030202, 1355hr, central time.

it's superbowl sunday! i'm going over to the saf guys' place later, to have some football fun. of course, i'm not that much of a footbal fan, i'm just there for the company, the food, and the commercials. hahah. i guess it's such a big american culture thing, i should see just once what's all the hype about.

i'm in a pretty ok mood, considering how much work i have not done yet, considering the hostility i experienced over my last controversial entries, considering the fact that it's already sunday, and i wish it's friday. yes, despite everything, i feel pretty ok - people have been most supportive, responding to the last entry, which i wrote out of exasperation. frankly, after getting the terrible email, i felt quite disillusioned about how this journal has developed. at the start in 1998, i of course knew there aren't all that many people reading, i was mostly contented talking to myself, pretending that i had an audience. there were things that i consciously censored, because one, i cannot be sure i will not scare away the few readers i have [i think i had about 5 hits a day then]. and two, because i wasn't comfortable sharing too much of myself. i did not talk about my break up with ws, a glaring omission, considering the emotional upheaval i experienced during those days. i think i only had one entry about that, which came about only because i was in the middle of an entry when i received an email from him, and my emotions took over that journal entry.

now, i know i do have an audience - i get more than 50 hits a day now - not a big audience, but it's there. of the regulars, i know a few - close friends, people who signed the guestbook or sent me emails once in a while. the rest, no idea. i sometimes feel like i know them, recognising some of their IP addresses on my site tracker, sometimes i feel like i'm being stalked. hahaha. i usually have some kind of blind faith in my readers, kinda like "if he/she/it has the patience to follow this little nonsensical pages of mine, he/she/it can't be all that evil." there're of course the random sporadic ones who just pop in once or twice and then disappear forever, not like i care.

it turns out now i do care. suddenly i feel like i'm putting my heart and feelings in some potentially-mean-strangers' hands.

it hurts, to pour my heart out here, and then have someone poke a knife into me, then run away. the evil one, who dropped the acid bomb on me over the cohabitation issue ran away. i can't do anything about it, i can't even stop him from coming back here and possibly pick apart another of my entries. it's not like i didn't know the issue would be controversial, of course, i'm not saying people shouldn't disagree with me. i'm just hurt, that someone would intentionally attack me like that.

i've opened up a lot through the years, there're of course still things i don't share, there's still that teeny weeny little bit of shyness in me. but most other things, i try not to censor my words, i try to say whatever that's on my mind, i try not to appear phony. i try to be real here. i feel like i owe it to the people who's supported me all this time, to let them have the real deal, to let them have a feel of what my life is like, through my mediocre writing. and then wham bham, that bastard basically abused my words, and used them against me. i felt betrayed. and suddenly, i feel like maybe i should go back to the regular "my day was _____" and last weekend, i went to _____" - straight forward narrative kind of writing, that can't possibly inspire any hate mail - doubt anyone's gonna take the effort to say "you immoral bitch, how dare you go to chicago for the weekend!" suddenly, i feel like i need to change my style of writing, and censor myself more.

it's amazing how much damage that little evil email did.

thank god for the many other comforting and encouraging emails that followed though [you know who you are!] - people i've not heard from before, people i already knew, all these kind people who probably sensed that i needed some morale boosting words of support. it's a jolt, to realise i cannot assume everyone reading my journal to be nice. but it's on the other hand comforting, that at least most of them are. i feel quite touched. thanks, everyone.