If you haven't noticed, I don't stay friends with people longer than five years. The reason is simple. I have a tendency to swallow my rage. I can, apparently, ingest years of it without much upset, but then without warning I hit the breaking point usually somewhere between 3-5 years. And once that point hits, there is no going back. What happens then is simple, the person stops existing for me. I've done this with entire groups of people and with such frequency I might even be able to label a lifestyle choice. To the person on the other side, this is often a surprising revelation. The Buddhist learned this the "hard way" this May as did Rabid. Remember them? Used to be they got a lot of coverage here and then suddenly gone.

I'm not the only writer who operates this way-Philip Roth's ex-wife Claire Bloom had similar complaints about him. And for those who think I've exposed them here they might contemplate the humiliation Philip has visited upon his ex-wife and her daughter or for that matter what David Sedaris has visited upon his entire family, former roommates, and Macy's.

I've tried my best to protect people in the past. I've not blogged about events, I've used pseudonyms, I've changed details all the name of trying to minimize damage,but I've learned from the past when I have sacrificed my own expression for others that it never turns out well anyway and once you start listening to their demands, it never ends. If I worried about causing offense or upsetting people I'd never get up in the morning nevermind blog. And so I've learned to write here what I want to write and try to protect when possible, but if it is not possible accept the loss. For that expression I've not only exposed my friends, family, co-workers, but myself. And I've lost long term friends, lovers, and god knows who else as a result.

And I can live with that.

I'll say this, I never intended for people I knew in real life to find out about the blog. The blog was supposed to be about writing and expressing myself not a gossip column-why people who know me in real life would want to read this is beyond me-and if it wasn't for the blogathon and all the hard work people like Blogmonkey and Kiss Kiss have put into this blog, I would shut it down right now and open it up at some other URL. I may very well do so yet, but not before the blogathon. Finally, I have protected all of those I've written about with pseudonyms, I expect those of you who know me in real life to respect me in kind.

And for those of you who threaten me and insult my regular readers, I haven't threatened you and for you to cast your insults on those who read me when clearly it me you take issue with is unacceptable. Your comments will not be tolerated. As Snowball says in one of her more recent posts, this is not a democracy and so I feel completely comfortable deleting comments and banning ISPs at will.

Now I'm going to go get fucking drunk and forget about the lot of you.