December 20, 2004

Superman, You're Crying

The holiday season isn’t coming fast enough. The Backyard is currently experiencing an Existential Crisis. As foreshadowed a few months back, when I pondered whether to tell my father about this site, I have reached a point whereby I feel bound to self-censor. I am not happy about it to say the least – particularly not as I have something of a backlog of material waiting to be further developed as well as a rather amusing story I would otherwise have happily shared for my own diversion as much as anyone else’s.

No, I haven’t told my father about this site. Possibly worse. In a moment of extreme short-sightedness, I told a work colleague. (Hi Philip.) Now if it were my father in the know, I might go easy on the tales of drug-taking and debauchery (hell, I already do) but at least I only talk to him once every few months and see him even less. But now I’ve come over all self-conscious.

Mostly it means I ought refrain from bitching about work. It’s not as if my job is my life – god knows I pretty much hate every moment I spend there – and I certainly don’t plan on hanging around for years on end. So at the worst it’s a short- to mid-term problem.

Anyway I rather like it here in the 'yard so I’ll simply have to live with the consequences of this most stupid of faux pas and hope that, as with most of the melodramatic events of my life, I’m over-reacting. It’s all becoming a bit much for me. Work dramas, band dramas, Christmas dramas, boy dramas, yeah – that about covers it.

As for the title, it's an SJD song. My flatmates joke that I need a phone booth to change from 'corporate whore'-wear to 'am I not still a stoner student?'-wear after work each day... the divergent lifestyles I lead make for schizophrenic times. Thank you for your attention. Best wishes to all. Seems I'm about to take a holiday.

16 Comments:

Blogger Jessie said...

The thing is Jimmy, if I didn't believe there was a future beyond this, I'd go mad. I really would.

9:17 pm  
Blogger noizy said...

oh, I know. It might be a bit crazy, but how about developing an 'alter-ego' blog, where you tell all the stories you wish could tell under a pseudonym, set in a ficitional work-place, so you can still have the satisfaction of writing about the drinks, drugs and idiotic workmates, but without the fear of being busted for it?

9:21 pm  
Blogger Jessie said...

Hmmm... you may be onto something there ;)

9:32 pm  
Blogger limegreen said...

At the moment I have two sites, one of which is both worksafe & familysafe, and the other which isn't unsafe, but a bit more free. It's not ideal, actually kind of annoying... and sometimes I wonder whether I'd not be better off to go the open route, and let more people more of who I am.

11:00 pm  
Blogger noizy said...

it's tricky, isn't it? the whole 'letting people see the real me' blog is nice in theory, but a lot of the things you feel comfortable with writing aren't the sorts of things you'd really want to share with (some) people in a face-to-face conversation.

not to mention the drinking and drugs. I mean, jobs have been lost for lesser crimes.

but, on the other hand, as I seem to recall I writing about somewhere else recently, if you're happy enough to actually indulge in certain activities, you should also be happy enough for anyone to know what you get up to. except maybe your gran...

11:25 pm  
Blogger limegreen said...

Yeah, the "letting people see the real me" is so much better in theory. I can think of a few nzmers who are, er, somewhat ideologically opposed to me, and I think I'd feel uncomfortable with them reading my blog. Seems a bit personal. Ha, I mean if there are those of us who are even a little reticent about what are jobs are (someone was surprised to learn that one of our number is a practioner of the dark arts, aka, law), and I still struggle to bring myself to use the word psy *cough* *cough*. See what I mean.

2:35 am  
Blogger Jessie said...

I hear ya! It was only last week I published a post, went out for a few hours, then positively RAN home to edit it - I couldn't believe I'd been so open online! The thought of people I know putting the pieces together and knowing *exactly* what/who I was talking about made me very uncomfortable. That's what offline journals (and friends ;) are for.

2:47 am  
Blogger The Saturnyne said...

Hmm... when i created my blog, i told all my friends about it... I never talk about them on it, unless it's to say how brilliant they are, because i think that might lead to all kinds of trouble... if it helps them to understand me a little more, then i guess that's ok... i did hear of some u.k. blogger who put a disclaimer thing (his family read it, y'see) on his pages, saying something to the effect that his posts weren't necessarily true... perhaps that might be helpful in your case?

love,
S.x

5:15 am  
Blogger The Saturnyne said...

PS. Nice one, Mysterious Library-Personage!

S.

5:17 am  
Blogger limegreen said...

On the positive side of the ledger, I was just having an email discussion with a close friend on the other side of the world who I email fairly frequently, but reading each other's blogs gives us a whole extra dimension of stuff we wouldn't include in emails.

7:26 am  
Blogger Jessie said...

Interesting comments. I think James is right... the Courtney Love "I've made my bed I'm lying in it" approach is probably the most pragmatic. The beauty of my melodrama is that I bring it all on myself... You see, just quietly, I can't imagine being without it.

8:00 pm  
Blogger Jessie said...

That's a fine idea in theory Joel (I think you're Joel?!) but my wallet would tend to disagree!

1:49 am  
Blogger fishboy said...

I'm a bit reserved on my blog about personal matters - mostly because if they involve other people I feel bad about splashing details about them over the internet. But the drugs & illegal stuff? Bollocks to that, anyone doesn't like it they can fuck right off..

And I find if there's something I can't write about on my site I'll go find someone else's site and deface their comments with my problems. *grin* It's all about me.

5:35 am  
Blogger michael said...

Yeah, I reckon that point about incriminating other people is pretty spot on. You see it in any form of publicising your private life, it's not something specific to blogging. Poetry and songs can be pretty bad for it. Oh and movies, Ms Coppola!

7:14 am  
Blogger Jessie said...

You mean Lost in Translation?

9:40 pm  
Blogger michael said...

Yeah, Lost in Translation is supposed to be pretty heavily based on her own experiences. From memory the ditzy Californian actress is Cameron Diaz, and Scarlett's character's husband is Spike Jonze, for starters. Mind you the singer in the hotel plays herself, so that takes some guts given how wretched she comes across.

But then I think Sophia's denied at least the Diaz thing. Dunno.

3:19 am  

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