…I didn’t care what people thought. I didn’t think anyone was reading this blog and I felt free to write whatever the hell I pleased. Mostly, I talked about the days, the things that filled them, and the people who swerved in an out of my life. And then it happened, I wrote about work and my boss read it, tipped off by my “superior” – I use that term loosely. I was frustrated and heartbroken at being passed up for a job I’d earned. I didn’t name names and I was very vague about the incidents that occurred. At work, it became a HUGE issue and I had a serious talk with human resources about it. I was forced to apologize, made up a story about something or other, and eventually got off the hook after being threatened with termination. Truth is, they overreacted and were building a case to fire me by knit-picking and picking on me. I wasn’t easy to work with, you see. I didn’t kowtow to them and I didn’t let them to get away with bullshit. It cost me my job. In the end, however, it wasn’t the job for me and I’m happier now as a freelancer. I also don’t ever regret standing up to assholes, not matter what the outcome.

Since then, I’ve bit my tongue. Now that my blog is connected to a bigger world through Twitter and Facebook, the people I know can now easily find this blog. If I didn’t want anyone to read it, I wouldn’t link the hell out of it, would I? This also means that people I want to read the blog can find it, but so can people I don’t.

I suppose I can’t really blame Mary Fisher and Jonathan Meiners for my own self inflicted censorship. At least they got me thinking about what I write and who it affects. I was no longer able to let it all hang out and became concerned with pissing people off. Who had I let myself become? Someone who cared what people think? That’s not me.

As kids came into my life, I censored myself a bit more, thinking they might stumble onto my blog and learn a few curse words; not that they didn’t already know curse words. I also didn’t want my now-husband’s family to think I was uncouth. Except, I am a bit uncouth. I curse like a sailor and I read Charles Bukowski. I write what’s on my mind as it comes into my mind. I don’t plan, I just write. I log in and whatever comes out, comes out. Or…that’s how it used to be, anyway.

I contradict myself. I am uncouth, but I am also gentile and fancy. I used to like the way I wrote. I took my lessons from Bukowski and Salinger; the two Ryes – “Ham on…” and “Catcher in the…”. I wanted to be eloquent, sweet, charming and a bit of artistic foul.

Jerky bosses and the clean minds of small children.

I used to date a guy who made me cry all the time. One night he said, “I’m not making you cry, you’re making yourself cry” I argued that no, indeed, he was making me cry. It wasn’t until years later that I understood what he meant. What he meant was that I controlled how things affected me. If someone called me an asshole, it was my choice to get upset. I could also call them an asshole right back. It was me choosing to react a certain way; not one person (besides me) controls how I feel. Now, not to say that mean boyfriends don’t have some effect on our emotions, but how we react is what matters. Let’s face it, I was probably crying to make him feel bad about the way he treated me.

On occasion, people say things that make me cry, but it’s always my choice to cry or not. I realized that life isn’t about what other people do to me, it’s how I react. If some fuckhead boss makes my life hell, I have options. Those options aren’t always clear, but in the end, what I do in relation to those heinous acts is my doing.

I chose to censor myself. Who I am and what I write is in direct correlation to who I decide to be and what I choose to write. It’s all on me. So, do I worry about pissing people off? Sure I do. Do I worry about hurting people’s feelings? You bet. Should I let that stop me from doing what I want to do? Well…let me get back to you on that one. This does not mean I give myself free license to say whatever I want despite who it hurts. I’m not that kind of person anyway. I don’t enjoy hurting people’s feelings.

This gets confusing when I stop to think about it. To be free and speak my mind, I must also censor myself to some extent. If my husband is acting like a jerk, it’s probably not a good idea to tear him a new one in front of the whole world. Those conversations are best left to private discussions – the way they’ve always been. I suppose it becomes an issue of respect. I respect my husband and his feelings. I care about him and saying he’s a jerk online probably wouldn’t make him feel good. Also, he’s not a jerk. If he was, I suppose I wouldn’t care either way. He is, in fact, a pretty sweet guy and I love him a lot.

So there…choices but on a case by case basis. Censorship and free will, with respect for my friends and loved ones. I guess it’s always been like that, but I can’t be afraid to cuss or complain about a hard day. Oh, and I also can’t complain about my clients. That would be bad.

With so many people to consider, whats the point, you may ask? Do the really bold writers worry about what their wives will say or do they just say it and take the consequences? It’s obvious that Bukowski didn’t give a shit what anyone said and he died a drunk. He was also a poet. There are always repercussions, I guess. Any writer must face the fact that not everyone will agree with them. My objective isn’t to alienate myself, but to get things off my chest…in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone? I can’t promise anything. Let’s just say I’ll try.

Wil Wheaton is the king of short and sweet blog entries. Then again, if I were a living deity, I’d probably be able to master short and sweet blog entries as well. Sometimes he goes on tangents, but mostly, he’s to the point and hilarious. I’ll try to be more hilarious anyway.

