Caveat: It’s Friday night. There is a large and heady G&T next to the computer. I could get even less coherent than usual. So, I am staying firmly away from deep and meaningful subjects. Anyway, I think we’ve just about done deep and meaningful for this week, don’t you?
So. Does anyone else keep a diary? That should be nice and harmless and on-topic. By diary, or journal, if you prefer, I mean a traditional - I nearly said ‘proper’ - one, on paper, in notebook. Or even, heck, on a hard disk somewhere. Blogs do not count. Oh, well, yes, they DO count, very much. Why am I here? What is this I am wasting booze on, after all? But it is precisely because blogs have a purpose, an intended audience and (a somewhat different thing, this) an actual audience, that they don’t count as diaries. Even the ‘Oopsie LOL’ brigades that litter the blogosphere thick as Autumnal Leaves that strow the Brooks In Vallombrosa are SHOWING OFF. I know I am.
The sad thing is, I think I show off even in my private diary. I didn’t used to. I reread my adolescent ones recently, and the frank, sad angry blurtage made me feel quite shaken. Hideously embarrassed and longing to give myself a good slap, too, but decidedly shaken. I used to record every mean, sneaking, envious, spiteful and whining thought, every stupid row, every foul-up, every shameful crush, every fumble, zit and tampon. It makes for horrible reading, admittedly, but Lordy, it’s interesting. When did my personal diary become so decorous? Rows (and we do have some humdingers. Doesn’t everyone?) are passed over in a few words or, worse, left out; embarrassment and raging curiously absent. The weather is admittedly beautifully described, the book reviews are good, and the sarcastic remarks on the News of the Day are always amusing. But nothing ever seems to happen to me any more. Not since I left University. Not since I took to living with someone.
Oh.
Well, you see where boozy posting gets you? Sozzled enough to let cats out of bags, too sozzled to work out which cat. Which bag for that matter.
Same thing happened to George Eliot
Gyles Brandreth is irritating for a lot of reasons, one of which is that he actually is both intelligent and witty.
Anyway, he had a programme on the radio a few months ago about political diaries - why politicians write them (for publication, natch), and what is suitable diary material. He said he found it warping his behaviour, that he would seek out encouters no matter how cringe-making with the great or the famous in order to be able to diarise them.
I’ve never kept a diary. I do have a series of rather nice notebooks around the place full of the random outpourings of a bruised heart. Then I started doing the random outpourings in verse. And then I just dabbed on arnica and it got better.
Apart from the pain involved at the time, there’s a lot to be said for “headache”.
Left by Aphra Behn on July 16th, 2006
I’ve also never kept a diary. I think mostly because it seemed rather boring to just be talking to myself. Though I’m also no stranger to boozy and rambling postings which many people on h2g2 will acknowledge.
Instead, before computers and internet, I used to write very long and rambling letters to friends. When I was living in Salamanca a friend told me that she felt a bit annoyed upon receiving photocopied letters from a friend of hers. Apparently he wrote all his letters in a notebook, then photocopied them to send to his friends so he’d have a record of what he had written.
I actually thought this was rather a good idea but I did it in reverse - I would send off the original letter to my friend but not before making a photocopy of it for myself. Doing this became unnecessary once emails became the norm. But I have at least two huge boxes of my photocopied correspondence over several years in my storage room upstairs (if it hasn’t been eaten by mice and roaches).
As for the ’showing off’ thing, oh I don’t know. Most of us write to an ‘audience’ even if it’s just one other person. But I see what you mean about the difference between a totally private peronal diary and the stuff one puts on the internet or even in letters.
I put very little *seriously* private stuff on the internet - that is saved for private correspondence. But I do like sharing the lighter stuff.
I’m not sure if I’d actually enjoy reading a totally un-edited version of my former self - as you mentioned when talking about re-reading your teenage diaries. Though I can well imagine it being very interesting on a very personal level.
Left by azahar on July 16th, 2006
I have sometimes kept a diary, but only at times when I have needed to for cathartic reasons. In fact, I dug one out today when looking for a poem I wrote some years ago. They don’t make nice reading, but they were certainly helpful at the time!
David
Left by David B on July 16th, 2006
Yes. I have kept a journal. My present journal is a beautiful book of acid free hand made paper bound in leather with a nice tie.
It has taken me years to get back to journalling. I stopped writing my deepest thoughts when my husband read one of my old journals. It was not a good thing. I learned that if you are having an affair or questioning your relationship, your significant other is not happy to read about it in a journal, even if it happened years before the reading. It made me feel unsafe to write my true thoughts and what was really happening to me. That was 18 years ago and I have finally forgiven him for that trespass on my privacy, and finally feel safe enough to journal again. He has forgiven me for having an affair. We got over it, andlearned a lot and made a more powerful relationship.
I have many journals that I have written a few entries in and then laid aside.
But the “Oh” in your post says a lotl. You live with someone. They suddenly take up a lot of time. And I found that the temptation to read what I was REALLY thinking was too hard for him to resist. Do you subconsciously fear the same thing? I don’t know.
Left by healingmagichands on August 4th, 2006