Can I just say how disappointed I am in the election results? No doubt my neighbors are tap-dancing in their underwear at the results, but me, I think I ought to just spend the next two years under my bed, cringing in fear.

Last week, I wrote something in my blog that a person, whom I respect greatly, thought was directed at her. The comment was actually a generalization about including spoiler space in stories and we cleared it up immediately.But it got me to thinking that I needed to be more careful in what I said here - the person in question said I shouldn't censor myself as this is my blog and I ought to be able to say anything I want here. Perhaps that's true, but I'm still uncomfortable with the idea because I don't know really who comes here and the last thing I want to do is say something that is taken the wrong way.

That's the problem with the printed pixel medium and with blogging. You can say what you want, without thinking, because it's so quick. But because it's easy doesn't mean you should say it. I know I've felt plenty insulted by things people have written in their blogs - often without cause and provocation - and the I know they don't mean to insult me - Seema - specifically, but it happens the same way I didn't mean to cause this person to feel guilt over something I'd written in my blog. It's all unintentional, but it makes me think, as a blogger, I ought to be more intentional and careful in what I say. I'm a New Englander and I have that very dry, very sarcastic, acrid sense of humor - when I first moved here, I had to learn how to tone it down a great deal because that kind of humor isn't as appreciated here as it was in Vermont and Massachusetts. But it still comes out in my blog on occasion because that's who I am, but I also understand that people who don't know me may find that humor off-putting. It's for that reason why I keep blog posts simmering for a day or so sometimes when I'm trying to find the right words for what I want to say. It's for that reason why I delete posts that I think may be hurtful.

The bottom line is, high school was a long time ago - I barely remember it, thank goodness - and I have no intention of living out the experience once again in fandom. It's not my job to make fandom, as a whole, a happy place - or even a fair place to be, but I certainly do try, given my case of Insufficient Reluctance and my desire to give lots and lots of FB and stalk talented new authors (Sara! Sara! ::grin::).