morning gruel

what was i thinking?

I am supposed to be reflecting on the meaning and purpose of my blog. But I've been busy.

That's a lie. I mean, who doesn't have time to think? The truth is that I've been avoiding thinking about morning gruel for the last couple of days. I can't handle it. I can't stomach the questions that I am faced with. Questions like: What am I doing? and What was I thinking?

I do not yet have any definitive answers. I only have vague ideas that may eventually form answers.

But here's one thing I've decided: no more judgment. No more talking about other people and how wrong or foolish I think they are, even if I'm just kidding. This may be a tough one for me because I love to make fun of people. But as I have recently discovered, blogging can be hurtful to others and while harm was not my intention, it was still the result.

But what will I do to replace the gaping hole left by the absent sarcasm? Well, just because I shouldn't make fun of others doesn't mean I can't make fun of myself. So I will no longer point out the foibles of other people. But you better believe that when I do something strange, silly, or just downright stupid, something that makes me smack my head and say What was I thinking, you're gonna hear about it. So now to replace the recently abolished category Maple Bacon, I would like to introduce a brand new category... What was I thinking.

Of course I pray for infrequent postings in this category. But hey, we all screw up sometimes.

(re)think

I have had to rethink my approach.

If you look to the left, you will see that I have eliminated a category. Maple Bacon no longer exists. Neither do any of the entries that belonged in that category.

Why? Well for those of you who have been here for a while, you know that Maple Bacon was all about the neighbours. I wrote about them freely and jokingly, always embellishing greatly both the situation and my feelings. But often I was unkind. And sometimes I was just plain mean.

I knew that I was kinda nasty, but I justified it with the knowledge that I didn't really mean what I was saying. And I figured that since the we don't run in the same circles and I maintained their anonymity, they would never know. And heck, I had fun making up little stories about them.

But blogs are public after all. I was shocked to learn that my neighbours had read my blog. I went back and reread all of my entries that referred to them. I was embarrassed.

Why did I write those things about these people that I don't really know? Because I thought it was entertaining? Because I thought it was harmless? Well, clearly I have caused some harm with my blog. And for that I am truly sorry.

It's time for me to rethink what I'm doing here. It's time to regroup and retry.