the blogger's dilemma

My good friend K. sent me an email one day last summer asking me to be part of her very informal focus group. Which did I like better? Under prairie skies… Azure skies of the prairies… Storming prairie sunsets… Relishing the fray…and about twenty other phrases that either invoked her Great Plains heritage, or some Tragically Hip diddy. I had no idea why she was asking, but I took the bait, and picked the three that I liked the best. K. admitted to being a bit taken aback by my choices, and the selections of the others who received the same email, since she was sure we would all elect for completely different options than what we had. For a communications specialist, where focus groups are often on the menu du jour, this disconcerted her. All ended well however, and Relishing the fray became the first blog I became acquainted with, and the yardstick with which I still measure all others.

Now that I contribute my own noxious gases to the blogosphere with Today on Oprah, K. and I often discuss what it’s like to write what are essentially very public diaries. One day, K. told me that she was quite bothered by an email she’d received from her dad regarding her daily scripting. Evidently he was concerned that she might be revealing too much of herself in her blog, and he wondered if she shouldn’t be a bit more judicious in what she chose to expose about herself. I’m not sure how K. handled it in the end, since the substance of the Fray seems to me to be pretty much the same as it always has been (excellent!), but I’m sure her dad’s distress often creeps into the back of K.’s mind the second after she presses the “publish” button every day. How could it not? It is her dad after all.

Today I got my own email from a concerned father, wondering if everything was okay, since some of the language I’ve been using in my posts lately is apparently a bit atypical of how I usually express myself (it’s really not, I think; I’m just not as big of a potty mouth in front of my dad as I am in front of others). But I have re-read my last couple of entries, and while I don’t think I’ve written anything totally outrageous or completely inappropriate, dad does have a point. I guess I could tone it down a bit. I’m really not trying to be offensive, I swear (no pun intended). Also, Boh is going to read this someday; how much do I really want to edit?

Self-censorship. Hmmm. What will K. have to say about this?