Bla Bla Blog sheep

A famous literary couple in the East Bay had an interesting problem recently. The woman wrote in her blog that she was contemplating suicide. And the implication was, soon. Her husband was on a book tour and had no idea. Someone told him he should check in with his wife. He did and she didn't, commit suicide. Yet.

The person that told me this was sitting with her legs across my lap telling us, my wife and I, about her new lover. We were discussing how much people should reveal in their blogs, and how much men in particular should reveal. That in turn lead to the question of how reserved one can afford to be in this open, all or nothing culture. The answer, this woman proposed, was that you can be as open as you like but what's sexy is the person who withholds.

Which was always true, no matter what feminists said.

But what to do about the blog, that open sesame to experiences that may have interest only to the blogger. And anyway isn't this desire to take ones skin off, and one more proof that with all the activities and distractions, with all the publicness, people still feel disparate and desperate, and have no desire for privacy. In fact, they fear it.

It is increasingly becoming a woman's world, and yet this woman was saying that she likes a man to be vulnerable but not to reveal himself. What's he to do then?

Read men these days and they sound like all minorities, like women writers from India or China. Men are the new wetbacks and micks. And it's interesting to watch them clamour for attention... while women sit with their legs across your lap telling you about their new lover and their old lover and how men are no different than they've always been.