Unwanted attention

(Or, Be Careful What You Wish For)

I've decided to let a secret out the bag. Well, half a secret:

I have another blog.

It's a secret blog, one that I tell no one about. That way, no one I know can read it. In this way, I can be totally honest without fear of offending anyone.

And one person I know does read it. I set it up on advice from a college friend, who had read this one. Her advice was to set up one at this other site, a bloggers' site. First, I could be really honest. And second, because it's all other bloggers, you get a lot of feedback.

But that's all I'll say - I want to keep it this way. My friend said she got burned more than once when someone she knew read her blog. And it's true - I find myself editing here, not wanting to piss anyone off. So, the other blog domain shall remain a secret.

Much of what I post there I post here - often unedited. It's only on occasion I change things. Well, yesterday, I posted on my other site about the Jim Bob Duggar family, the people in Arkansas who are expecting their 17th child in July. I took a stand, which people may or may not agree with: 17 kids is too many. I elaborated, shared my thoughts on why this particular family dynamic is perhaps not the best for the kids. And I"m not going to defend my comments - I'm entitled to my opinion.

Well, somehow - don't know how this works - somehow, it made featured content, meaning when you go to the blog's home page, it was listed there, like Blog of the Day.

It's sort of flattering - I mean wow - I'm the most interesting blog of the day! Does it mean I'm the best writer? Maybe not. Maybe just the most controversial, most provocative. But it's kind of cool.

The flip side, however, has been the comments. Last night I did not realize what was going on, but I kept getting comment after comment. It wasn't til this morning I found out that I was featured.

Some - most - of the comments have been supportive. But the crazies are out in full force, and some of the comments are really mean. I don't know how many I've gotten - more than 100 at this point - but I had to quit reading. Once I got called a Jezebel, I decided I was done for a while.

So now I'm almost afraid to post again, in fear that the crazy people will continue to read and comment. I mean, I don't know these people, but I had built up a small community of blog "friends," and I kind of miss that.

I think I'll just take a break, perhaps post something later. Maybe I'll put up a protected post and only grant access to my usual readers,.

Sigh. Even my virtual life is complicated ;)