How To Marry A German

Vesuvius can't blog today because something happened and suddenly she is worried about what other people think.

Usually I sit down to write a blog pretending I have no audience and nobody is every going to read it. This gives the the freedom to write whatever I please and send it off into the ether without fear of criticism or judgment or repercussions.

Everytime someone makes a comment, I think 'Hey! Look at that! Someone read this one blog one time!" and it makes me very happy to have a comment. I enjoy the comment, or ponder it, and sometimes reply. And then I sort of assume in my brain that said commenter was a fluke, and won't be back to read tomorrow, and then I tell you my sob story, or my happy story, or the story of Vesuvius and the Unhinged Jaws or what have you, happily and without any fear or expectation of you coming back tomorrow.

It's necessary, when you write, to convince yourself as much as possible that no one will ever be reading your words. We all know the consequences of writing for the preferences of an imagined audience rather than one's own spirit from the movie "Little Women". You end up writing some pulp novel involving cloaks and sheaths and daggers and then a kindly German man will only be mildly encouraging about your work and will not want to marry you. To make the kindly German man marry you, you have to write about a woman who is exactly like you in every way. Only once you do that will you be able to pull your publication letter from your mailbox in the rain and run around to the village people screaming of your triumph over their common values and life of hard work.



Obviously the second option is better.

Mr. Vesuvius can't believe how much I worry over what people might think. I always imagine a silent, disapproving audience, whether at McDonalds or a fancy dinner or at my computer, typing a blog.

So: I had a few things to say, and then my brain went all, "but what if I come across like this? What if saying this makes people think that? What if when I admit this, everyone somehow figures out that I am totally geeky/socially awkward/lacking anything resembling a fashion sense or decorating skills or culinary cunning/once drove to a radio station in a bikini to win tickets to see O-Town/convinced I am right/unable to finish any Isabel Allende novel/religiously lapsed/perversely proud of that fact/look down on people carrying Coach purses/artistically smug/change my sheets once a month/tell people I've been listening to NPR when I've been belting along with Glee/watch science fiction/read fantasy smut?

(Cause you guys didn't already know all that. Right?)

I am really grateful to anyone who reads my blog.

Now I'm going to stop writing and start pretending that absolutely nobody does.

(You'll still come back tomorrow, won't you?)

--V