calm1. Much fewer posts.
2. More friends-locked posts
3. Some comment-locked posts.
I have some explanations:
1. We just released a huge release. I've been working all my words out in work they pay me for. It was pretty awesome. I'm delighted with how it came out. Now I'm into bug fix mode and working on some other things, and specing out the work for the next version. That leaves me slightly more time to blog. I know you're all greatful.
2. Two and three are slightly related. Something The Rabbi (and we all know who that is without further identification) said to me encouraged me to keep some more stuff back from the general public. Combined with that other incident to which I refer very vaguely to, that's convinced me that people weight my blog with a gravity that's perhaps not intended. While I consider this to be a sort of online pensieve where I dump my thoughts while they're fresh, other people believe they are reasoned, carefully considered responses to the world around me. While this may sometimes be true, I don't want the burden of having to maintain that level of thought for everything. Does this sound pretentious? I'm trying to give myself the freedom to not sound that way. That's why the friends-locked posts. It's not to keep people out or to lock away my thoughts into the deep dark recesses of nothingness, it's to allow people who wish to read it an opt in, rather than forcing people to use a manual opt-out. If you want to read friends-locked posts and you currently can't, please let me know. If you don't have a livejournal account and want to read the friends-locked posts, please create an account and let me know the account name and I will add it so you can continue to read them.
I'm sorry I can't be more specific about what posts are friends-locked, because to be honest, I'm not sure what posts will be friends-locked. I imagine the entire natural process tag will go into it. Probably a good portion of the thoughts topics, and the rant topics, the majority of work is there already. I'm not going to use this space to itemize my list of tags. My soft and slow (as opposed to hard and fast) rule can be summed up as "Would I rather my mother hear about it from me or read it on my blog." If the answer is "from me," or "Omg, I would never tell my mother that!" I'm locking it. Unless I forget. Then I'm not locking it.
3. Comment off posts. I'm processing a lot of things right now. I don't really need external validation of my feelings. Mentally, all things considered, I'm fairly healthy. I'm giving myself time to process and trying to recognize that some of the strange thoughts I'm having are completely natural and acceptable. I also know that, in general, you all care about me and wish me well. And I don't want people to feel obligated to send words of consolation. I know the intention is pure and it comes from a place of love, but for some of these posts, the main point is just for me to put what I'm saying down, not to solicit emotion or response from you guys. I really don't want to drag people along for the ride on my roller coaster. I feel guilty enough about doing that just by posting. By turning the comments off, I'm trying to keep you guys from being in the awkward position of feeling like you have to respond without knowing what to say. It's like when someone comes up to you and says, "I'm getting a divorce." and you're stunned. You know you should be buying the next round of drinks, but you don't know if you should be lifting them in celebration or crying into them. I'm trying to let you know that you don't need to pick up the round of drinks or figure out what to do with them. I've got this round.
Cheers.