I haven't been blogging because...

Which excuse do you want first?

There are several things that are making me apathetic about this blog.

Yet another friend discovered my blog recently (Hi, E.A.S.), so that makes, let's see, 5 people (that I know of) who know me In Real Life who read this blog. This is not counting my partner, who has known about it for a couple of years but rarely reads it. This is partly because he's busy and partly because he sort of gets that I told him about it so I wouldn't be keeping secrets from him but that the blog is actually my own space and not a place I want him spending a lot of time.

This is a perfect example of how the intersection between my real life and my blog is making it hard for me to blog. I know that one of my Real Life friends who reads this blog thinks it's really weird that my spouse doesn't read it. So I'm self-conscious writing about how my spouse and I deal with this blog's existence, because I'm imagining that my friend is going to say to his wife, "Did you read that last post? Aren't TBH and M weird? I mean they're great and all, but they're so different from us. I'm so glad we're us and not them." (Hi, D).

And now I feel even more self conscious, because yet another friend who reads my blog told me once that she thinks it's healthier to address everything directly with the people concerned instead of talking about it online first (Hi, P).

So should I call them up right now and say, hey, I'm going to mention a conversation we had once on my blog, okay? Are we still cool? And I'm writing something that I know you'll disagree with, so could you please not judge me too harshly?

Aside from the fact that I am much more constrained when I write about, um, anything, now that it's no longer really anonymous, I also feel more self-conscious posting personal financial details. It's easy enough to talk about how money shouldn't be taboo, and we'd all have more power as workers if we were all open about our salaries so we could each go to the boss and say, Hey, you have to pay me as much as you pay Joe, or whatever. But to actually write posts like this one, knowing my friends are going to read it, is a little disconcerting.

If I wasn't so damned lazy I'd kill this blog and start a whole new one, an anonymous one, and I'd do a better job obscuring the details of my life so my friends couldn't identify me as easily, and I'd do a better job being cagey and not mentioning it to people. And maybe if my friends did find it I could do a better job of saying, okay, you found it, but could you maybe help me perpetuate the fiction that it's still undiscovered? Could you do what my partner does, and check it out every few months out of curiosity but basically leave my blog to the PF geek crowd that it's intended for?

So here I am, thinking about what E, P, D, S and the other E will think of every word. At the same time, I have been a bit reluctant to post because I'm in a holding pattern financially. I'm still waiting to find out if I'm going to be offered a big ongoing freelance gig. If I am, my biggest financial challenge will be resisting lifestyle creep. That will make interesting blog fodder, but if I'm afraid that writing a weekly column won't leave much time for blogging.

In addition, this money obsession is waning a little bit. It's only money, after all. We're doing okay money-wise. I don't feel as anxious about it. And so it's not as interesting to obsess over the finer points of my budget these days. We're saving a decent amount. There's not much that I want that we can't afford (except a house with a bigger yard, but I'll be pining for that for years). So what is there to write about? The recession? The election? Bo-ring. I'd love to tell you all about my mother's house hunt and how it's making me nuts, but if 5 people know about this blog, who's to say my sister and my mom and my next-door-neighbor aren't reading it too? And if they're not now, it's only a matter of time.

And my near-death experience four months ago (is it really only four months?) has made me want to spend less time on the computer, and more time doing meaningful things like talking to people, you know, face to face. And taking walks. And playing with L and his friends. And reading novels. And maybe even writing them.


So I'm blogging less, and not feeling all that guilty about it, either. I'm very much leaning towards putting this blog to sleep for good.

I'd rather read other people's excellent PF blogs these days than write my own.