in real life

I sort of didn't realize that I'd been missed here until I got a few 'hey where the f**k are you' comments & emails, my bad. I dunno why I've been so absent... ok, well I do, but I kinda hate writing about it...

Having blogged for the better part of a decade now (8+ years in various formats!), it seems weird for me to be shying away from it after all this time. But I got burned so bad after being so publicly open about my life for so long- it was all good & well when things were going good... but when I had problems it turned nasty fast. There's such a fine line to blogging when it comes to privacy- if you keep it too anonymous, who wants to read it? I know that my favorite bloggers are the ones who allow peeks and glimpses into their personal lives, whatever their chosen blog topics may be. That's the flava. But putting personal details out there is risky at best and downright dangerous at worst. I mean, no, my actual birth name is not Heather Shade (but it's official enough at this point to count *wink*); that came about after my early years online, when publishing my photography & writing under my real name led to some really scary situations- I had total random strangers track me down! And I am not talking interesting mysterious type strangers I'm talking these kind:


Gifs at Giftube.com

So for practical reasons, I try to keep myself a bit anonymous, nowadays, you kinda have to. But I am also a pretty open person and I like sharing my tales with you guys, and for the most part, it's 98% LOVE in return from my readers. Problem is that the other 2% is a bitch...

People can be totally evil online. Trust me on this!

In fact that should be the caveat that comes with any type of public posting... people can be dicks. All that anonymity allows the worst to come right out, and people do and say things they'd never in a million years do in real life. And lately I've been having thoughts about what I am posting, even though I think I keep it pretty confidential now. It's easy to post about art and photography and tattoos and stuff but when I have deeper stuff going on it's another story... I am a bit paranoid now, I think.

And lately I have some more personal stuff going on, which is not at all unusual (it's life) but I haven't wanted to post about any of it. I've just sort of been in my own little world I guess. I've gotten pretty used to going out by myself... I've developed this weird stubborn independent streak, and even while I sometimes do hate heading out alone I always feel this strange, unfamiliar pride in it because damn it I am not just sitting around at home I am doing stuff. There's always shit to do, whether I'm solo or not. And I'm actually getting used to it... I just hope I don't get too independent, you know, to the point where I become all loner-ed out heheh. It's weird right now for me to post about it, though, even though I'm not sure exactly why?

So basically, I am just trying to find that balance between life out there, and life inside this glowing little box here. I'm all off-balance and stuff because so much in my life is changing so fast right now... it's like walking... no, running... running down one of those people-mover thingys that they have at airports, moving faster than the world is moving around you... very disorienting. I'm in process of moving (really slowly and a lot of work!) and trying to juggle a bunch of stuff besides. I've just gotten lost in the rat race. Writing is a good thing for me though, so I shouldn't neglect it and I'll try not to.

And now, a random shot of the pretty-much-healed zombie babe, for those of you who asked for a zoomed-out shot to show the size of it...