Indeed, Chan

Hehe. Too true.

Postsecret

A nice article about an obsession of mine. And because nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.


Blogger gives dark secrets the first-class treatment

By Maria Puente, USA TODAY

GERMANTOWN, Md. — Frank Warren is knee-deep in secrets: They're overflowing boxes, piled on tables, leaning against walls — closing in on 30,000 at last estimate, and hundreds of new ones are arriving every week.

		Each week, blogger Frank Warren receives hundreds of postcards in which strangers confess their secrets.

Warren is unperturbed; secrets have become his life. Not his secrets, mind you — America's secrets. And they're beginning to make him famous. He has become an award-winning blogger, a first-time author, an artist with a traveling exhibit, a possible documentary subject, the inspiration for a music video and the all-around media "it" boy of the moment.

It couldn't happen to a more unlikely guy. In a culture that rewards hip-and-mocking, Warren, 41, has to be the most unsnarky man in America. Lanky, soft-spoken and earnest, he is the antithesis of the Jon Stewart crowd, but he's becoming a cultural force almost as popular as Mr. Snarky himself. Warren is, as his publisher puts it in his book's foreword, "the most trusted stranger in America."

"I've been surprised every step of the way," Warren says. "I'm just a typical suburban husband. I'm an accidental artist. It's been quite a journey, quite an adventure."

And all because of his blog, PostSecret.com. It started out as Warren's temporary community art project. Now it's where thousands of Americans go to anonymously post their deepest secrets, and where millions of Americans go to read them. Secret-tellers — call them "confessors" — send their secrets to his home here in suburban Washington, D.C., on postcards they decorate themselves. Warren reads every one and picks 10 to 20 to post on his blog every Sunday.

They are mini-works of art. Some are heartbreaking, some are hilarious, some are touching or thought-provoking or shocking or silly or repulsive. All of them are riveting, especially the ones about the big stuff: sex and death.

For many readers, PostSecret is a deliciously addictive fusion of old tech (snail mail) and new tech (the Internet) that produces something never seen before.

"People are drawn to this because it's something powerful and raw and real that speaks to them," Warren says. "I try to keep it ideologically neutral and juxtapose the cards in a way that's balanced and non-judgmental."

This week, PostSecret featured these: a card bearing an image of a baby wrapped in a pink blanket with a note reading, "Please take care of my baby." And these words pasted over it: "i have always wanted to find a baby on my doorstep. (and keep it.)" Another showed a sand trap on a golf course with the words "I have never played a round without cheating." A picture of a colorfully wrapped present reads, "I hate opening a gift in front of the person that gave it to me."

And that's it. There's no bloggy pontificating. There are no ads. (Warren refuses them.) It's just the postcards plus a few instructions on how to submit, a legal notice, a picture of his home mailbox and a link to a suicide hotline (hopeline.com) for which Warren has been a longtime volunteer.

Yet just a year after its launch, PostSecret is a smash hit. It's the third-most-popular blog in the blogosphere of nearly 30 million blogs, based on the number of other blogs that link to it, according to Technorati, the leading blog-tracking service. Nielsen BuzzMetrics says PostSecret always is in the top 20 at blog-watching BlogPulse.com every Monday morning. It also gets 2.3 million unique visitors a month and 3 million page loads a month, according to another Web-measuring service, StatCounter.com.

This week it won a record five Bloggies in the sixth annual weblog awards, including the top prize, Weblog of the Year. Warren's book, PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives, a compilation of 400 postcards, is selling well enough after three months that he's planning four more.

Publisher Judith Regan of ReganBooks, who plans a call-in PostSecret segment for her talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio, says she embraced PostSecret because it's about "the human heart exposed."

"The reader and viewer can feel the conflict, pain and pathos of the authors," she says. "I thought that (readers) would respond because the secrets are authentic and moving."

His blog is the worst-kept secret

Meanwhile, an exhibit of 2,000 PostSecret postcards in Washington earlier in the year attracted thousands of viewers; some waited in line for hours, even on a Sunday when the Redskins were fighting to stay in the playoffs. The exhibit is scheduled to open in Philadelphia in June.

Several filmmakers are courting Warren for potential TV documentaries about PostSecret, and he says the National Postal Museum is talking to him about doing an exhibit. PostSecret postcards were even featured last year in the All-American Rejects' music video for their hit Dirty Little Secret.

Warren has been featured on the Today show, National Public Radio and in dozens of print and online media stories. Time magazine named the blog one of the world's 50 "coolest" websites. The New York Times called it "consistently engaging" and "original." It made the Chicago Tribune's list of top 50 best websites.

