Titles & Privacy

Hopefully over the next few days more people will start making their way here. I guess by way of introduction I feel the need to explain the title of my blog – which honestly should not be that strange to those who know me. One of the downsides of joining the blogosphere so late is that all the good names for a blog seem to be taken, so coming up with something witty or interesting takes a bit of time. Over the past few months, the Hubby and I have had many a conversation about what to call my blog, such as “The Reluctant Lawyer” or “Mad Musings”, the latter being what I had intended to call it. Alas, when I went to find the URL for the site, it was already taken, so I resorted to what is currently one of my favorite novels, Bleak House, by Charles Dickens. I’m sure at some point there will probably be an interesting post about that book, but for now, I will just say that was where the inspiration for the URL came from, but of course I had to add “the” because “bleakhouse” was already taken. Then Nick and I got into a debate about the URL being “thebleakhouse,” but the title of my blog being “Mad Musings.” So I tried to come up with something else that would work, something a bit more literary, and thus we have what you see above. I think it will work for now.

If you are still reading this, I want to explain something else. I’m very picky about interne privacy. Just as kind of a ground rule, I will not be using my full name, nor anybody else’s. I will probably stick to first names or titles. Maybe it was three years of law school and all the warnings from the Career Services Office about how employers are going to look at our blogs and know all this stuff about us etc. that has made me more cautious. Wait, no, I’m going to have to take credit for this one. I have always believed deep down that one day I would be a judge or run for office (even when I neither wanted to be a lawyer nor run for anything) and that everything that I have ever done will come back to haunt me, so I have always been careful about not signing petitions and such because I never want to have to defend it or explain why I changed my beliefs from when I was 20. Put simply, I’m very private. As I said to one of my good friends yesterday, I want to know what is going on in other people’s lives, but I don’t want anyone to know about mine. So I guess that begs the question, why even blog? I’m sure you are wondering that at this point after reading this post, and frankly, so am I.

I think at the heart of why I am writing this blog is to get more comfortable with talking about myself and to have some sort of an outlet. All I’m doing right now is trying to find a job, which is about like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I sit at home all day, by myself, trying to think of ways to keep from getting too bored. I’ve cycled through my hobbies several times now. I’ve almost completely scrapbooked my 1998 trip to Europe (only six more spreads to go), almost completed my second cross-stitch project, made three baby quilts, and have done a bunch of family history (everything from indexing, to starting a website, to trying to transcribe a taped interview with my French grandfather). I’m to the point where I need to try something new. Most of all I miss my friends who are literally spread across the country from CA to MA. I hope this will be a way for me to feel like I’m talking with each one of you.