I do a pretty great Dolly Parton.
This is going to be a crowd that will really appreciate a good Dolly Parton. Particularly from a giant carnivore that could break them in half like matchsticks with one swat from your mighty paw for failing to show sufficient appreciation.
I'm afraid I will have to miss it, having used up my leave-Ellen-home-alone-with-Sylvia chits on the night before. Also -- I always make a fool of myself at Karaoke, which I don't get because I'm really a pretty good singer and have ok stage presence. Something about the Karaoke setting just fucks with my mind and puts me into a hugely, anxiously self-aware state.
Ah, see, when I make a fool of myself singing karaoke it's because I sing badly. But it's consistent regardless of the conditions, so that's something.
LB, are you concerned that you've linked to something with your law firm email address? Or is your anonymity becoming a sort of veil that reveals as much as it conceals (the definition of "tempura," btw)?
This wouldn't be the first time she's done something indiscreet involving email addresses.
I charge indiscretion error: I considered mentioning, and then decided not to mention, the incident which Ben just did.
Nope, just being an idiot. I've taken the link down and will change it to something without my address.
I'm not all that seriously anonymous, but I don't like being either googleable (which I suppose that wouldn't have been) or unambiguously RL identifiable to people I haven't at least interacted with here.
I have these weird dreams in which various people in my life who haven't been told about my blog have been lurking for ages and then start commenting. I woke up in a cold sweat the other day from a dream in which a commenter had the same (odd) first name as a man whose home I used to work in about whom I've written scathing things regarding his porn-watching habits. At first, I thought, "I need to be more careful about my anonymity." Then I thought, "I need to get a life."
There, I think that's all secure now. Thanks for the heads up.
Of course, the really shocking thing here is that someone not only read an entire post, but actually followed the links.
I thought this w-lfs-nian directive applied only to comments.
I got an anxious call from a friend yesterday, who found my semi-secret identity & blog through a story I guess I really should not have been telling. Always the best way to be caught: in flagrante.
Any one of about 35 people would have figure out who I was by now if they were reading. Since I haven't gotten any "Holy guacamole" emails yet, I can only assume they aren't.
otoh, my sekret identity is so sekret even i don't have any idea who i am. it actually makes things easier
I live in mortal terror of my mother discovering my blog. She's terrifying. She's always leaving me voicemails that say, "I have something awful to tell you and don't want to leave it on your answering machine. Please call me." I call her back, trembling that she's found all the places where I've shared her private secrets with the world, only to find out that she's thinking about divorcing my dad. I'm all, "Whew!" (She'll never do it.)
I have an unspecified fear of people figuring out who I am from the blog, even though it's happened more than once. I think there are things on it I would prefer not to have my parents ask me about.
There is somebody who lives or works in my smallish town in Virginia who is one of the most consistent readers of my personal blog. I'm just praying it's one of Catherine or Tom's friends and not my roommate.
I link to mine from my Friendster account, which enables several ex-partners to quietly stalk. I figure this is a good thing, since it keeps me from regaling readers with indiscreet tales of this and that.
But to us fans of indiscreet tales that doesn't seem to be a particularly good thing.
That's why I comment here! So I can share indiscretions!
But people could get from your blog to here pretty easily, non?
Yeah, but those of us who say things here we wouldn't say on our own blog are counting on the fact that very few people are going to be motivated to go through one's entire blogroll and read every comment thread in the hopes of tracking one down.
You are not reckoning with the sleuthing abilities of Luap Nangied.
My mom knows about my blog, but never reads it. My friends used to read my old blog, and it got to be too much, so when I came back I did so without fanfare. One friend of a friend used to read my old blog all the time, and would randomly drop signature phrases of mine into conversation with our mutual friend, to freak her out.
There are some people whose potential for stalking behavior is higher than others'. My bf reads my blog, but not daily, and not the comments. Certain exes and old students read the blog and the comments, but wouldn't follow me here. Others have a potentially limitless desire for Whitebeariana. Estimating these quantities has a great effect on what I say about whom and where.
My mom knows about my blog, but never reads it.
Buck, as far as I know, hasn't ever read here either. I'm not sure that he quite grasps how much time I waste on this nonsense during the day.
People occasionally get to my blog by googling for one of the names I assume when I comment, and which I occasionally employ as a sort of ongoing joke in real life, but I don't know if they're looking for me or someone else who assumes the same name, or who they are, because if they are looking for me, they don't tell me.
