Exhibitionism

Well looky here. Life continues to tickle, quietly, while I look the other way. This page is slowly but surely becoming one of those abandoned parking lots, weeds growing through the cracks in the cement, surrounded by rusty graffitied warehouses all around.

Surprisingly enough, this blog isn't going idle because of my usual laziness, although there is plenty of that to go around.

My new dilemma is the conflict between the public and the personal.

See, I used to be one of those twitchy secretive types. I would never brag about accomplishments, maintaining a dignified silence and assuming that the right people would find out about my deep internal coolness. I hide my feelings from all but the closest to me, afraid of the ridicule of the masses if they knew the extent of my ambitions.

It's all very middle school, really. It's as if everyone is constantly looking at me, thinking of me, waiting for the tiniest chink in my armor to undo me completely.

Here's two crazy things I learned recently:

1. Nobody is paying attention to me. Everyone is thinking of themselves.

2. Attention feels good. I freaking LOVE attention. Attention is better than candy, and sometimes even better than money.


This little blog here was formed in my more secretive phase, when I was shyly emerging from my shell like a slimy butterfly. And it's completely anonymous. I don't use my usual online id, and there's really no way to trace it back to secretive little me.

In the meantime, the real me has become a bit of a publicity whore. I'm organizing a meetup, for Pete's sake.

So talking softly into the void of LifeTickles is becoming unsatisfying. Whither the adoration of the masses? The flame wars? The stalkers? I need more attention!

To quench my thirst for attention, I'm considering de-anonymizing LifeTickles. Publicizing my innermost thoughts to internet strangers is less problematic than publicizing them to family and employers. I'll have to plan the outing very carefully. Maybe once the employers are out of the picture....