Bill Zuckert
15 December 1915-23 January 1997
14 February
It has recently been noted that there are approximately 111 on-line journals out there, which sounds like a lot until you think about how many NIN or Star Wars fan pages there are. This is really a very small part of the web, but as noted elsewhere, the quality tends to be extremely high. The most avid of journal readers are, it turns out (to no-one's surprise), journal writers, and the theme that has been hopping about from journal to journal the past few days is what each person particularly thinks makes a good journal. Rant and Rave, Turns Into Stone, Aries Moon and The Paperwork have eloquently put in their two or three cents, so now it's my turn.
Design means little to me, honestly; unless the page is hideously ugly or stunningly beautiful (both rare) I barely notice. Easy access to back entries and lots of forward and back links are all that matters to me in that category. And, as I mentioned a day or two ago, the occasional capital letter.
The rallying cry on the net has been "content content content!" but in web diaries that's kind of a given. There is a more important thing than content. There are three kinds of journals, I think. The kind that is a laundry list of events, the kind that is an outpouring of unchecked emotion, and the kind that is well-written. There are writers who could make a triple murder dull, and there are writers who are riveting even if they're writing about sorting socks. Because if a good writer is writing it, it doesn't matter a damn what it's about.
To change the subject slightly and focus entirely on ME for a moment, what I've found is that most of my readers don't read other online journals, and other on-line journalists don't like my page much. God, that looks paranoid. I don't mean that there is a conspiracy or anything, as there are exceptions ( Lucy, Melody and Laurel for three) , but whenever anyone puts up a list of their faves, I am never included; they just don't seem to care for my writing. I wish that more journalists liked me (leftover feelings from grade school, I'm thinking...), but I'm glad that I'm not such a member of this closed club that my entire readership consists of nothing but the other members of Open Pages.
If you want to read much better thought out essays on this topic, hit the links above.
Last night I was watching a really horrible play and a guy was telling about watching his girlfriend die, and I really hated the play, but I started to cry.
I was thinking about three weeks ago yesterday when I was standing beside my father's bed and he was really dying and my mother was weeping and saying "Don't go, please don't go, I'm not ready, what will I do without you" and I was saying "I don't want you to go, Daddy, but if you have to go, please watch over us" and we were holding his hands but he wasn't holding back.
And I was so angry.
I was angry because I thought this was over, I thought it was over, I thought I was done feeling this way. Roy told me several times that it does not end this easily, but I thought it would be different for me. And I was angry because I don't like showing emotion like that in public.
And this may sound idiotic, but I was also angry because I thought someone might see me crying and think that I was moved by this stupid stupid play.
The first Christmas picture, 1965,
and the last Christmas picture, 1996.
* Yesterday / Index / This Month / Tomorrow *
This page was written by hand. My hand. Only
pussies use HTML editors.
Last Updated Tues 18 August 11:53:09 1998