It occurs to me that some Unfogged lurker--or, heavens, one of the inner sanctum--could have ratted me out, in which case I should not have mentioned the indiscretion here, confirming suspicions. But I'll just have to live with that, won't I? Anyway, I'd prefer to cling to the illusion that what happens at the Mineshaft does indeed stay at the Mineshaft.
This seems related to the FL/Sarah murder post. Mystery! Secrets! Betrayal! Or, well, a slight outbending of nose joints. But still!
I've used your first name in comments at least once, but given that it isn't Zuleika, I doubt the reference was googlable.
I'll be starting a blog soon, and w-lfs-n's combination: name here, link to blog here, no trace of name there in obvious authorial way, while feeling free to comment at the blog using the name, is the way I want to do it.
28: No, I'm reckoning on the abilities of my lawyer to make it very clear to him that he has no case. But that I do.
I don't follow. Do you mean that you're thinking of starting a blog under the pseudonym, e.g., Swordfish, on which you will comment using your real name, e.g., John Tingley, in the expectation that no one will figure out that the two are one and the same? Because that seems unworkable.
But I probably just haven't understood you.
Others have a potentially limitless desire for Whitebeariana.. Estimating these quantities has a great effect on what I say about whom and where.
That's right, you better never say anything bad about me anywhere.
Because I want to be able to say what I feel like, no one from my real life reads Unfogged. Only two people even know I blog here. One of them, my now ex-boyfriend, actually got kind of hurt (but I didn't know it at the time) that I asked him not to read my old blog, and then later Unfogged. But he felt better when I explained that it wasn't that I was going to be saying mean things about him, or that I meant to exclude him, I just wanted to be able to feel like I could tell stories without the audience of the subjects, and as soon as one real life person read your blog, that person was an assumed audience for ever and ever, and that's kind of limiting.
Other than work people, the only person I'd worry about finding this place is my sister, and mostly because I feel awkward about having turned her into a bit of a running gag. I suppose it's mostly buried deep enough in the archives that she'd probably never notice. [Tia- I deleted your duplicate comment in a fit of tidiness.]
Oh, LB, it's fine, I mentioned my last name here once myself. And even it if were Zuleika, it would have been worth it for a pun--assuming you could think of one for it.
I'm just lucky the indiscretion I was caught for had nothing to do with Ya Ya.
The phrase most closely associated with me, in case you were wondering, is, of course, "Ho/t P/ants C/ollege II."
38: I think it would be funny if I crafted a whole fantasy life involving us and started a line of posts all about how BitchPhD. and I were pimping ourselves out in Atlantic City to these Russian gambler guys but they had really teeny penises and we laughed, but then they cut us and that's why we have matching scars. Plus, our nasal septums wore out from all the coke we did that winter.
39: I feel exactly the same way about my bf reading my blog. I like writing without thinking of him as a reader, not because I tell secrets about our personal life or anything, but because we do live independent lives and have different friends. I've also lived a lot looser than he has, and he's not jealous, but I think the fact that all my friends take my promiscuity as a commonplace in comments is a little baffling to him. Also, when I blog about professional anxieties, he fears that I'm not telling him things are going badly. They're not; I just have a neurotic persona as AWB that I don't have as a person.
37:
Yes, that was the plan. The point isn't to be impenatrable, I don't believe in that. Just to have a curtain.
I appreciate that someone typing "Ben w-lfs-n" into google will get the links to waste. But not having my name on it would be good enough.
Interesting. In real life I think I'm more neurotic than Bitch is.
Feel free to make shit up, though. Fiction is fun. It's embarrassing truths that I want hidden. You know, like that time when I told you what I really think of Michael Bérubé.
You know, like that time when I told you what I really think of Michael Bérubé.
Oh, everyone knows that you're hot for his body.
44: That's your blog persona, though. People read BPHD because you offer a well-defined and considered perspective on issues that confuse them. I guess the people that read "Is there no sin in it?" read it because it offers more obsessive and paranoid commentary on things they previously felt fine about.
Or because they're trying to come up with something for their exams on Tristram.
I haven't the faintest idea why they read apostropher. I only read it because I crack me up.
OK Unfogged Commentariat, back on topic, I have a challenge for you.
There are hundreds (lurkers included) of you, but only one of me. Nonetheless, I will match any donations the Unfogged Commentariat makes to Team Newyorkistan (with limits, listed below (hey, I'm a lawyer, what did you expect?)).
Here's the challenge:
1. For every dollar contributed by a member of the Unfogged Commentariat to Team Newyorkistan, I will contribute a dollar to Team Newyorkistan.
However
2. You have to identify your donation as coming from a member of the Unfogged Commentariat by sending an e-mail to Audrey Roofeh, one of the members of Team Newyorkistan (mongolrally06@gmail.com). Audrey is the official scorekeeper for this bet.