As I said, there’s quite a bit going on. First off, there are some new developments in my life that I am not ready to talk about, but man…it’s good. Also, I’ve been terribly busy with work. That’s good, everyone replies. It’s good to be busy. I agree, but it’s given me less time to focus on things I enjoy besides photography: podcasting, writing, taking pictures of my cats, watching TV, and going for a walk every day. A week ago, I was juggling 4 clients. I was actually starting to go a little nuts. Things have slowed down and I am pretty stoked about it. I’ve been out of the musical loop. Turns out I missed Wire and Killing Joke – two bands I would have loved to see. Damn. Can’t lose sight of the music. Love it.

Last night AJB and I saw 9 to 5 the Musical. I’m not a theater person. I think most theater people are pretentious, like they know something the rest of us don’t. They know what it’s like to sit through 2 hours of second rate musical scores, bad singing, and flouncy dancing. Yeah they know. I’ve been with AJB long enough to know that it’s definitely not all good and most of it is, in fact, bad. Still, 9 to 5 was pretty cute, I have to say. It’s funny that I would like 9 to 5 and not Sweeney Todd or Edward Scissorhands the Ballet. I didn’t. They kinda sucked. I could easily sit through Shakespeare any day of the week. I like old William S. I’m no scholar, but I’ve always found his flair for words exciting. I have this feeling that people didn’t really talk like that back then. If they did, it means we’ve gotten even more stupider. The English language has been butchered. Print is dead.

AJB is working from home now. He’s downstairs and I’m upstairs. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it, but come to find out, I actually do. It’s been good and we haven’t spend THAT much time together. Not like we’re getting on each other’s nerves yet. I speak for myself, you know. So far, it hasn’t become Deathtrap.

We’ve got some serious travel plans in the next couple of months. Vegas for Obama and Cirque du Soleil, Florida for a theme park trade show, Chicago for Thanksgiving and college open houses for the eldest son, and finally Omaha to see my new nephew (whom is still in the oven as of this post). Of course, PMS (my baby brother, yeah, his initials are PMS, probably for a reason I think) doesn’t know I’m coming because he won’t call me back…even when I say I have exciting news. Ce la vie. I guess I’ll just show up, knock on the door and be all, “lemmie see dat babie!!!” *snuggle* *cuddle* I like babies.

After all that, we still have to plan for Christmas Eve at our house. It’s the new tradition. Used to be held at Aunt J’s house, but the torch as been passed. We’ve got a big house and I love entertaining. I keep saying we need to do it more. And as the holidays are around the corner, it makes me think of my Dad. He never got to celebrate Christmas Eve at my house. He would have loved it, he would have told me how good I was doing, and how he didn’t used to like AJB, but that he turned out to be a good guy. I would have said, See Dad? I told you. I think my Dad would be proud of me. I miss all that. Automatically turning into a 5 year old when my Dad was around and clamoring for his attention. *sigh*

Oh, and my Mom isn’t calling me. Who knows why.

So yeah, busy end of year ahead. Who’s got time to blog? Oh well, Wil Wheaton does.

I decided that I would not only go through all 25,000+ comments, but create a keyword blacklist containing words commonly used by spammers. For example:

Adderall
ambein
Ambien
Amoxicillin
animal sex
atenolol
Avandia
Biaxin
birkoff
Bontril
Carisoprodol
Celebrex
Celexa
Cephalexin
CheapAdobePremiumSuite
Cialis
cipro
Codeine
Cyclobenzaprine
Cymbalta
Diazepam
diethylpropion
Diflucan
Doxycycline
Effexor
Eltroxin
ephedra
Ephedrine
fabiola
fabiola-qz
feechka
Fioricet
Fosamax
hananim
Hydrocodone
ionamin
kistov
klonopin
Larcik
Lexapro
Lipitor
Lortab
meridia
mimaxa
Norvasc
oxycodone
oxycontin
paxil
percocet
Phendimetrazine
Phentermine
Prednisone
Propecia
protonix
provigil
Prozac
Reductil
Ritalin
rohypnol
Sibutramine
Soma
Synthroid
tamadol
Topamax
Toprol
Tramadol
Ultracet
Ultram
Valium
Valtrex
verasova
Viagra
vicodin
Wellbutrin
Xanax
xenical
Zithromax
Zocor
Zoloft.
Zolpidem
Zovirax

As you can see, I listed 82 words. You might also notice that 98% of those words are names of drugs. Of course, this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Spammers (crafty lot that they are) will bombard your comments boxes with links, keywords, and gibberish. And because they hardly use the same IP twice, banning IP addresses is useless. Furthermore, even though I could ban the several thousand IP addresses held within 25,000 comments, it just wouldn’t make sense in the long run. You see, Internet Service Providers sometimes use blocks of IP’s for their users and often rotate them on a regular basis. It’s not like any one person has the same IP over their lifetime…it’s not like a home address. I could ban a block of IP’s, but I might be blocking whole groups of people who aren’t spammers. Which might not be bad or rather, wouldn’t actually matter.

