My dears, did you catch in yesterday’s comment section that Pann has started a new website for when you have something to say but can’t say it on your blog? It’s called Rant Haven, and the way it works is you send her an email (from an anonymous email address, if you want) and you get an anonymous account on the site, which you can use to post your rants.
HELLO! Obviously this is what we need. I have already subscribed to it in my RSS reader, because I want to read ALL of you who say you can’t talk about [Insert Mesmerizing Topic Here] because your family reads your blog.
Also, I think we need to make lists of what would be in our “Burn This When I Die” boxes. Here’s what would be in mine:
- My NaNoWriMo novel.
- One folder and two college-ruled notebooks full of poetry.
- Photos I took of myself in the mirror to send to an ex-boyfriend years ago. They are not racy, but I am looking Intense and Posed in a way I find excruciating now. Except I also think I look kind of cute. And there are so few photos of me at age 24. And I don’t know where the photos are, because I hid them somewhere.
- My diaries.
- A book called The Script : The 100% Absolutely Predictable Things Men Do When They Cheat, which I thought would be handy thing to know ahead of time in case it ever came up, but I only got partway through the book because it seemed so dumb and obvious I lost interest. (“Is he getting phone calls and hissing ‘I told you never to call me here’ into the receiver? Are there charges on the credit card bill for flowers and hotels?”) I should just get rid of it, but I feel like I should finish reading it first.
I think I’ll sign up to rant too! God knows I need to do that at least six times a day. :)
I am thinking I would need a Mack semi…or at least a Pod…for my burn box. It would contain all of the little mementos and “other things” from my marriage that I don’t really want to share with anyone else, my college notebooks and tests, my medical reports (I would pass pertinent information along…but my children don’t really need to know everything) and a bunch of other stuff. I imagine I would keep adding. The sad part is I don’t have one person who would hold to the promise to burn it. They’re all rifflers.
I’m signing up. Thank you, Pann.
Since I’m in dire need of a post idea, I’ll write about my burn when I die today.
What a great idea! A blog for stuff you can’t say. I’m so going over there now.
And my box would consist of a few battery operated, um, things. Ha!
That blog sounds like a great idea. If I ever find my blog “compromised” by someone I know, then I will keep that in mind.
The burn box…I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I’m not sure what I’d put in there. I know I have a few pictures/letters of a friend from when my husband and I were dating. This friend had a huge crush on me, and everyone knew it. Anyway, I don’t think I want anyone else to have those letters/pictures to remind them. I will have to keep thinking about this though.
haha! I’m going to subsribe to that site too! Very interesting indeed. Not that I’ll be posting there…
ahem
I’ll have to think on my burn box, but I know I’d have to look into my husband’s box even if he asked me not too. I don’t think I could help it.
Ah yes! I need to put this on my reader too! And probably add some rants of my own…..
Writng about my burn when I die box is nice fodder for NaBloPoMo….ok, i just like to say fodder. TFM got me on a fodder kick.
I used to be all worried about that when I was in high school, but I guess I’m over it now. Let’s see. In my box would probably be all the mean things I wrote about my parents when I was an angsty teenager, because I imagine it would make them sad to read that, especially if I were dead. But really, as long as Torsten is the one to go through everything, I’m not too worried.
Oh my gosh, I love this idea! I actually can’t think of too much stuff, even though I have kept a journal for a long time–I think I would want my kids to have those, to have some sense of who I was. (But my mom died when I was 22, and I wish I had more from her, so I am definitely influenced by that.) The only things I would burn are some, ahem, photos my husband and I took once, and a few months of particularly private journalling. All the love letters, the embarrassing high school journals–I’d let it all stay.
Can we not have even the merest HINT of the plot of your NaNoWriMo novel? Is it childrens novel or adult novel? I’m picuring something Harry Potter/Lion, Witch, Wardrobish.
MrsGrumpy- My mom is the only one I’m 100% sure of, riffling-wise. Non-rifflers are few and far between. I think I could promise SOME people I wouldn’t riffle–but other people, I’d have to. If Paul had a burn box, I might have to look. BUT–I’d avoid promising not to.
Tessie- Sigh. Okay, fine. It was about a woman with four children who discovered herself unexpectedly pregnant. (Note timing of writing: one month after I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant.) But in her case, she wasn’t sure if it was her husband’s or if it belonged to a long-ago crush who’d recently become, um, a part of her life. Then, basically, she shops. The end.
I would have nothing to burn. No dirty pictures, no letters, cards or magazines that aren’t already long gone. I even shred all my financial files, credit card bills and old mortgage papers. I’m very private by nature, so I keep all my secrets in the best hiding spot ever: in my mind!
These are all very good items for the ‘burn after death’ box. I shall need to revise my own based on this.
And I will have to check out that new rant blog because – gasp – my parents read my blog. Religiously! And then they discuss it with me after each posting. Argh.