3. I get credit for the contribution I have already made ($500), so you all are going have to step up and take this wager seriously.
4. However, Lizardbreath's past contributions DO NOT count (sorry, I can't make this too easy).
5. $2,000 limit (hey, I work for a living). Though, of course, this is a good cause (or at any rate, an wonderfuly absurd and fun cause which should be supported), so you should contiue to contribute even after the $2000 threshold is met.
6. I'm a lawyer, but not that kind of lawyer, so no, for those of you who are wondering, I do not intend to count my contributions as those from a member of the Unfogged Commentariat, even though I qualify as a lurking member.
So, any takers?
Since there doesn't seem to be any downside to this, aside from having to reveal one's identity to Roofeh, I sez, why not, though I leave it to LB's discretion.
re: 50
I had not thought of pseudonymity concerns re: identifying the donor. Sorry. I am open to any alternative suggestion re: keeping track of donations.
I'm up for the bet, especially considering the lack of downside on the Unfogged side. Anyone who's worried about being non-anonymous to Audrey, but doesn't mind coming out to me, can funnel donations through me if you like -- email me to figure out how.
What's the bet? Seems more like a challenge to me.
Pretty much. I think we've just suddenly become an NPR station.
It's that damn Idealist, using his conservative mojo to reign in the anarchic spirit of the Mineshaft and channel our untamed impulses into a socially acceptable mode of expression. Curse you, Idealist!
Will Roofeh be alerted that any donations of the form "I'm so-and-so... from the Mineshaft!" are part of the Unfogged challenge?
I suppose she could be. In the hopes of allowing me to retain some small vestige of a scrap of dignity in my RL, I'd rather they came from 'Unfogged'.
Somehow 'dignity' doesn't seem like the appropriate concept for this event, but fine. I will pronounce the words in my heart.
Or can we just blame the whole "Mineshaft" thing on Idealist?
If you donate through the justgiving.com/teamnewyorkistan site that we've set up, you have the option to use a pseudonym there (as Lizardbreath did for our Send A Cow endeavor). You can note in the comment section that it is a donation in reference to the Idealist Mongol Rally fundraising challenge, and I assume that will be sufficient for Mr. Idealist's (and certainly my) purposes. Hell, I'd take your rolled up pennies. The tent that's been gathering dust in the garage, your old car, your unsolicited advice - as it has been made clear, oh boy, do we need help.
Does someone who is not terribly worried about anynomity want to give it a shot to prove to the rest of the world that it can be done?
Team Newyorkistan thanks all of you for blowing your very billable hours in our direction - we hope to provide endless amusement and vicarious thrills, including but not limited to potential fake marriages to make it through particularly religious countries, and/or me butching it up so I can avoid being pegged as a woman when we start going through more remote and/or dangerous parts of Central Asia, or basically trying to come up with the most revolting description possible of what fermented mare's milk tastes like.
And if you come to the fundraiser, you can all not only meet the intrepid Audrey (driving goggles. I think you're definitely going to need 1920's style driving goggles) but hear her sing. Not to be missed.
Additionally, you will have the opportunity at the fundraiser to become an official member of the Team Newyorkistan Backseat Driver's Club ("You Can Tell Us What to Do. We Don't Have to Listen, But You Can Tell Us What to Do."), you can sponsor a car part (Picture it: "The Ben w-lfs-n Memorial Brake Pad"), and there will be teeshirts for sale. God knows you need another tee shirt, right? But best of all, as LB pointed out, I will be singing. I am a terrible singer. If you want to, I will sing a duet with you and you will look amazing (comparatively). Furthermore, I find karaoke excrutiating (when it's me up there) so if it's schadenfraude you're in the mood for, look no further.
Basically, Team Newyorkistan's fundraiser Has It All.
Becks to the rescue! Check it out! We're GBP 23 closer to Mon-go-li-a!!!!!!!!!!!!! (or GBP 46, with Good Old Idealist's help!)
www.justgiving.com/teamnewyorkistan
Given that I missed all of you guys last night, anyone else coming to the fundraiser? If it helps, I promise to sing so you all can laugh at me.
I will be there.
I expect you to sing.
I will laugh at you.
Yes, but I knew you were coming -- you actually still work with Audrey. I'm hoping, through sufficient plaintiveness, to attract other people from which funding may be (gently and pleasurably) extracted.
Last chance, everyone in NY looking for a chance to spend $10 in a good cause and get some pizza out of the deal -- the fundraiser is at 7, and directions are linked in the post.