Tuesday, September 12, 2006

On Being Outted

Caveat: This is going to be a post filled with italics for proper emphasis in order to display the amount of horror and embarrassment I have felt this week. If you have an allergy to italics or find them offensive in any way, please desist from reading right now; otherwise deal with it.

I've been outted in a very public forum - and it freaked me out!

Daily I prowl the internet with a stealth that would thrill the CIA, performing vanity searches on myself and friends, searching for real estate in London (W1, of course), and popping in to meander through someone's blog knowing that because I'm sitting in my home and I can't see them, ergo they can't see me.

Oh the power of the trackback and the devilishly clever skill of the internet to leave your IP address all over the stinkin' place.

Imagine my surprise on Sunday to find out that not only had my professor found me -- she outted me on her blog!

You may recall that I mentioned my class and the fact that my professor has a blog. I conveniently provided my sparse readership with a link so that they could see my erudite professor in action. Unlike me, she pays for her bandwidth which means that she can perform more functions than I can with my free blogging service.

She could see me!

I felt as if I had been locked out of my house wearing only my underwear. In this case, I would probably be wearing my new red shoes, but eek, me in my underwear?!?! - even I avert my eyes.

Now, after my initial shock (which I'm just now getting over), I began to think, hmm... (that's me thinking) - this may improve my readership. This was immediately followed by the fear that my blog entries are horribly inane (they are). Nevertheless, I went back and read every single blog entry to see how badly I have potentially embarrassed myself. I then checked every link not once but twice - just in case (doing the Santa thing here).

I can take some comfort in the words of my professor who told me, "Hey, you didn't insult me so it's okay!"

I can live with that. But please remember, if you provide a link to another site someone is going to know. And you won't have my awesome red shoes to wear.

1 comment:

Kat said...

First of all, the Weather Pixie is getting rained on in the dark! How totally frickin cool.

Second, you have a great blog, don't be scared to show it off with great flair (although I do see the point about anonymity)

Third, holy crap! They can SEE US???? I'm going to hid under my bed now... :)