Hey, at least I gave it a quick death.

Okay, I'm still working on getting caught up on answering email. I don't usually get a whole lot of email from journal readers (damn it!) but for some reason the past couple of weeks have generated quite a bit, and much of it from people making keen and interesting insights into my psyche/lifestyle/personality. I enjoy those emails, because it's always interesting to see how one appears to the rest of the world. However, I realized that even though I've been putting my thoughts/feelings/etc on the web for the world to see for a couple of years now, I'm not sure anyone can really do an in-depth analysis of my personal and psychological well-being from the contents of my website alone. You see, there's really quite a lot that I don't put up here. I paint an incomplete picture, and I put up only what I want to show the world, or what I feel is fit for this sort of exposure. For example:

I don't talk about my ex-husband, Jason, if at all possible. A while back he asked me for privacy in the journal, since we have mutual friends and coworkers who read this, and he didn't feel it was fair to him to have portions of his life exposed without his knowledge, consent, or ability to censor. I fully respect that and have therefore said next to nothing about our present relationship. I will at least say that we're still very good friends, and we get along a lot better now that we're divorced.

I talk very little about my job and workplace and my feelings and atttitudes toward the same. I used to have a page containing all sorts of little anecdotes about the odd things that happen in the gambling world, but, there are people from work who read this, and it was "suggested" that I remove it, since people could get the wrong impression. Politics are everywhere, and I removed the site. And, did my best to refrain from any future reference to my workplace that might be negatively construed.

I don't talk about my sex life beyond Kent. And yes, I do have (or at least am attempting to have) a sex life with someone(s) other than Kent. I can hear the collective gasps now. Come on, people. We live 2000 miles apart. Neither of us are in any position to relocate any closer within the next several years. He dates other people. I date other people. But, I asked Kent's permission before I said word one about our relationship in this journal. And I give that consideration to other someone(s) as well. Since at the present other someone(s) don't even know the journal exists, I'm not about to hold forth about personal issues with someone(s.)

I don't talk much about my Dad's health. Again, the privacy thing. I might talk about how it directly affects me, but even then I try and avoid details. (By the way, he's out of the hospital now!)

I don't think I've mentioned anything at all about my relationship (or lack thereof) with my sister. That's a very complicated issue, and at this point in time, the less said about that, the better.

I don't talk too much about the portions of my childhood that I considered utterly miserable. I'm a firm believer in the maxim, "Your childhood may not have been perfect, but it's over." Get over it already, y'know?

And there are other things that I refrain from mentioning, which is why, sometimes, I go for days without posting. There's stuff happening in my life, but sometimes there's nothing I'm willing or able to put into a journal entry.

People read online journals because it is guiltless voyeurism. At least that's my theory. It's fascinating to sneak a peek into someone else's life, and see how they think and act and react. It's fun to keep up with friends, whether they be "real life" friends or net-friends, and from a journaller's standpoint, it's often easier to put up a journal entry than to send a jillion emails saying, "Hey, guess what happened to me today!" Sometimes keeping a journal can be a royal pain in the ass, and it can feel like a lot of work, and sure, it probably sucks time away from my writing (not that I'm doing much of that lately anyway--something else I haven't been talking much about.) But, as Erin says, it's really cheap therapy sometimes, and the feedback from readers is always a treat.

So keep writing, readers, and I apologize in advance if I'm miserably slow in responding. I go through phases where I can't stand to sit at the computer for more than a couple of minutes, and certainly not long enough to compose pithy and interesting replies to emails that obviously had a lot of thought put into them. (I know, not replying to them is even worse than a non-pithy reply. This week. I promise.)

Just remember that the picture sometimes has holes in it that you can't see. And lack of information does not always mean the worst.