The dangers of blogging

Another confession - I crave attention. I guess anyone who goes to the trouble of writing a blog must harbor a deep desire for applause, approval, commiseration, whatever. A therapist might say it stems from my childhood, where I frequently got lost in a family of five children.

One time, I got lost for real. The entire family was headed out to an amusement park, but I was busy washing my doll's hair in the bathroom sink and didn't come when my mother called. I couldn't have been more than 7 or 8 years old.

When I was finally finished with my doll's hair, the house seemed eerily quiet. When I went downstairs, I realized that everybody was gone. I ran outside, and sure enough, the stationwagon was gone, and I was alone.

Guilt swept over me. They left me on purpose, I was sure, because I didn't come when my mother called, and were teaching me a lesson.

Meanwhile, the story I hear is that inside the car, one of my sisters finally realized I was missing. "Where's Tracey?" she asked. "Very funny," my mother snapped. "She'd hiding underneath the seat (this was pre-car seat or seatbelt days)."

"No, Mom, she's not," my sister answered.

A few minutes after this exchange, the phone rang in my house. It was my frantic mother. She assured me that they left me by mistake, and I assured her I was all right, and all turned out fine in the end, and I was treated like a pretty special person for a day or two.

Back to my point, however. That kind of attention was scant throughout my childhood, and I craved it even more as I grew up. I started keeping a diary after reading "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "Go Ask Alice" and secretly hoped that my writings would some day be as famous as theirs (although I preferred that, unlike them, I'd be alive to reap the benefits).

Anyway, getting back to blogging. In an effort to increase my viewership beyond the 20 or so friends and relatives who've been reading this since April, I sent out some emails a while back to news reporters who deal with family/work issues in the hopes that one of them would write about my blog and make me just a little bit famous (or at least inspire someone other than spammers to comment on a post).

One very nice columnist for a major newspaper finally called this week, interviewed me for about 20 minutes about the blog and asked me to send her my picture, too. I was ecstatic - finally I would be recognized for the brilliant writer, mother, and writer that I am, and I'd soon be on my way to fame and untold riches with a syndicated column, a spot on the "Today" show and a six-figure book deal.

Today, however, she called to say they couldn't include the URL to my blog or any of my comments because one of my posts (since deleted) pretty much defamed the character of a non-public official. While I didn't name the person, if the paper had given my name and other identifying characteristics, it wouldn't have taken too much sleuthing to figure it out.

Needless to say, I was deflated and disappointed. But the reporter made me look at my blog in a new light. I've been so careful not to write anything specific about my job (I've read too many stories lately about people getting fired for indiscretions about work in their blogs), but it didn't occur to me until today that if my readership ever does spike, anything I write will be open for scrutiny by my neighbors, the guys at the bagel shop, and anyone else with a Web browser.

And in re-reading the post, I realized that no private person deserves to be forever branded by someone with a pen and a point of view. It's one thing to let off steam with my friends and confidantes, but quite another to publish it for the world to view. Even if I still do feel a bit like ripping out her heart and stomping on it in public. Yeah, I wrote that.

So I deleted the post. It was cathartic to write it, and it came from the heart, but especially in such a public forum, I need to be more careful about what I write. Yeah, it (selfishly) makes it easier for another reporter down the road to link to my blog without fear of lawsuits or other reprisals, but I also know it was the right thing to do.

As the reporter and I agreed, blogging is still such a new form of communication that it's hard to get a handle out how to, well, handle it. And not publishing my URL was the only choice she and her editor could make.

I may need to wait for another few months or years to get the attention I crave, but I guess it just gives me more time to refine my writing and my point of view. The 'Today Show' will just have to wait.