First, if anything has stopped working, I'm sorry. I've been experimenting with HTML and I may have gone too far. I read today about cascaded style sheets, which (if I do them right) will allow me to reformat all these pages simply by changing one setting, and the potential for great harm to the page is pretty obvious to me. I've not noticed anything wrong so far, but if you do, let me know. Apparently those of you using older browsers may also see some strange things. I use Netscape 4 now, and try to test on 3.0. I didn't really like Microsoft's browser and don't use it. The icon sits on my desktop, ignored.
I read the things I wrote last night. I also went back and read the first entry and am now amazed at the things I write when I think no one's reading. I know you are, but since I can't see you, perhaps I'm willing to suspend the self-consciousness long enough to dump parts of myself into these words.
And again, I reserve the right to chicken out.
I got a call a while ago from Marcy, asking how things went the other night. She said she's wanted to call and see how things went but didn't want to do it yesterday. I was glad to hear from her, but right after she said that, something popped up in my head:
She didn't call me yesterday afternoon in case he was still here!
I didn't tell Marcy this, of course, and maybe I was wrong, but I just had that sense. I told her what we did, and that he was really nice, and a part of my head was thinking, all during the conversation, about that one scene from When Harry Met Sally (which I love), where the women are all sitting around a table and they start whipping out their rolodexes. I have no rolodex and don't look like Meg Ryan, but that image stuck with me. If you're 29 and never married and not actively seeing anyone, it gets beyond the point where people wonder if you're sleeping with that guy you just met, they simply assume you must be. In my case, that's a pretty stupid assumption.
I had to get up and leave the PC to resist the temptation to erase that last line.
NO, it stays. I was thinking it, it stays.
I've read a few online diaries, and several of them seem to have an undertone of worry. The need for anonymity, lest someone the author knows in the everyday world might read the page and gain some terrible knowledge of the author.
It sounds pathetic, but I don't have that worry because I'm not that close to very many people. The people I do stay close to don't use computers. The safety of ignorance? Maybe not. I suspect that I'd still want somewhere to say these things. If I had someone to talk these things over with in daily life, I'd still write. I've been writing on paper for most of my life. This is just another kind of paper.
Yes, I really like When Harry Met Sally. I really liked Sleepless In Seattle. I loved Breakfast At Tiffany's. And An Affair To Remember. And The Bridges of Madison County.
I am not only the only woman my age I know who's seen them all, I'm probably the only woman my age in the world who's seen them all... alone.
What does that say? I don't even want to think about it.