Are There Kooks in Blogland?

Have you met any real kooks in blogland? Some people in my family seem to think I am selling my soul to the devil by blogging, and opening up my computer (and perhaps my person) to all manner of horrible afflictions. I am frequently admonished not to post any photos of them, or use their real names or tell too many identifying tales, lest they be the victims of identity theft or something worse. Now, one of them thinks I might leave her father and go off to see someone I have "met" on the blog and end up a missing person (or worse) with my life story splashed all over TV and the tabloids.

As luck would have it, the one who is most concerned with my NOT writing about her, was "found out" on my blog by one of her co-workers. I had posted a story about my children and how proud I was of them all, and a person emailed me saying "I think I know your daughter" . Since my daughter lives a good many miles away from me, and I had not used her name or firm (only her career) it was sort of eerie to get that message, but it turns out that they both work for the same firm. The co-worker writes a blog and had read mine - and the rest is history. Of course now, my daughter uses this illustration to point out how easy it is for someone to discover who you are - even if you write anonymously.

Now, what you don't know is that this particular kid has what we call in our family her own personal "Six Degrees of Separation". She never goes anywhere that she doesn't meet someone she knew in school, or someone she worked with before, or someone who knows someone who knows her. Her trips all over the continent are legendary because of whom she meets on the trip. And it never fails, no matter where she goes, there will be a story to tell about it. For example, in 2001 we were standing in Pearl Harbor awaiting our time to enter the theater and tour the Arizona Memorial. I saw a man wearing a cap from her university. I spoke to him, mentioning that 2 of my children had graduated from there, and when she talked to him about his son who had attended that school - it turned out that they had graduated the same year - and we were all in the football stadium for the graduation on the same day! Now, here we were 9-10 years later standing in Pearl Harbor together. Blows my mind!

This same child is one who was told, as she boarded a plane for the Barcelona Olympics years ago, not to announce her destination to anyone on the plane. She was just out of school; young and vulnerable, and we wanted her to be careful not to divulge any information which might lead to a problem, especially not any that might result in the loss of her Passport. She had to travel to Chicago and then on to NY, London and Paris. Darned if she didn't get into a conversation with some passengers about their shared destinations, and by the time she arrived in Chicago, everyone on the plane knew where she was going! Luckily, none of them had any malice in mind, and her trip was completed easily and well.

I would like to dispel her fears here and now: I promise not to run off and set up housekeeping with any of my blog readers (sorry Hoss). I will do my best to prevent anyone finding out who you are or where you work or what your income is; I will not delve into my bank account and send off chunks of money to indigents on the streets or guys in foreign countries who are looking for places to launder their money or TV evangelists who promise eternal salvation for greasing their palms.

So you see, baby, Mama is not nearly as naive as you seem to think. Quit worrying about me and my blog. We will both be just fine!

Note: I have no idea why there is a color change in this post - I didn't mean for that to happen , and in the preview - the whole post is the same color. Go figure?!