A few weeks ago, Justin and Shelrie spent the day with us.
Between the company and the weather, it was a really pleasant day.
07 September 2008

I have often questioned my choice of being so open with my personal information on my blog. Two of my friends, who I shall use by their online aliases as they both tend to protect their online privacy, grieve and eds3, never use their real names nor do they use the real names of their family and friends. Grieve also does not post any personal photos.

Of course, I have considered the question of privacy and open online communication many times, and I have never come up with a satisfactory answer. I have chosen to not let fear make my choices, as I truly enjoy this digital age of mass and personal communication. I’ve never met Andrea Scher or Surburban Kamikaze, but I find their blogs both inspirational and entertaining. I use my blog to communicate with my family and friends, to play with the art of writing, and, perhaps, there is a stranger or two out there who carries something positive away from my blog. So I have continued to be open online.

Now, let’s get to The Incident. Recently, a fellow has been calling my cell phone. He left several messages asking for Amanda, and I finally answered and said there was no Amanda here. He then made an offer of sex.  I said, no, good luck finding your friend, and hung up. I thought that was the end of it. Then, yesterday, he called again, this time for me, not Amanda, and left a very crude message with a disturbing and aggressive offer of sex. I forwarded the message to Matt, and, after listening to it, he said, “I’m calling the police.” Since I leave my entire name on my voicemail, he had my name and my cell phone number. That’s what was most upsetting to me.  With a person’s name and their city, you can look up a ton of information about them. Don’t believe me? If you live in the Austin area, go look up your house information online using only your name.

When I called T-Mobile to have my cell phone number changed, I told the T-Mobile lady, “I just want to get off this guy’s radar.”  The whole experience was scary, and it still is scary because it only happened yesterday.  I don’t know if I’m off this guy’s radar yet.

I already have a problem with fear. I’m so afraid of violent crimes in our modern society. But I don’t want to live a life in fear. But how do you do that? Not only does the media thrive on fear, but most of the people around us — our family and friends — also live in fear, and we all help perpetuate and feed our society’s communal fear.

Currently, I still stand by my decision to live and express myself openly online. I still stand by my decision to not let fear destroy something that I enjoy so much.