SATURDAY: I love that it’s warm enough to eat ice cream. I think there’s a courtyard over here that has plenty of seating so I can take it to go and enjoy the weather. You know what’s funny about this place? I can look in the window of the store and see all the other people in the courtyard reflected behind me. For instance, there’s a guy over there who, in an obscured reflection, looks like he could be kind of cute. And now he’s making a cell phone conversation loud enough for the entire courtyard to hear. It’s funny, as he talks, he’ll say something that I find attractive, then he’ll immediately say something that I don’t find attractive. I should work up the nerve to turn around and actually look at him, and see if I find him attractive. But oh, I waited too long, he’s totally gone. I guess I’ll have to consentrate my flirting on that guy from kickball that I find attractive. But really, he was wearing flip flops. I just don’t like them, I’m not sure why. It could be that they’re just too casual, or maybe it stems from living in New York City where if you wear flip flops, all the dirt of the street gets on your feet, and if you don’t wash your feet before bed it gets in your sheets, and I never met anyone who washed their feet every night. But either way, the guy was kind of cute, and I’m going to see if his personality overcomes his footwear choice. Or maybe he washes them before bed. That would be nice. Huh, I wonder if I can somehow combine all those thoughts into a blog post in some way. MONDAY: I have to be at work in 30 minutes, and after that mega “Ruins” post, I really want to come up with something funny. Mickey was right, I raised the bar, and now I want to hold myself to some kind of standard, because there are some people reading this blog who don’t actually know me, and won’t universally love any old crap I throw out there. So what happened that was interesting over the weekend? Not much, really. I worked on Saturday, I had some wonderful people fix my bike on Sunday, and then I rode it around for a while, watched “Space Camp” and went to bed. I’m sure I can make something of the nice bike people and “Space Camp” at some point in the future, but I just did a movie post, and the bike story isn’t finished yet. Oh, I know! That guy in the courtyard, I can talk about him. So what was going through my head while he was talking? Oh, that I liked some of the things he said, but not all the things. How do I make that funny? What if I assign random points to the stuff he said? It will kind of show how I kept changing my mind if he was worth risking talking to him and making an ass of myself. That sort of happened. I’ll embellish a little. Type type type type type. Crap, I’m late for work. I spell checked, but I didn’t proof. Should I change that “child of divorce” line? It’s not really what I meant to say, but I had to come up with something to finish the post. Naw, the people who read this blog will probably get that I mean I don’t want yet another date with someone who’s afraid of commitment because of a previous experience. I guess it’s kind of risky that someone will misinterpret, but what’s the worst that could happen? Besides, I gotta post this mother, this is going to be a busy work week. TUESDAY: Wow, I got my first mean anonymous comment! I always worried I’d be next. Well, it doesn’t bother me so much, the dude didn’t even leave a valid URL with his (or her) spew, so I’ll just respond with a witty retort, and that will be that. WEDNESDAY: Yikes! I have to leave for my first appointment in 5 minutes, and I’ve not written my blog yet. I’ll just throw something up there quick to explain my absence. Publish. OK, I’ll just check out if I have any new comments first. Looking at the sidebar, I see a bunch of new names. Cool! Oh wait, that could be spam Askimet didn’t catch? Oh dear, 93 comments, that’s weird. Oh shit, these are not comments, these are small capsules of hate. What the frak? I gotta go, let me update the post real quick so that the regulars know that I’ve seen this weirdness and that I’m on it. LATER: Thank goodness this coffee shop has wifi. I’m noticing that these comments link to spam and rickrolling and other mean places. I don’t want to do it, but I’m going to have to turn on moderation since I’m not going to be near a computer all day. LATER: The idea that there are people who go to a website to hate on people is actually really getting to me. But I was the one who put all my random crap on the internet, and I knew that there was always a chance that someday there would be people who disagreed. I just never thought there were so many people that would make such vast judgements about me based on a couple hundred words that I wrote. I actually find the ones who judge me on being judgemental kind of funny. The others are hurtful, but almost none of them touched on any real insecurities that I have, so they’re only as hurtful as I’m going to let them be. I think one of them is a legitimate death threat. Okay, it’s not getting to me anymore, because for every 10 mean things, there’s one nice thing, and some of them are from people who aren’t even regular readers. And the nice things from regular readers, those overpower all the bad, because they’re coming from people I tend to respect. So what do I do now? I kind of want to respond to each comment individually, but that’s like shooting fish in a barrel comedy-wise, and my better judgement has always told me to ignore shit like that. But I don’t want to ignore it, because it happened, and I’m up-tight and it’s ruining my plans and my nice neat little blog where people are trusting and nice to each other and are having good fun with this modern hobby. It’s not like I even go out and get lots of people to try and read my blog, and I’ve never even tried to make any money from it. I have no problem with being up-tight, it’s gotten me pretty far in life. So how do I respond? Stop blogging completely? Not going to happen. If I ignore, that will be denying the fact that something bothered me, and that’s not the kind of dishonest I want here (blending a courtyard guy with a flip flop guy is about the limit of my deception.) If I retaliate, that’s sinking to their level. If I try to reason, well, that’s like trying to convince Antonin Scalia that it might actually be wrong for the state to kill poeple. But if I write a really long stream-of-consciousness post in italics, well then the only people who will bother to read it are the ones who actually like this blog, and maybe the haters will go pick on someone else by leaving comments and not ONE SINGLE VALID URL. And when they do, I’ll be right there to give that next target of the haters a virtual hug. Also, I’m keeping moderation on as this thing blows over, and not letting any more anonymous comments on to future posts. But I’m keeping the old ones up there on that post. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s because I believe in free speech, or maybe to keep my head from getting too big, or maybe as a reminder to others that for all the good and decent and talented bloggers out there, jerks do run amok as well. Either way, I’m up way past my bedtime, and I know that I’m on top because I’m still happy about my life, my chances of being a happy person in the future, and the fact that I’m already where I want to be. Actually, the only thing that’s making me unhappy right now is that I still couldn’t get the wifi working (thanks for the tip, abbersnail, but it was a no-go) and this 1998 Toshiba that makes giant whoorling noises when I type too fast. That and I’m going to be away from the web all day Thursday, so I can’t send all you lovers comment love in return until some undiscolsed time in the future.