6/27/00

Whew. I got linked by memepool today, and my index page has gotten 697 hits today so far. I'm not quite sure why the contributor in question chose my site to exemplify the phenomenon of people who reveal every detail of their lives on the web, since I'm pretty reserved as online diarists go.

I also don't really think it's the case that anyone is really "addicted" to following my life online. I think I must be too boring to stalk, because I know that hundreds of people read this page, but most of them don't even bother to send me e-mail. But that's fine with me, because I don't have time to answer e-mail from 300 people.

Actually, I haven't really heard any stories about online diaries and stalkers. I had a guy call me once in the middle of the night. He was a new reader who had sent me e-mail the day before, and decided to look up my number and call me at 11:30 p.m. (he lived in Texas, so it was even later where he was). He was concerned that I hadn't replied to his mail, and wanted to convince me that he was "not a weirdo." I explained to him that he had woken me up and that I didn't think it was appropriate for him to call me and he was very understanding and let me go immediately and I never heard from him again.

Speaking of living one's life in public, I'm writing this during the commercial breaks in "The Real World." I don't have cable at home, so this is a rare treat for me.

My dad put baby pictures of everyone in my family on his webpage today.

You'll notice that I'm not writing much about what I've been up to. That's because there's not much to tell. I spent just about the whole day yesterday watching TV, eating strawberry squares and reading my George Stephanopoulos memoir. The most exciting event of the day occurred when Baxter (the dog) managed to pull my bag off the kitchen table (I'd specifically placed it in a spot where I thought he wouldn't be able to see it, much less get to it). Anyway, when I found him, he was lying on top of the bag, my hairbrush's handle was almost completely gnawed off, he'd chewed through a box of Tic Tacs, thereby spilling them all over the floor (he was apparently more interested in chewing on the box than chewing on the Tic Tacs), my almost-new beautiful leather wallet from Coach was covered with tooth marks, and business cards and post-it notes were scattered on the ground.

Under ordinary circumstances this might have upset me, but all I felt was relief: my digital camera was in the bag, but had survived the ordeal unscathed. I guess the metal casing makes it not much fun to chew on, and the fall from the table to the floor apparently didn't hurt it, either.

So, the overall damage wasn't too bad. I replaced the hairbrush and the tic tacs for under $5 at the drugstore later that afternoon. The wallet thing was a bit distressing, but it's apparently a good thing that I invested in a nice wallet, because my father told me that a couple of months ago the dog chewed his cheap one to pieces. Mine is still perfectly useable, it's just not quite so pretty anymore.

Today I spent most of the day trying to arrange my social schedule for the next three days when I'll be in New York. All my lunches and dinners are more or less accounted for, but I should have plenty of free time to hang out by myself in the afternoons.

Oh, and the saga of the famous dog continues...this evening, my parents and I took the dog for a walk in the woods. We had only been there a few minutes when I heard a woman saying "Hey, it's Baxter!" I thought she was someone my parents knew, but it turns out she'd just met us at the Taste of Amherst the other day. I think the dog needs his own webpage.

The forum: Stalking online diarists.