I got a cool and yet freaky surprise today. One of my dear friends from high school found my blog and contacted me. For quite some time my blog has been ‘anonymous’ but due to an ‘oversight’ on one of my fellow blogger’s part, my real name recently became associated with my site, and could be found from a simple google search. (Hell, I’m the number 1 site on google, even without adding the quotes to my name.)

Now I am ELATED that my friend found me (I lost her email a few years ago and had no way to contact her) but since I discovered the name/site connection a little over a month ago I have been trying to get my name ‘de-listed’ and return to a state of semi-anonymity.

So the question of my anonymity has been stirring in my mind all day. Does it REALLY matter? It is kinda cool that all of the folks from my life can find me if they are so inclined. For the most part I don’t care who reads this site and/or who knows it’s me. Most of my readers are friends anyway. (And I especially LOVE how many of my out-of-town friends I get to stay in-touch with due to this site. So a quick shout out to all of you…thanks for continuing to ‘stop by’ and contributing when you feel compelled.) But probably my biggest ‘fear’ (that is too strong a word) is that my mother finds it. She and I are very close, but we don’t share as openly as I feel I can in this format. I know I would not be able to communicate as freely if I knew she was in the audience. I am also a bit hesitant to have any of my co-workers find my blog, but even that would be a minor disturbance to my ‘open-ness’. Other than that I guess I really don’t mind.

So, anyway this friend of mine has lived in Japan for several years now. (I would LOVE to visit her sometime.) She is one of the people from my small hometown whom I have always connected with and admired. (I am so glad we are back in touch, my dear!!). Anyway, she informed me that her husband also has a blog. However there is a slight catch…it is in Japanese. So that puts me at a ‘slight’ disadvantage’ in keeping up with their comings and goings. However, using the same fabulous google technology that allowed her to find me, I can also ‘loosely’ translate her husband’s site. Now admittedly google does a very obviously poor job of translating, but I can kinda catch the jist of it all. (And the poor translation also adds an additional humor factor to it.)

When you come to think of it, we really do live in a very small, wonderful, easily connected world. All the more reason I say: Be gentle with one another folks, we really are all neighbors.