I always get Jonno and Jockohomo confused. Am I the only one?

You astute readers may notice that this is indeed a new blog entry, one day after I wrote that I was thinking of giving this thing up. But I’m wondering if maybe I could keep blogging and yet enjoy it. It’s no fun blogging when your life seems like it’s in a ditch, because then all the posts come off sounding negative, and there’s a price to pay: a guy who otherwise might have thought you were lots of fun reads your blog and tells you that he thinks your personality is too serious for him to want to date you. Even if you didn’t want to date him in the first place, comments like that do hurt. Anyway, whatever. That’s not worth dwelling on.

The fact is, there’s something I’d lose if I stopped blogging: a connection to the blogging community. Even though I’ve only met one fellow blogger in person, and that was before I started my blog, it’s nice to be part of this community. It’s great to read others’ blogs and to hear from fellow bloggers.

Blogging is cathartic. And yet…

…it would be nice if my blog were read only by beings who lived on another planet, because then I’d know that I had no chance of ever interacting with my readers in real life. But the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle kicks in: things change once they are observed. At first you’re blogging about things that have no connection to your readers. But as more people read your blog, you find that sometimes the things you blog about involve other bloggers, or another blogger might do or say something that affects what you write. The barrier between your blog and your life is pierced. You realize that you’re not sending your thoughts out into a void, but out to other people who could play roles, big or infinitesimally small, in your life.

What I’m really trying to say is this: I don’t want my blog to turn people off from the person who’s writing it. I don’t want people to enjoy my blog but not me. I don’t want to be some observed being; I want to be a part of someone’s life eventually. It would be nice if I could keep the people who read my blog separate from the people involved in my life, but that’s not really possible. And it’s not like this is new to blogging; anyone who’s written a memoir, or even a work of fiction, has had to deal with this problem. What you write is affected by your life, and your life is affected by what you write.

Anyway.

I’m not sure what any of this means. Maybe I’ll try to be a more cheerful blogger in the future. Maybe I’m just going through some rough times in my life right now, which I am — the noise in my apartment building has been intolerable lately. I haven’t been able to sleep. The walls are so thin that you can hear people’s voices when they talk, and you can hear people walking around, and my upstairs neighbor comes in at 3 in the morning with a couple of friends and they laugh and yell and listen to music. I’ve asked him to stop, and I’ve gotten rude responses. There’s something important, though; I have a law degree. I know how to use the law. You can make the law work for you. I’ve already talked to my landlord, and perhaps things will get better. But if not, I think I have a good case for breaking my lease. In fact, I found a New Jersey court case, on this very subject, that comes to this exact conclusion. So if I have to move, I have to move.

On the upside, one of co-workers just left for a five-night vacation yesterday, and she’s offered me the use of her house. I slept there last night, and it was heavenly: a whole house to myself. A cute, kinda rustic house, and no noisy neighbors, and I can play music as loud as I want. I don’t want this to lull me into a sense of complacency, but it’s so nice to get away.