There was talk of doing Letterman, although Warren nixed that. "The last thing I want to do is go on national TV and laugh at people's secrets," he says.

Art, therapy, voyeurism

"It went from obscurity to being in the top five for the last six months," says Technorati spokesman Derek "DJ" Gordon. Blogs with "a unique voice or point of view almost always get recognized," he says. "This one was absolutely fresh and engaging, and now it has a huge following."

Sue MacDonald, a marketing official at Nielsen BuzzMetrics and chief blogger at BlogPulse.com, says people love PostSecret for different reasons. "Some love the art, some love the therapy, some love its voyeuristic nature," she says.

"Everyone enjoys the creativity of such a simple idea. ... Frank has combined several different media — postcards, the mailbox, blogging, artwork, e-mail conversations — to create a breakthrough idea."

Now Warren is so busy that he barely has time for his small business supplying medical documents. His wife, Jan, and an assistant have taken over much of the work as PostSecret has taken over Warren.

Jan Warren is feeling a little shell-shocked by all the attention, especially after the cover of the book featured their actual address. "We're talking about looking for a new house," she laughs, a little grimly.

So far, nothing bad has come from PostSecret, although she worries about its effect on their privacy and their daughter Hailey, 11.

"It all happened so quickly. It just snowballed on us," she says. "The biggest thing for me is the mess. I don't like clutter."

Too late for that. Thousands of postcards passing through your home — as with Dick Cheney, Warren has stashed them in an "undisclosed secure location" — can make for a lot of clutter. And some people at the local post office hate him, Warren says sheepishly.

A repository for secrets untold

It all started a few years ago when Warren went through a difficult period in his life that he doesn't detail. He turned to art projects, figuring that art isn't just for trained elites.

In his third project, he began handing out blank postcards to strangers in Metro stations, inviting them to decorate the card and share a long-hidden secret, something never shared before.

Soon hundreds of cards were pouring into his mailbox. He put them up in his exhibit space at Artomatic, the annual Washington art show open to anyone who is willing to pay a small fee. "In four weeks the show was over, and I thought it would end, but the secrets kept coming and from all across the country."

So he created the blog. He long ago stopped handing out postcards, but they keep coming in the mail anyway, and now many are coming via e-mail.

"It's the best source of free therapy I could ever ask for," says Nicole Clayton, 31, of Frederick, Md., whose postcard was on the blog last year. It featured a photo of a beautiful couple frolicking on a beach, the kind that's a place holder for a photo in an empty frame. The card read, "I wish my life was more like this picture frame insert."

Making the card offered a "moment of self-clarification," Clayton says. "It's hard to admit that sometimes you wish your life had taken a different path. It's hard to admit you're not where you expected you would be."

PostSecret seems to prove three (at least) things: Lots of ordinary Americans are artistic, lots of them are poetic, and lots of them have something to hide.

"Everybody has secrets; it's part of being a human being," says Gail Saltz, a psychoanalyst in New York and author of the forthcoming Anatomy of a Secret Life, about how secrets are formed and how they can cross into dangerous territory. She says the worst secrets are the kind people keep from themselves, so PostSecret can be a boon to both confessors and readers.

"He has provided a forum that enables people to feel like they're sharing or getting a secret off their chests but without any risk. They have the catharsis without being exposed," Saltz says.

People love to read this stuff, because "human beings are normally voyeuristic and curious, and it allows you to really identify with the posters," she says.

She worries that someone who is suicidal might feel worse by sharing a secret and getting no response, but she says Warren can't do much about that except what he already has done with his link to the hotline. "He's done everything he can do to be responsible," she says.

But Evan Imber-Black, a family therapist and author of The Secret Life of Families, says telling secrets has no meaning except in the context of family relationships.

"We live in a time where people have the mistaken idea that you tell a secret to the multitudes on TV — and move on," she says. "But opening a secret is just the first step. (Posting on PostSecret) might offer some measure of relief, but I'm not sure how long it lasts. When a secret opens, it usually takes time and relational work to get a new equilibrium."

Maybe so, but Warren is no therapist, and he's beginning to wonder: Where does this all end? It already has reached the point that readers out there in blogland go into a panic —scores of e-mails fill up his mailbox — when he's even a little late posting new cards.

"My wife's big fear is that 40 years from now when we've retired to Boca Raton, secrets will still track us down."

