I tend to write very personally and candidly about my life. As my mother once put it, “You always did tell me more than I wanted to know”! (thanks Mom!) One reason I do that is I believe the slogan which says, “You are only as sick as your secrets”. Candor is incredibly freeing! I do have a sense of boundaries that keep me from making an a$$ of myself and from making anyone I love want to commit murder!

I always appreciate the personal comments that keep blogs from being dry dissertations. If I had to specify how “bare” I take things I’d have to say I show no more than discreet cleavage on intimacy issues and I pull a total strip on my personal, inner/psychological life.

*she tries to picture this* but fails miserably. And then laughs until her belly aches.

If you – as a man – write down that you pissed in your neighbor’s car through the window, had a meltdown and yelled at the cashier in the local depanneur when she charged you too much for beer, and then went home and burst into tears because your cat ate the cheese you left on the counter…

You would get nothing. Zip. Zilch.

Change your name to Danicka instead of Dave, and you suddenly have a huge outpouring of sympathy, love, links, and shared laughter.

It’s a gender thing. I swear.

I only bare my arse if there’s a lesson in it that others can use. It’s not about baring just to bare. It’s about baring and saying, “Don’t do what I did, and here’s why.”

I also never seem to realize I’m baring a thing until people say that I am. Oblivious male, I guess!

@ Dave C – Agree that, at least the strip bloggers I mentioned, seem to be much “realer” than wht you see done for shock value and bucks on TV. On the gender issue, I am still leaning James’ way, largely because almost every popular strip blogger with a substantial following is a woman. There’s got be something to that.

@ her every cent counts – I get the need to be honest. But, what I don’t get is – if that is truly your primary motivation, why is it necessary for you to be honest in public? Wouldn’t private journaling have a similar effect. What else does doing it in public give you? Genuinely curious.

@ Tea – Yeah, the public record is one thing that stops me from getting too naked, myself. I sometimes wonder if, even though I am ok leeting something loose today, would I someday come to regret it years down the road? And, I am not someone who lives with much regret in my life, but, I have to admit to that thought lingering while I write.