stolen from lost-and-found boxes. That’s kind of like trying to build an Ark out of popsicle sticks. Except when your mom finds a dozen mismatched leather gloves in your sewing kit, she’s probably a bit more suspicious.)
So imagine my surprise at being featured on WordPress’s Freshly Pressed yesterday morning: Holy shit.
It was kind of like someone finding me standing in the Lost-and-Found squirreling away the gloves. Naked. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been blogging away for 18 months, amusing myself and an occasional reader along the way, hoping beyond hope to find an audience.
But I’ve also been oddly private about it. I never use a last name or other identifiers that would allow my employer to randomly stumble upon my blog. (Although earlier this week I discovered my boss finds my blog funny, which a) Is awesome, b) Prompted me to almost soil myself while whispering the word “DOOCED!” and c) Shows that I’m not that as slick as I believe I am.
It just goes to show that what they say is true… Put it on the internet and it WILL be found.
In case you’re curious, this is how you know your blog has been picked up by Freshly Pressed: you’re sitting at your desk, working. Your phone chirps with a received email. Then another. And another.
You think, “I may have set up too many subscriptions to LivingSocial deals.” And your phone keeps chirping.
Finally, you look and your special inbox (the one you only use for your blog) has 48 notifications in it, in 20 minutes. WTF?
You begin looking at the comments, the likes and the subscriptions, and you see — there in someone’s comment — “Congratulations on Freshly Pressed!” Double WTF.
You bounce over to WordPress.Com and this is what you see:
SERIOUSLY?! 300 hits in the first hour, 3,000 by the end of the day. Thank you, WordPress!
So back to privacy. My parents haven’t known I have this blog. It goes back to my roots of running down the stairs with a project in-hand, not wanting them to view it until it was complete. Well, that and the fact that I really didn’t want to censor myself when I started writing it. And I tend to use the F*bomb and bathroom humor a lot more frequently than they do.
Anyway, I decided to give myself a few months to find my voice before I shared it with friends and family and opened myself up to judgment. So here goes… no more skulking around, worrying that anyone will be offended by my voice, humor or opinions. Now that the greater viewing public – including my boss and a slew of supportive bloggers – have found me, it’s time my parents do too.
Fortunately, I’m better with words than I ever was with a sewing machine. Even so, I’m pretty sure posts like this are going to leave them scratching their heads. Well, at least I didn’t fish around in a Lost & Found for the material. This time.
pithypants 
I like knowing celebrities 🙂
it’s funny. my mom is simultaneously one of the main reasons I blog and the source of some of my best material… my parents and I only see each other 2 times a year at best, so when my mom found my blog she was so happy..I had to explain to her that I wasn’t and couldn’t censor myself and that she would most likely read more about herself in my posts in the future and she was surprisingly ok with it!
Family is great fodder — just look at David Sedaris! And my parents have always been interested in what I’m up to, so I figure it’s time to stop worrying and just let them in on a wider glimpse of my life. If they don’t like this view of me, they can always stop reading, right? 🙂
I only “know” of one friend who actually reads my blog. The rest are complete strangers..and when I say “the rest” I know it ain’t much. But my one friend always rolls her eyes and says things like; “Wow you really made yourself naked on that one!” or “Dude I can’t believe you wrote about that!” I am an extremely private person…but not on WP.
This rocks. I love reading your Facebook status updates because they are always witty and hilarious. This blog is going to be a daily thing for me now. You make me smile 🙂
Aww, thanks! Glad my antics can provide you a mid-day mental break! 🙂
Congrats! You are funny funny!!
Be brave! I took the plunge and released my blog on June 8 to my family and friends, but I was really new to blogging–just working on it for a few days. June 9th was the day WordPress picked my post “To Be Honest With You…” to be Freshly Pressed. I had NO CLUE what that meant and why I had so many comments and hits on my virgin blog.
Life sure is an adventure. Your sense of is wonderful. I love to read and write funny pieces. Just want you to know you have another new fan and subscriber.
My first subscriber was my Mom. Is that weird? Maybe it helps keep me from writing too much potty humor.
Love your writing style and, again, congrats on the FP!
Congrats! I love reading your blog everyday : )
Thanks. You’re one of the original readers! 🙂
Excellent! Congrats!
Thanks! 🙂
Interesting. I too am uber-secretive about my blog, and I too have rigid boundaries about some things and none at all about others. Nobody in my “real life” knows about my blog. There are lots of reasons for that, but as you said, one of them is that I can’t talk about them openly if they know I’m doing it. Let me know how the FP-inspired “outing” goes!
PS thanks for the Twitter love re: plastic surgery!