Ah Doctors

Receptionist: The nearest appointment we have for new patients is in May.
Me: Well, I'm in some pain here.
Receptionist: How about the end of April?

Ah Music

SB: I used to listen to the Spice Girls. Obsessively. I watched their movie until I had memorized all the words.
Me: I'm ashamed to know you right now.

(later)

SB: Ooooh! And 'Ice Ice Baby'. (starts singing the melody)
Me: I swear the to Powers That Be, if you get that song stuck in my head, it will mean Instant Death for you.
SB: *laughing*
Me: Death!!!

Everyone has to have those embarrassing music phases. Hell, I bet each and every owner of an iPod has something they are ashamed of on it.

Happy B-day

To Chris.

Enjoy it, bud. Hope you like the gifts.

This Makes Me Laugh

Okay.

You call out for almost an entire week of work. The following week you call up to say you quit and then call again to say you will be by sometime to clean out your locker (nevermind the fact that your access key has been deactivated since the moment you said you quit).

Then, a scant few days after that, you call attempting to get your job back because the job you had been interviewing for you didn't get.

And the Powers That Be say no.

Because I wanted to Play

Borrowed from Ninja Poodles. Play along if you would like.

[will finish later, when I have the time]

I Would, If I Could...

3 things you wish for (just for you):
1. to have an amazing body
2.
3.

3 things you would do to/for yourself if there was no one to judge you (or if you had the guts to do it!):
1.
2.
3.

3 bad habits you have:
1. Too much sugar
2. Too much coffee
3.

3 insecurities you feel:
1. That I could have/should have done better in school
2. That I should have continued my education further
3.

3 talents/skills you wish you had:
1. Be able to play checkers well. I have never won a single game. Ever.
2. To be able to play the guitar I own.
3.

3 things that you would do if you had more time:
1. Go back to school.
2. Sing
3.

3 things that bring you peace/relaxation:
1. Listening to music
2. Reading
3.

3 things that spark your creativity:
1. Reading other people's works. (books, short stories, blogs, etc. etc.)
2.
3.

To go along with the previous post

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/031306/no-bread.jpg

Proof Positive

That Jesus died in vain.

It Seems

That every time I have taken time off of work, someone gets fired.

Granted this has only happened 2 times, but still, a pattern seems to be emerging.

Now, when I was told this particular person was fired, I was not at all surprised. What did surprise me though, was the reason.

And that was urinating in work in a place that was certainly not the bathroom.

Yeah, it made me raise my eyebrows too.

It's Contagious

I gave the bad day I had yesterday to my girlfriend today.

Sorry, love.


And it's frickin' 7pm already. When the hell did that happen??
Why does time go quicker when you don't want it to?
I have to go to bed in a few hours just to get up at the crack of why am I awake to go to work.
Repeat.

My Day Sucked

And yours?

Fuel - Bad Day

Had a bad day again
She said I would not understand
She left a note and said, "I'm sorry I had a bad day again"

She spilled her coffee, broke her shoelace
Smeared the lipstick on her face
Slammed the door and said, "I'm sorry I had a bad day again"

And she swears there's nothing wrong
I hear her playing that same old song
She puts me off and puts me on

And had a bad day again
She said I would not understand
Left a note and said, "I'm sorry I had a bad day again"

No... And she swears there's nothing wrong
I hear her playing that same old song
She puts me off and puts me on

Oh and had a bad day again
She said I would not understand
She left a note and said, "I'm sorry I had a bad day...again"

Because I Am Bored

Borrowed (I do a lot of borrowing, don't I?) from a Yahoo 360 blog.

