Burn, The Cure
Aenima, Tool
Scatterheart, Bjork
Rooster, Alice in Chains

I had some time to kill and did my very best by journal surfing.

I never could keep a journal/diary as a kid. Many, many failed attempts. But I only started cause I was told it was something that kids liked to do so I might like to it. Turns out when I find I like things that many other people like I do it in my own way.

I like public journaling. I've always had this weird complex that I wouldn't be understood and that there would be something that means a lot to me and people wouldn't understand it. I've gotten over most of it, and if I didn't care about just being silent and never being heard again then I wouldn't care at all about other people. But I actually care about what other people think because, quite frankly, I feel that I am meant to influence people.

Now calm down, I don't mean that I want to form a cult and get people around me to follow my every whim, nice as that would be, that's not it all. I want people to think more, to rely on their own rationale more. The Age of Reason came and went and the average person who once would have been a swineherd is now plugging in his radio in the shower, expecting his lawyer to protect him.

But see I want to get people thinking, and it's easiest when we're thinking about the same thing. That is, the same subject, not the same opinions. I don't care where you stand on abortion (although, admittedly, I'm curious). Just so long as you think about it. *Really* think about it and don't let yourself slide into think that it's a subject that doesn't affect you.

I'm someone who is really interested in politics and I have no shortage of opinions. Stop laughing!

But I'm also incredibly curious about people, I want to know what makes them tick. I want to know their motives, their histories, their thoughts and beliefs. But this gets tripped up when people do stupid things, or are just obnoxious. And people are obnoxious a LOT. fuckin people.

But anyway. Journaling. I don't think keeping journals in public is a bad thing because then I get to read them. But beyond that it changes how we think a little when we bare ourselves before an audience. How we do that is considerably different from how we do it in front of a doctor, or even in complete privacy.

I'm pretty confident in stating I'm a rather blunt person because I know my friends will back me up. But see I have a sense for manipulation due to having listened to people. I don't try it because I don't think I really want anything so bad that I need to play games with people's heads to get it. If asking won't get it then it probably doesn't matter.

But see that's the thing. I *am* good at hiding from myself. I think I manipulate myself quite often, and, true to form, I get irritated with myself when I find out. But I think I only find the truth when I put everything on display. I have tried out the private entry thing and maybe I'll return to it, but what I'm thinking right now is that I'll eventually clean up stuff in the private folder so that it's presentable and switch it to the public one.

I've always done everything that I could to avoid being misunderstood. There are words, adjectives, that I want to avoid ever having applied to me and mostly I think I've done a good job of that. I think only I know when I've really been hysterical or weak and that's how I like it. I mean, I want people to know that I *have* been those things, but I don't want anyone to see it.

Sorta like my body. duh, I have one. (over my various protestations) Maybe you've even seen it with clothes on, and I'm not entirely afraid of being naked if I get to pick who I'm going to be naked in front of, but I would never wear revealing clothes or wear (or not wear) stuff that gives away more than necessary about my body. I mostly hate my body, and try to avoid my emotions, but I want *you* to be aquainted with them.

On the one hand I want you to know the true me. On the other hand, the true me is in my actions and words, not in the fantacies and mal-formed ideas in my head. So when I observe myself playing myself for you I become more aware of my true self. And I'm dying to know her.