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2000-09-14 - 19:45:00


Entertain ME! ME ME ME ME ME!
I've been working hard this week - bosses are happy, poor, poor quoted is languishing, lost and forlorn.

So you get one ginormous update today, and none until next week - sorry, that's how it goes sometimes.

This is from Chinacat: "i have no justification. i like poetry and song lyrics and i post them here whenever the mood strikes. and i occasionally talk about my dreams, if i have one that i want to remember. and i link to my friends' diaries constantly. i'm sure these things all appear on a list somewhere of Things That Make a Diary Suck."

This is something that really spoke to me, on several levels. I think about this a lot. Because there are lists of Things That Make a Diary Suck. And they always seem so... stupid, to me. Sure, there are things I like and things I don't like about diaries. I have secret mental categories that I use to classify diaries within the first ten seconds of reading, sometimes. But I don't believe that everybody on the Internet is writing for my entertainment, either. I recognize the fact that there are as many reasons to keep online diaries as there are online diary keepers. And strange as this may sound, none of those reasons are "to give that quoted person interesting reading while she's slacking off work".

This is the rant I meant to write in this entry, in reference to Diane Patterson's article.

I think a lot of people fall into that way of thinking. They don't enjoy someone's work, therefore that person shouldn't write it. They can't conceive of a world in which that person is, for example, keeping in touch with online friends by writing short, inside-joke filled letters in their diary. Or keeping lists of important things they need to remember. Or... well, anything, besides being entertainment for the general public's viewing pleasure.

Ms. Patterson would say (and does say, in the article) that those people should password protect their diaries and not give the URL to anyone else. I disagree. They should perhaps not ADVERTISE their diary as a great literary work, but it's up to the reader to decide if they want to read something or not. Maybe YOU might not be interested in someone's worm-raising journal, but there are people who are, and the journaler shouldn't be responsible for giving out a password to the interested few just to keep the vermiphobes from being offended by their secret passion.

Basically, if you don't like a diary - don't read it. Nobody's doing that whole Clockwork Orange tie-you-down-and-hold-the-eyelids-open thing on you to force to you read it. Nobody said, hey you! This is the best diary ever and if you don't read it, you are so totally sucky! (And if they are, it's still ok to ignore them.) No, it's just there. Bad diaries are not that hard to ignore - no need to go to all the extra effort of hurting someone's feelings over something you don't happen to care for.

And there always the diaries that break all the rules but are excellent anyway. And even the worst diary can have the sparkliest gems buried in the long run-on sentences with no capitalization or punctuation or anything else that would keep your head from exploding when you read it.

Which is part of what this is about: to introduce other people to diaries they wouldn't normally read. It's not the MAIN thing, maybe, but it's an important thing. This is why I've never quoted, say, Uncle Bob - EVERYBODY already reads his diary, or has at least heard of it. More than likely, anyone reading this would have already read the quote in his diary, and what's the point of me retyping it, then? Not that I NEVER quote "DiaryLand celebrities" - I just try to keep it to a minimum, because nobody wants to read the same thing over and over.

From Venefica

I don't know why I let him influence me. It's the one default setting I have that I don't have the user name or password to.

From Ms Pharmacist

i don't need some overweight broad from detroit telling me which toads to kiss and which ones to throw back to the alligators.

From Donnagirl

Ok, so for the third day in a row, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" was on the radio when I was driving home... So, it's obviously an omen. Obviously I should be paying attention. Instead of a Burning Bush I get a Rolling Stone... but no matter. I'm ready to be a prophet.

From Blivet (via Koogle)

I saw I sign last night advertising a horse race called the "ATTO MILE". I'm not that good at my latin prefixes, but doesn't that work out to be less than a millionth of a billionth of an inch? And isn't that a little short for a horse race?

From Mangledoll (via Starr Angel)

i have a feeling it's one of those towns where the main source of entertainment means sleeping your best friends baby's daddy and so forth.

From Grrrl (via Pix)

I always feel happier and cocky in the morning... and things make me feel worse through the day until I only feel sadness and selfdoubt at night.

Maybe I should go to bed earlier.

From Bob (via Schmez)

...but then he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and started puffin'. "Let me tell you something," he said, "don't you ever start smoking! It'll kill ya!"

Naturally, I busted out a palm pilot and recorded his groundbreaking advice.

...Some weeks earlier, I was riding with a friend of mine who was rather famous for his alcoholism. "Man, let me tell you something," he told me, "don't you ever start drinking. It's stupid."

This was before I had a palm pilot, so I just scratched his epiphany into my flesh.

From Ashes (via a secret person with no diary... man I wish I could use the word 'anonymous' on DiaryLand without it being misinterpreted)

I had one take a liking to my buzz, and he sat on my back grooming the heck out of my hair with his brush tongue. You can also get squirted on by their projectile pooping if you know where to stand.

From Nictate (via Gray Area)

i love the internet so much, i'd eat it with a spoon, too.

waiter! there's a major metropolitan area and a worldwide communications network in my soup!