Lately some of us were discussing the "public" vs. "members" settings for blogs.  In truth it had never really occured to me that someone would find my blogs and read them......other than the members of this site, and CS before it.  Now, totally opposing this idea of mine, is this fact:  If you mark them public, they are going to be on search engines and will be available to anyone who has a computer.

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Thinking about this, I got to thinking about how indescreet I have been in about 75 of the 99 blogs the system says I have posted.  That's a LOT of information about a person, and in truth it would take someone a lot of patience and maybe even quite a bit of boredom to root through all of my meandering thoughts and come up with anything that would be indiscreet.  I try not to identify too many people by name......for months and months and months I only identified my honey as "my honey" not by name.  I'm certain that more than one of my blogs mentions my dear dear departed friend who was my honey's beloved wife, and mentions her by name.  She is gone and probably would chuckle about the blogs I have written where she is talked about.  Even in the very beginning, when she met me in the pharmacy, she was hell bent on honesty.  She thanked me for wearing my forehead tattoo dedicating me to the Goddess forever and beyond once my ashes are scattered, she also told me she was dying.  She was from NY and you could tell by her attitude, just different from that soft sort of Oregon way of being.....now I know I shouldn't make sweeping statements about people like that, but perhaps you will forgive me for it once.  My point in this case is to say I think it would tickle her that my/her honey and I are so close.......well, close is a euphemism, but a good one, I'll keep it.  I think it would warm her great big heart to know we talk about her frequently with love when we are together, or even just on the phone.  We both loved her dearly and still do.  Sometimes when my honey does something I MIGHT consider annoying or a bit "off" I think back to my dear Cherie telling me "I'm going to KILL him!!!"  or "I'm going to divorce him!!!"  Of course she never did, and the way it stands now, when he and I are together there are three of us there.  That's cool with us, and her too, I bet.

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Basically I freaked the eff out thinking about some anonymous malevolent person reading my blogs and, gleaning personal information about people in my life, would proceed to make those lives miserable because I tell the truth about things that have happened between us.  The person I am least discreet about is myself, of course.  So I have to think about whether telling all my secrets publicly is such a good idea or whether I want to "take those back" as it were and mark them to be read by members only.  Based on all this thinking, I went back to the My Blog setting and chose a couple of blogs to mark "members".  Needless to say, since the only way to do that was by editting them, they reset as if I had posted them today.  In a way, that was sort of a blessing because some members read one of them and promptly rated them, which I had NOT thought about happening at all.  There again, I had to go think about it.  There are some blogs that I wrote a while ago that I hope some of the newer people on WB WILL read, even if they were written almost a year ago......most of what I write is not time specific, so they wouldn't be too cognitively dissonant......well, I don't think so anyway.

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Then I got to thinking, who in the hell do you think you are, Miss Smartypants?!  Why would someone want to get on their computer and troll for blogs that mention people they've never met and how paranoid ARE you, Miss Smartypants?!  The fact is, I am plenty paranoid.  I have noticed in life that the most unexpected and sometimes uncomfortable things happen whether I think about them happening or not......I seem to anticipate terrible things, but truly there have never been really terrible things perpetrated on me in my life.  Ok, my first ex husband was an asshole who beat me, let them put THAT in their pipes and smoke it.  My point is, just because you're paranoid does not mean they aren't out to get you.  I've believed that all my life......so, here I am thinking thinking thinking and changing my mind each time I look at a new aspect of the questions involved.

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All this thinking has brought me round circle back to the beginning.  I fixed the blog so it is public access again, that particular blog, "Walking in Ritual" would be a REALLY good one for a marauding xtian to find and read!!!  The people who might accidentally run across this post may learn a whole new way to approach their day......whether Goddess chants in the shower are involved or not.

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I am pretty certain that my friend "A" stopped speaking to me after she read some of my blogs or forum posts that were NOT xtian friendly, some downright nasty about xtianity and the people who profess those beliefs.  I am a mean mean woman, and that religion damned near ruined my very early life......which totally affects your WHOLE life in a miriad of ways....especially if you don't do counselling or some such to get the poison out.  I have had the counselling, now I blog.......it all comes from the same early formed attitude to life.  Which is THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME OR MY SPIRITUAL BELIEFS!!!!!  Maybe my erstwhile friend just got tired of talking to me, after making arrangements to talk to me on a scheduled night each week.......in putting 2 and 2 together I may have gotten 17, but the facts are I gave her my Pagan name and told her about how much I love Witchbook.net and she may have looked it up and gotten her nose out of joint due to what she read.  It must have been REALLY something because she just stopped ALL contact with me, even though I called a few times to leave messages (are you ok???? are you mad at me????? are you THERE?????) and she never responded.  I know she is still working at the same place, because I called her work phone and listened to her outgoing message.  So what I know is I told her my name and she stopped talking to me.

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This thinking and thinking about what other people may or may not do based on some pretty funny coincidences that would have to come together for someone to read my blogs, tells me I am co-dependent as hell, I have even gone to CODA meetings to get better about that and to stop thinking thinking thinking so much about what other people might make of any aspect of me or my life.  Co-dependents Anonymous taught me many things, one of them was to THINK for myself, not for strangers I have never and probably will never meet.  Some have told me I couldn't think my way out of a paper bag, and they have a point.  My thoughts seem to go round in circles, I take meds to keep that from happening while I am trying to sleep, seriously.  Otherwise my thoughts just go round and round and round and I get no rest.  Pretty ridiculous if you ask me.

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So, where am I after all this thinking?  I think I am pretty funny, thinking once again that the world revolves around me and my naughtiness or my carelessness or my sexuality or my spirituality or my indescretions or my........fill in the blank.  Sometimes life requires us to think things over in earnest......like when I'm deciding whether or not to be discreet about myself, that's one thing, but what about when I decide to be or not be discreet about the other people in my blogs????  Forgot this was about blogs, didn't you?!  Hee hee.  I don't blame you, I do go on.  The decision I have come to is that I am going to write my blogs as if no one but the members of this site will ever see them or care for that matter.

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Here I have to stop because this blog is turning into a novella, and that's not my intention.  So thank you for reading this, People.  Talk to me.