1. Slept naked?: Nightly
2. Taken a shower with someone?: Weekly
3. Made out with a member of the same sex?: *looks at gf* Yes, yes I have ;)
4. Drove a car?: Own a car, but it's in NY
5. Stole anything?: When I was really little, I took a tootsie roll out of one of those 25 cent a piece candy bins
6. Been in love?: yes
7. Been dumped?: yes
8. Stole money from a friend/family member?: No. How frickin' low is that?
9. Gotten in a car with people you just met?: Yes
10. Been in a fist fight?: Not yet. Though I can see it happening
11. Snuck out of your/someone's house?: No
12. Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back?: Who hasn't?
13. Been arrested?: No. But I've been finger printed.
14. Hugged a stranger?: No
15. Met up with a member of the opposite sex somewhere? Define 'met up'
16. Left your house with out telling your parents?: Hahaha. No. You obviously have never met my parents.
17. Had a crush on your neighbor?: No
18. Ditched school to do something more fun?: No. Boy I am boring
19. Slept in a bed with a member of the opposite sex?: Yes
20. Lost a friend?: Yes
21. Been on a plane? Yes
23. Slept in until 3?: Only when ill
24. Love someone or miss someone right now?: Yes
25. Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by?: Yes
26. Made a snow angel?: Not recently.
27. Played dress up?: Yes, but can't remember what we dressed up as.
28. Cheated while playing a game?: Yes
29. Been lonely?: Yes
30. Kissed more than 4 people in one night?: No.
31. Been to a club?: No. Bars sure, but not clubs.
32. Felt an earthquake?: No
33. Touched a snake?: I own 2, so yes.
34. Ran a red light?: Yes.
35. Been suspended from school?: No
36. Had detention?: No
37. Been in a car accident?: several. None serious
38. Hated the way you look?: Who hasn't?
39. Made yourself throw up?: no
40. Crawled through a window?: Yes
41. Been lost?: Yes
42. Been to the opposite side of the country?: Yes
43. Felt like dying?: Of embarrassment
44. Cried yourself to sleep?: Yes
46. Sang karaoke?: No
47. Done something you told yourself you wouldn't?: Yes
48. Laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? Yes
49. Caught a snowflake on your tongue?: Yes
50. Kissed in the rain?: Probably
51. Sang in the shower?: yes
52. Made love in a car?: No
53. Had a dream that you married someone?: No
54. Glued your hand to something?: No
55. Got your tongue stuck to a flag pole?: No
56. Ever gone to school partially naked?: No
57. Been a cheerleader?: No
59. Didn't take a shower for a week?: No
60. Ever too scared to watch scary movies alone?: Nope.
61. Played chicken?: No
62. Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on?: No. but jumped into a pool
63. Been told you're hot by a complete stranger?: Yes, actually
64. Broken a bone?: fractured one, I think
65. Been easily amused?: Yes
66. Laugh so hard you cry?: Yes
67. Mooned/flashed someone?: Yes
68. Cheated on a test?: Yes. Not proud of it.
69. Forgotten someone's name?: Constantly
70. Done something dumb while drunk?: Who hasn't?
71. Blacked out from drinking?: No
72. Played a prank on someone?: Yes
73. Gone to a late night movie? Yes. Star Wars Episode I midnight showing
74. Made love to anything not human?: Does someone I no longer consider a human being count?
75. Failed a class?: No, came close though
76. Choked on something you're not supposed to eat? No
77. Smoked pot?: The world may never know
78. Cheated on a girl/boyfriend? No
79. Celebrate the 4th of July?: Yes
80. Thrown strange objects?: Define strange.
82. Thought about running away?: No
83. Ran away?: No
84. Been kicked out? Of where?
85. Got a tattoo?: three, with more to come
86. Cut your own hair?: No
87. Made a parent cry?: Yes
88. Cried over someone?: Yes
89. Owned more than 5 sharpies?: Yes
90. Dated someone more than once?: Yes
91. Had/Have a dog?: Yes. Always have, always will
92. Have an iPod?: vicariously
93. Smoked a cigarette?: yes
94. Been in a band?: No
95. Drank 25 sodas in a day?: I doubt I would have any teeth if I did that
96. Broken a CD?: No
97. Shot a gun?: No
98. Wanted someone but could never have them?: Who hasn't
99. What was first and Middle Name?: hahahaha. no
100. Who's Next To Do This survey?: No idea

Another of Addi's avitars

Not sure where he gets them, but they are always good for a laugh. Thanks, General. I salute you.

Scully

Another one of my scaley babies. Female ball python currently loving her new digs.

Will have to take a recent picture of the 3rd scaley and add it later.

Troy

Our new baby. He's (we think it's a he, though it's too little to tell just yet) in the middle of the tank, sitting in his food dish.

And if it turns out he is not a he, then the name will be changed to Helen of Troy.

350

Post 350. Woohoo.

Let's see. What's new:

- Mom came to visit for a good part of the week. Had a great time. Did a lot of the tourist-y things around the city. Going to drive her back to Grandma's in a little bit.

- Felt like crap for the better part of the week as well. Added to that, I may have a heel spur. Doctor appts here I come.

- Only 2 days of vacation left. Then it's back to work :(

Free at last, Free at last

I'm on vacation!!!

They do, Don't They

I totally borrowed Addi's avitar from Generation Terrorists. I don't think he'll mind though, as I am one of his favorite soldiers ;-)