Wednesday 10 February 1999

Pic of the day: Back to being a head again.

I honestly thought that only a few people had online diaries. Perhaps 10? Boy, meet rude awakening. Turns out they are flourishing under the name "web journals" and have been for years. I've not seen any JPG diaries (except the one that inspired me last year, at Cornercam, now Everydayitems). But there is definitely a lot of writing out there. The male journals I have seen have uniformly been homo, by the way. Uh. (Is this a good time to say that I sometimes feel like a lesbian trapped in a man's body?) I'm sure there is more cheerful stuff if I keep reading.

Back to my childhood ... I grew up in a time and place where money was less important, certainly less blatant. On our small farm, we got fruit and berries from the garden, potatoes and vegetables from the fields, milk from the cows, fish from the river and fjord, and meat from our animals.

More than a few of those animals were my personal friends. To this very day I have problems with eating meat, especially when it's not heavily processed. It's not a principle thing; I'm not a vegetarian. I know that small amounts of meat is considered good for our health. I just find it disgusting. Imagine your new neighbor invites you over to share their dog for dinner. You never knew the dog personally (new neighbors, remember?) but you still probably feel very non-hungry all of a sudden. That's pretty much the way I feel. These animals may not have been my friends, but they're strikingly similar to some of my very few childhood friends.

It's been cold outside today. As I came wandering home in the evening, two children were sitting in the forest around a small campfire. I hope they keep it small. It may seem strange to a child, but the cold is not much of a protection against a forest fire, if it first takes hold. And the scattered patches of snow will not make a difference if the branches start catching fire.

I loved playing with fire when I was a kid, though I was never as good at it as my brother. Luckily I never did any great damage, though our garden fence was burnt on one occasion.

Rosa's brother Ross has been playing with Rosa's Wardrobe. But does he also write a web journal?

Visit the Diary Farm for the diaries I've put out to pasture until they buy the farm:
January 1999
December 1998
November 1998