Every day I do things I can't write about, because they involve other people whose stories aren't mine to tell, and things I won't write about, because they're too mundane to be journal fodder. Obviously, that barrier breaks down sometimes, as in yesterday's dazzling entry about grocery shopping, but there's a lot of life that just passes by without anyone knowing about it but me. My life extends beyond the borders, beyond the background, beyond the website itself. I confess that despite my limitations, I don't quite fit into the confines of these pages.

On the other hand, I'm always conscious as I go through the day that I need to come up with something to write about. I'm ever hopeful that something will happen that I can share, and that it's also something I want to share. This notion forces me to be a little bolder than my true nature dictates, and a little more mindful of the world around me.

That's good and bad, I suppose. If the journal is making me a different person, it's probably (hopefully) because I needed to change. But it feels slightly dishonest to embellish my life so that I don't have to embellish the writing of it. It's like breaking the fourth wall, or showing the puppet's strings, or painting by numbers. It's not exactly affected, but more like playing myself in my own biopic. Playing myself is not exactly the same as being myself.

Just because I'm always walking around trying to come up with something to write about doesn't mean that it works out that way. And sometimes it works in the opposite direction. By forcing myself to write about my life, I often give myself something to say to people I have coffee or lunch with. I never assume that anyone I meet reads my journal, and I'm always surprised by the fact that some people do. In those cases, I don't know what the heck to talk about.