Somebody told me today that I shouldn't censor myself here. This was well-intentioned advice from a person who, I'm assuming, doesn't have a blog out here for the world to see. A person who, I'm assuming, doesn't have to live with the fact that they're basically standing in a fishbowl with their pants around their ankles while friends and enemies and strangers all point and make judgments and assumptions.

As I said, well-intentioned advice. Just not particularly doable. Or not not doable, since I'm talking about not doing something. Wait, that makes no sense either. Where's a good grammar coach when I need one?

There are many reasons why I feel the need to censor myself here. All of those reasons have at their root, at their very beginnings, the same mistakes. I made mistakes here when I first started doing this. I made this my blog. I used my real name. I let people know about it.

And now they read the fucking thing. What could I have been thinking?

Joe Blow and Jane Doe in, say, San Diego don't know or care about the people behind the nicknames I use here. MixedSignalGirl is a love interest in a story to them. LaptopGirl is another, more mysterious, character. WomanRepellant is, to most of my readers, no different than Norm on Cheers. SassyGirl was a minor character who's contract ended and wasn't renewed. I could go on and on.

To Joe Blow and Jane Doe, none of those people are real at all. Hell, I'm barely real to them. I'm just the protagonist in this rambling story.

But guess what. All of those people are real. To me, and to themselves. Sometimes to each other.

And so I censor myself. Because some of the people reading are, get this - the same people I'm writing about.

The person who advised me to not censor myself?

BadPickleGirl.

There, see? I've already said too much. People will read that and know that I talked to her today. What if that gets her into trouble? It's none of the world's business that I talked to her today, but there it is anyway.

It's also none of the world's business that I kinda like BadPickleGirl but, now that information is available for everyone to read and know.

For her to read and know.

Oops.

I censor myself because it's the right thing to do.

I should, if anything, do a better job of it.

Maybe tomorrow I'll start working on it.