Try to avoid links here, because we don't want to hurt people's felings, but I had the best time reading this complete wack-job's journal, do you read journals because the writer is completely insane and you are pretty certain that soon there will be an entry about how they chopped off their true love's head and are keeping it in the fridge? Do you think that maybe some of your readers think that of you?

-- Kymm Zuckert (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), October 03, 2000

Answers

I think it's really mean of you to make fun of me like that, Kymm. And all this time when you told me you read my journal, you were just lying! Lies, all lies!

I do read the journals of two or three certifiable wack jobs, but not very often. I catch up every few weeks when I'm bored.

-- Beth (beth@xeney.com), October 03, 2000.

Hey, who told!

Kymm

-- Kymm Zuckert (kymmz1@yahoo.com), October 03, 2000.

Well, there needs to be a certain entertainment value if they're not funny, informative, or willing to post naughty pictures... the occasional dose of "there but for the grace of god go i" helps keep things in perspective.

-- Colin (ethilrist@prodigy.net), October 03, 2000.

I do my best to keep myself away from the train wrecks but sometimes I just can't help myself. I've been checking that journal every day and now it's channeling your voice. Did you read today? He THINKS she might have had sex with someone else? HELLO!

But seriously, I do try to stop myself from reading these things and I would never write him email telling him how pathetic he is, and I know some people do that.

I don't think I've ever been a train-wreck but I'm sure that I qualified as a great big whiner for a while there. I had all my train wreck days long before I wrote a journal.

-- Colleen (triggirl@yahoo.com), October 03, 2000.

Um. Can someone define "car wreck"/"Train wreck" journal?

(One would fear that if one does not know what it is, one must write one, eh?)

-- Tynan (ty@power-lines.com), October 03, 2000.

A train wreck journal is one that one reads because the person who writes it's life is going straight to hell. Like being unable to tear your eyes away from a crashed car.

-- Kymm Zuckert (kymmz1@yahoo.com), October 03, 2000.

I don't read them. I did for a while, and I eventually realized that I felt besmirched and debased by the experience. So I gave 'em up, and now I don't stick around for anyone's diary, no matter how entertaining, if they are nothing but bad news waiting to happen to bad people.

-- Lucy Huntzinger (huntzinger@mindspring.com), October 04, 2000.

A word of warning about train wrecks ... don't follow their links from work! There's one that I read (no, I won't divulge the URL) who recently linked to a site that turned out to be this really bizarre child porn advocacy page -- like, it was in FAVOR of child porn. The link gave no indication, and I was reading it at work, and ... yeah, I hope they're not checking up on me.

I almost think she did it on purpose. Maybe she knows people read her for the train wreck, and she wanted to get even.

-- Beth (beth@xeney.com), October 04, 2000.

Wow, I know, I know, none of you will post links, but I'm dying to know who these are because all of the ones I read are just "La, La, La, here's what I did today and here's what I thought about that movie and that book." I mean, I never see this drama, and am not sure I would read it daily, but once again, I'm sure out of the loop.

-- Douglas Shumaker (mythumb@disquietmuse.com), October 04, 2000.

Ah, but sometimes the train wreck is totally unexpected and comes out of nowhere. And sometimes it's simply a long time coming. There's one that I read--actually, it's the online journal of someone I've known in real life--and what seemed rather boring and mundane one week suddenly turned into the most bizarre, twisted plot imaginable. I was astonished. Who would have thought? I give the train a year to go over the cliff, which it will most certainly will.

Catriona

-- Catriona (catri696@purpleturtle.com), October 04, 2000.

Er... this would be me, squirming.

I read the online journal of someone I know in real life. She's involved in an alternate-lifestyle LDR, plans to get married and move to another country and la la la. And she writes in very, very intimate detail about their kinky sex life.

I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't, but I can hardly tear myself away. It's like poking that chancre sore to see if it still hurts (yes), or watching A Wedding Story and wondering if this episode won't cause your teeth to twirl in sugar overload (no).

And to tell you the truth, I can barely look her in the eye these days, on the infrequent social occasions at which we might bump into each other.

So there you go- a train wreck in which the writer is completely happy.

Do I think my journal's a car wreck? Nope. I have kind of an interesting life, but it's pretty much all good...

-- Cameron (cameron@cimtegration.com), October 04, 2000.

I read a few, all female. My alltime favorite is written by a woman who writes every entry complaining about how awful her husband is and how stupid he is and how every thing he does is wrong and then in every entry complains that she wants to have a baby with him right now. He works a fulltime job to support her and pay off her student loans so she can stay at home and she can't figure out why this isn't the best time for a baby. Some trainwrecks are not so much drama but the writer being utterly blind to anything outside their own tiny world.

-- Miss. ChickenPoopie (afraid@beingtacky.com), October 05, 2000.