Some Random Thoughts.

While I'm cleaning and doing household things, I generally have plenty of time to think. And boy, do I take advantage of that time. Sometimes it's just daydreaming about fun stuff, sometimes it's dark and depressing things, and usually it's some strange combination of both.

Today one of the paths my brain took was how much to share in my blog. Do I let it all hang out, and share everything I think of, even the not-so-nice stuff? Do I hold back and post the happier things, or only the most important things, making it seem like my life is the best ever? Or do I somehow balance the two? And just how do I find the right balance?

I've been burnt before by sharing things online and having them used against me later. And, I've been the bad guy in online things as well. Not on purpose, my life pretty much overwhelmed me, and I wound up not sending packages when I thought I would, and so on. Because I screwed up in those cases, I've had some people who are really against me... to the point of sending me junk mail at home under what was apparently supposed to be my name (misspelled, adding extra words in, etc). In fact, some people raised such a ruckus over me winning a nail art contest that my winning was revoked by the sponsor. What did I do to incur such wrath? I was very late sending out packages, and was "overcharging" people. By which I mean I was paying $3.50 for Zoya, and asking for $4.50 from them. The rest of the polishes I was placing group orders for at the time, I was charging the exact price. People accused me of deliberately cheating, claimed my packages weren't arriving, said my packages were dirty, smelly, and gross... all sorts of things. And it hurt. It hurt a LOT.

Now, don't get me wrong, I really was sending packages out quite late (up to a few months even). And, I was asking for that extra dollar on Zoya polishes, when I should have gone with breaking even as usual. I wasn't trying to make money, I was using the extra for buying extras to include and so on, but that's not right either. Here's the worst part: I should have learned my lesson about 4 years ago when I went through something similar with perfume oils. I was buying and decanting Limited Edition stuff, and life stomped all over me and I wound up late in sending packages. In that case, I did wind up getting all of my packages of perfume oils out, including several replacements from my own stock when people claimed they hadn't received theirs (in one of those cases, somebody who was sent a replacement was selling MY decants on Ebay, claiming they were their own, and jacking up the price). Yeah, I'm a little bitter on that. But, back then, as frustrating as it all was, nobody ever ganged up on me and accused me of outright stealing, which happened last year.  And I certainly didn't have people being so, well, mean to me over it. In both cases I shed plenty of tears, but it's easier to get over the first one, because at least people didn't make such an effort to follow me around and wreak havoc on my life online and off. To make things even worse, they seem to have a whole troop of people involved in hating me, even people who weren't involved int he first place!

It's the little things that can really add up. Like, getting mail that you'd never want with your name spelled wrong, from places that you've never heard of... and as much as a year later. And then, when you are trying to resolve everything, having people accuse you of lying about that too. I mean honestly, I've taken a picture of a recent mailing label, and blacked out my address for safety, so you tell me...

Would anybody send for mail and hyphenate their last name with a disease they've had for years? Misspelling both the disease AND the last name? Most of it gets chucked into the trash without much of a second glance, because it's utterly useless to me. Samples of tampons and adult diapers are pretty much not needed here, I've had a hysterectomy, and we both have control over our bladders and bowels. The psoriasis junk that comes is pretty useless for me, I've tried just about everything on the market, and I'm working with my doctors on it now, so I can't just start rubbing random stuff on my skin, or taking random herbal pills. The colon cleansing stuff isn't useful at all to us either. Of course, I guess if I used that I might need the adult diapers. I think the worst for me is all the magazines I've been getting, most of which I would never ever buy for myself. I mean... Instinct? What on earth am I going to do with a gay men's magazine? And I'm fairly certain that they PAID for that to be delivered! And catalogs... oh my have I gotten catalogs. Some that I've never even heard of before.

Alright, that's enough on that whole thing. Let's get back to what I was originally thinking about... how much to share. If I were really good at making even the tough parts of life seem funny, then I'd go with sharing everything and making people laugh. Thing is, I'm not always that funny. In fact, probably not even half the time. Or maybe if I were really great at sharing the tragedies of life in a way so as not to be depressing, then I could go that route.  But at the same time, I feel like if I hold back too much, then I'm not being honest, and I do rather try to be as honest as I can be. I'm not what I'd call brutally honest, because that is too much like being mean. But I'm not the type to lie just to make somebody happy either. I'm not particularly uncomfortable discussing some pretty intimate things, but where is the line?

Along those same lines, I don't tend to express any really strong views on this blog, because I don't think I want to be really controversial. Politics, religion, and causes can become exceedingly emotional, and I'm pretty sure my goal in blogging is not to cause people to be upset. I guess what I need to do is sit down and decide exactly what I'd like my blog to be made up of, and how much I'm willing to share. Eventually, I might wind up with more than 10 followers, and I'd like my blog to be mostly pleasant. And, it would be nice if my blog were useful as well. Maybe I should write a Mission Statement. Haha. Anyway, it's time for another walk with the dogs, and to get the dishwasher loaded up, so I'll do that, and maybe come back for more blogging later.