In all the 25,000+ comments that I moderated, there were only 4 that I approved. Two of which were questionable, but not so much that I would block them. It’s sometimes hard to tell. Spammers are sometimes real people who get paid to post links as much as they can, anywhere they can. They get paid via click-thrus. When someone clicks their specific link, they make something like 10 cents or something per click. I’m not sure how it works. It’s a shady business anyway. And because they realize there are people like me out there taking a stand, they’ve learned to become sneaky. One specific comment read:

[...] Cinka is very entertaining. Check out the latest and greatest post on Fly Home Like a Rock Star. See below for a quick excerpt of the entertainment: [...]

I found this example amusing. Made to look as though they were informing me that they’d linked back to a certain post. Which hopefully means I’ll approve the comment allowing them to comment more in the future, like an open door. The grand purpose of all this is to get web-traffic; which in turns means commerce.

So why don’t spammers stop spamming a particular site after they see they’re not making any headway? Because it doesn’t matter. The majority of SPAM is automated. I’m not certain of the logistics, but I do know that the method is computerized and the application doesn’t care if the comment gets approved. It’s job is to simply post, post, post. With hundreds of thousands of comments being sent out every day, if 10% don’t go through, they’re still ahead of the game. Thus, lowly bloggers such as myself simply have to deal with it. And even with bells and whistles, you can’t stop SPAM completely. You can hinder it slightly, but defense is the best offense. Vigilance and determination. Up until yesterday, I’d completely ignored my SPAM, but when you spend 4 hours wading through it, you tend to get a fire lit under your ass.

My 82 keyword blacklist will help, but as I reached the final 2000 comments, I realized that SPAMMERS also use common words you wouldn’t want to blacklist. Words we use everyday. Blacklisting everyday language would mean the two legitimate commenters wouldn’t be able to post anything. I don’t get a lot of comments here. I never have. In fact, with any regularity, there really are only two people who comment: My sister and Nevla. Even though I know more than two people read this blog, they’re the only ones who comment. Thanks guys! Makes me feel special. My blog is only mildly entertaining and not enough to drive in masses of traffic. I don’t know how I feel about that.

I receive an email every time a comment come in. Wordpress holds unapproved comments in a queue until I can deal with it. I’ve cleared my inbox, I’ve cleared the queue. I’ve cleared the slate and can really start to get a handle on this. Of course, it’s a daily task. I’ll have to moderate SPAM everyday. I feel like Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid…I know I’m licked, but I’m going out in a blaze of glory.

Of course, my life has changed so dramatically from 2003 to now. Five years ago. Wow. Doesn’t it seem like longer? It does to me. So this whole anonymity thing with the names and dates…it bothers me that…well, for one, I can’t fucking remember what the hell was going on. Job? What fucking job? I’ve had about a million of them over the years. I guess what I’ve always felt is that by saying “boyfriend” I could simply look at the date and go, “Oh yeah! That dude!” – Alas, I really can’t. I suppose I could mull it over for a bit and eventually come to a conclusion, but that requires a whole lot more brain power than I’m willing to expend at the moment. Oh well. I suppose from now on I’ll use initials. That might help. I’ll let you know if it works in five years.

I also realized that I don’t listen to music like I used to. Five years ago all I ever did was listen to music. MP3’s were in constant rotation and I don’t think I ever turned it off. Maybe at night, but mostly, the music was playing. Hmmm. What’s up with that? I mean, I still listen to music, but not quite as obsessively. That needs to change. Me, shun the music? Never! *putting on ABBA now.

Alright. So what’s going on now? Today, like a lot of days, was hot and my energy was low. I’m at the ass end of a long, nasty flu and I feel like I’m still recovering. I practiced piano for a little over an hour today. If I haven’t mentioned, I’m teaching myself piano. It’s really hard. Well, note reading is. The thing is, I started about a month ago and I’ve actually gotten better so it gives me hope. I saw this cheesy show on public television the other day called “Learn Piano in a Flash” – the teacher was THE most annoying person on the planet, but he actually gave me some tips I’m using. Interesting huh? No, I know.

I hung up my eco-friendly wasp decoy nest today. Because it looks like a real wasp nest (sort of), it’s supposed to detract wasps and bees. We’ll see if it works. It beats wasp traps. I feel so bad…hey guys, here’s some delicious honey juice for you…oh! You’re trapped and you’re gonna starve to death. Sorry. I’m no killer. A bee got into the house the other day and I had to take decisive action. It was him or me. Bee stings can kill cats, so I decided to save my children and destroy the bee. I felt really bad. Especially since I didn’t kill him with the first whack. So yeah, I’d rather deter the wasps than kill them. Hey, I’m a nice person like that.

I’m hungry. Or am I? I feel like this is all really boring shit. Hanging up wasp decoys and practicing piano…WTF? Why aren’t I doing anything? It’s this ass end of the flu that’s got me down. Ah fuck, I do things, I guess. Maybe not blog-worthy, but I do stuff. Just not today.

BTW, this new layout doesn’t look awesome on the iPhone. Lame.