Sue asks whether there’s a difference between some blogs and reality shows. I thought about this all day, off and on, yesterday. Arriving home from work to find my in-laws thinking incorrectly that they had fixed our dishwasher, then upstairs changing out of my suit, sweaty from the drive home, it occurred to me that the stars of reality shows cannot select, really, what the audience sees, while we select what we tell here, and how. So there is the factor of control and editing.

Later, reading a book while waiting for my daughter to come inside from the terrace where she was chatting with her boyfriend, I stumbled across the idea that confiding is important and healthy. Diane Ackerman published her book in 1997, before blogging took off, but I bet she would have noticed that is what happens on many blogs.

That’s the difference, I think. The difference between exhibitionism and confiding. Making sense of things by telling stories.