Have you noticed we never get to hear about Dooce's divorce or whether she's dating anyone? I mean, I splayed out all my personal bidness straightaway as soon as there was anything interesting to tell, but she seems to spend all her time around her gay and 12-year-old friends. Come on, Dooce. We know you must be dating by now. Spill it.
I was just thinking today how weird it is to have a blog, and I know some of you also have blogs and can identify. I mean, for example, how I feel perfectly entitled to know all of Dooce's bidness. Am I remotely entitled to know all of Dooce's bidness? Of course I'm not. But since she tells us about her workout routine, her dogs, the things her kids say and her Avon-selling mom, we feel like we should be able to hear every detail. I mean, she's our close, personal friend. Right?
So that's what's weird about blogging. You tell all your stuff and people feel like they know you, when in reality they really don't. For all you know, I beat my cats and speak Portuguese. Exclusively. I could be The Portuguese Proofreader, and these posts are translated into English. There could be all sorts of things I've never told you.
I don't know. It's just a weird dynamic, all sorts of people kind of knowing you and you not knowing them at all. Basically, this whole blog has changed my life.
Maybe once a week, I'll get a long email from some reader where they tell me about a problem they're having, and I never mind getting these. I figure they're sitting there thinking, "God, who can I tell about this. Oh, how about June? We talk every day."
It's not a bad thing, this having a blog. It's just nothing I ever thought would happen to me: having people say, "June!?!" when I go out in public (that's happened, like, three times. I'm not Elvis, for heaven's sake), getting presents from people I've never met, unsolicited advice from readers who've invested themselves in my story.
Oh, and the Marvin hating! That cracks me up! Poor Marvin. But I guess you got invested in him, too. Then he left all of us.
In other news, I got a massage last night. I KNOW! My neck is constantly in pain. CONSTANTLY. I am the tensest person alive, I think. And oh, it's been hurting a LOT lately. And ever since Ned got me that gift certificate to the spa, I've been getting emails from the place. Yesterday they sent one out saying the woman who massaged me had an opening at 5:30 and I said THAT IS IT. IT'S A SIGN. Because war, famine, June's need for massage. These are the things God troubles himself with.
So I grabbed that gift card and screamed over there.
"Oh. WOW," she said as she tried to, you know, do her work. "You're one of the worst people I've ever seen." They always say that. And can you tell me why? It's not like I'm laying bricks and coming home to my eight screaming thankless kids each night.
After my massage, they took me to this huge window seat filled with pillows, and pulled a gauzy curtain so I could sit in there and drink peppermint tea. I was on the second story, looking out the window to downtown Greensboro. After a few minutes I realized I was starting RIGHT INTO my friend Hibiscus's office space. They were having some kind of meeting in a conference room. So creepily, I got to to sit up there and spy on Hibiscus.
When I was in my 20s, I was obsessed with this boy I was dating. Oh, it was ludicrous. He lived on the second floor, above a movie theater. Sometimes I'd park in the theater parking lot and just watch him up there living his life. I KNOW! HOW WEIRD WAS I?? Oh, he'd be up there feeding his fish or changing a record, and I'd just sit in my car and stare up there and sigh. Until the day his mom pulled into the same parking lot and I had to scream out of there so she wouldn't know I was berserk.
Dear Old Boyfriend Who Sometimes Reads This Blog: That wasn't you. I don't mean you. It was some OTHER guy who lived above a movie theater. I didn't just totally give myself away just now with that detail. Go find something else to do, old boyfriend. Go read Dooce.
See? Having a blog is weird.