Comments on: thinkin’ some thoughts on the Internet

By: Diana

Diana — Mon, 10 May 2010 10:21:15 +0000

I went to HS and MS with her. She was a mean girl then. And apparently never got over it.

Write a book if you want to. Ignore her.

By: Des

Des — Sat, 08 May 2010 20:20:04 +0000

If women spent less time bitching at each other over petty things, we would find the cure to cancer. Men love it when women divide and conquer themselves. It's the ultimate in sexist when we undermine each other. Men don't even have to lift a finger to do that.

By: lawyerchik1

lawyerchik1 — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:31:23 +0000

Heather, I hope that you do decide to write a book one of these days - and it doesn't have to be the same subject matter or style that your blog is. You are a very talented writer with enviable timing and a great sense of humor! You have a way of expressing yourself through language that demonstrates that writing is, indeed, as much a gift as it is a product of hard work and application.

I would never tell anyone *what* to do, but I would certainly encourage you to keep thinking about your plans for your writing. You have an amazing talent that you have been honing for a number of years, and I hope that you continue to write in at least some format for the rest of your life.

Who knows? Maybe you will write a novel that incorporates some of the things you've written about (or experienced) as a result of your blog that will be wildly successful!! (I like double exclamation points, too!) Maybe you will write a more non-fiction piece that will be something you can show your grandchildren. Maybe you will write a journal that you will never publish or show to anyone - or all of the above. But you definitely are a writer - and a good one. I hope that you remember that on days when you don't feel so good about something someone has said.

George Clooney said once, "I am never as good as people say I am when they say I'm good, and I am never as bad as people say I am when they say I'm bad." The only perspectives that matter are yours and those of people whose opinions you value. Everything else is just packing peanuts.

By: Danielle M

Danielle M — Thu, 06 May 2010 10:41:55 +0000

I’m very impressed with what you wrote here. Seriously. It takes a lot of character not to be nasty back to someone when they are nasty to you. And you wrote this post not with a bitter tone, but rather with the kind of perspective that comes with time. I kind of feel like we should give middle schoolers a copy of this post so that they can see that the cruelty they subject to others at that young age can haunt them in strange ways later on…If that makes any sense at all…(sorry had a few, it is 5 de mayo after all).

By: Margaret

Margaret — Thu, 06 May 2010 05:03:38 +0000

You know, this sort of goes along with what I've been thinking about people recently. We came home from a weekend away at a wedding to a car that had been broken into (hello $1000 repair). For the second time in a year. What boggles my mind is that some people jump over that hurdle that is firmly planted in my mind that says, "This is not my stuff. Do not touch it because it does not belong to me." The same idea that it is ok to just break down a window, climb into someone else's car and root through it to see if they have anything that you would like. The thought just doesn't occur to me.

It I think the two connect because the internet exposes the thief in us. The one that says, "I will break down this window and take what I want because no one else will know. Because I want to," is just the same as the one who says, "I will say this because I can and no one else will know. Because I want to, regardless of whether or not I would say this out loud or in front of my family."

Maybe it has to do with poor impulse control coupled with a mean streak. I don't know. I do think what you say and do anonymously reveals your heart, and that it will bleed over into real life at some point.

Also, I have read some blogger-turned-author memoirs, and do so selectively. I wouldn't buy a celebrity's autobiography or a gossip queen's. I buy the ones whose stories are honest, genuine, and written by people I want to be friends with. And those are great books, deserving of all the attention given to the Emily Goulds of the world.