[note: this post was originally titled, “My first Friday Five!” but by the time I had reached 500 words, no Fives had yet appeared.  So it’ll be the Saturday Five. Or maybe Sunday.  We’ll see.]

No way!  I am participating in a meme–Friday Five! 

When an esteemed grad school classmate asked, “Jess, what is a meme?” I was not very well prepared to answer.  (“In literature, it’s like a theme, although I don’t know why they don’t just call it a theme.  But on the web, a ‘meme’ is like a thing you participate in–kind of like a theme.  Um, yeah.”)  So maybe I’ll just teach by example and say that Friday Five is a meme in which bloggers note on Fridays the top five things they’re grateful for that week.  (At least, I think that’s what they are. Quick, nobody disabuse me before I write this next post.)

Before I go ahead with my list (I know, you’re just dying of anticipation; I am, too, to see whether I have five or actually ten), I wanted to note that I’ve been thinking lately about how if all you knew about me was from the web, you’d probably think I did nothing but read, write, occasionally give readings, and watch Mad Men.  Not that I don’t spend a ton of time on these things, but there is so much of my life that doesn’t even enter in here because it seems like so much is verboten on the web, and with good reason.  I don’t want to jeopardize anything at any of my freelance jobs, and I don’t want friends to feel like they have to watch themselves around me because they might be quoted on here.  I also don’t want friends to feel left out if I write about other friends!  With all these things I don’t want to discuss, it leaves precious little that I can include.

And this is sad to me.  Because I really wish I could have written about the  afternoon a few weeks ago when I ended up hanging out with some people who had previously intimidated me and we had such a rockingly hilarious time that I’m still thinking about some of our jokes and cracking up.  Or the way a recent interaction with a previously prickly person turned out to be really terrific.  Because what if these women read this and thought, “Hey, why do you say I’m intimidating?” or “Well, I never knew you found me so annoying before!”  Argh argh argh.  I mean, it’s a good thing I write fiction, so I can get out some of these ya-yas, but when I’m supposed to have a public blog persona and then feel like I can’t write about anything that’s actually emotionally important to me, I think I end up sounding like a total hermit.

Hm. 437 words and still no Friday Five.  I think I’ll save them for tomorrow.  But at least now you may think I have some kind of social life.  But do any of you bloggers either worry about the impact of what you post, or fear that you seem like you have no life?