Heidi
haaaaa “hissing ‘I told you never to call me here’ into the phone.” love it. i read a cosmo article in line at the grocery store about How To Tell If Your Boyfriend Might Be Gay!!!!!!!!! ways to tell: he likes gay porn and has admitted to making out with men in the past. uh… thanks, cosmo.
my teenage diaries DEFINITELY need to be burned, for the same reason jess said – i wrote out all my angsty hate towards my parents, and i would really hate for them to ever have to read it.
Pure brilliance.
100%.
I have a question. How have you formatted your comments so that when you read them below the post (instead of on their own separate Blogger page), the date and time posted are in a nice, manageable, tiny font? On my blog they are in huge letters and all caps and it looks horrible, and even after I changed the comment timestamp formatting, they still look that way, and I cannot figure out how to change it. Enlighten me, please.
I’m going to post a blog with my burn after death box contents. Thanks for the inspiration!
My burn box would include a manilla envelope full of pictures of me with my high school boyfriend. I didn’t save them out of any kind of leftover love for him but because my hair, it looked fantastic back then. But, you can see where certain people would misunderstand me saving them for all these years.
It’s vanity, not lost love.
Excellent blog idea! Thanks for the link.
“Then, basically, she shops.” Hee.
I’m with Alice – I think your “How to know if he’s cheating” book was written by Captain Obvious. And I would totally riffle through a Burn After I Die box – *hangs head in shame*
My burn box would be pretty sad and small because I always forget to take pictures and I haven’t really kept a journal, but it would most definitely include a picture of my friend and me taken during a “costume show” for my drama class in high school. Shudder.
You’re funny!
But the problem is that I’m just egotistical enough that I want people to know it was me that was that clever or bold and daring enough to say that.
But as it is now, I can’t even curse because my patients parent’s read my “official” doctor site and that has a link to my “personal” bare to the soul site. Of which I can’t bare too much! Shit! I mean shoot!
Have a great day! I’m glad I found your blog!
Thank you, swistle, for mentioning my newest project. You are the one who inspired it!
RantHaven is just getting started, and we already have our very first post. Once there are a fair number of contributors, I’ll sign up and get my own anon account there too, and will be ranting along with everyone else!
Whoo Hoo!
I need the “husband” book for the next time if there is one and I have and read The Script (fairly recenty) and it is true, true, true, but you do have a point: When my ex started carrying his cell phone up his ass, I didn’t need a book to tell me something was “amiss.” I do have to say though, in the stories shared with me since, they really do all follow a script. WORD FOR WORD. It’s actually kind of creepy.
In my burn box, there would be my “toys” because I really don’t need people finding those, and also THE NOTEBOOK and all of my journals/diaries. Most other stuff in my house is junk.
I’m afraid my burn box wouldn’t amount to much at this point. I have long gotten rid of my angsty teen journals, and my eh.. anonymous books are in a different country.
God I’m boring that way- no deep dark secrets to hide away from prying eyes. sigh.
Oh and the How to tell your husband is cheating book- ha ha ha ha brilliant. You should write one and see if you can’t make lots of moolah. Just be painfully obvious and possibly throw in some Dr.Phil type-pointing-out-the-obvious-
dressed-up-as-advice assvice in there and voila! Best seller
Jess Loolu- Hm, I am not sure. I am in the “select from pull-down menu” school of website design. I just…picked how I wanted the date to be, and Blogger picked the font smallness.
I loved #5 and #7 – so funny. Have a good evening. See ya.
I don’t have anything that I would put in a burn box, and not because I had had nothing in my life worth burning, but because I get rid of embarassing/incriminating items along the way. When I met my husband, I threw away the list of men I slept with. When I went to college and started writing my essays, I read through my old journals and tossed them because I was horrified.
I guess it was cathartic for me to end snippets of my life before beginning another. I suppose some people thing that the past reminds us of who were are, but I believe living in the present works for me.
That’s just me though.
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I majored in history and I must say, journals are not for posterity they are for kindling. So I’m totally on board with this. I actually remember a burnfest my college roommate and I had back in the day. Totally awesome. Very therapeutic. Don’t wait until you go. Burn baby burn.
I love the idea of a burn box. I totally think my entire family would look through it, though. It would definitely include my college journals, which detail some bad beer-fueled hook-ups, and perhaps some of my old audio tapes, like “Mister Mister” and “NKOTB.”
Swistle: About our “diaper” comments from the previous post…I became brave and clicked on “craft diapers”. It is nothing to fear. It just took me to a link where you could purchase changing tables, diaper storage items, etc. Just FYI :)
As for my “burn box”…it would be sadly pathetic. More like a shoe box with very few items. I need to get some excitement into my life
I can’t even imagine what I would post….but what a great blogging topic. This was hilarious. Thanks for the jump start to my morning.