The fundamental difference between a blog and a journal finally presented itself to me this morning. I knew they were different; I have never, ever been able to keep up with a journal with any regularity, and you can't shut me up here. But I'd never bothered thinking about the stylistic and purposive differences of the two; I'm pretty much open-book, I don't have the energy to tell lies or keep secrets about myself because it's too hard to remember to whom I've told what, and I type fast enough that my blog-voice is pretty similar to my actual one. Though I stutter more in real life.

But this morning, I was perturbed. Angry. Mad. Irritated. Frustrated. Piqued. Agitated. Rageful. Hostile. Unreasonable. Inarticulate. Pissed.

It was for a series of stupid reasons that piled up, one after another from the moment I woke up until they dislodged an avalanche of longer-standing gripes and hurts and wellsprings of angst, and I was on a roll. I had lots of negative things to say, and I even said some of them. Loudly. And then I cried.

But I did not blog. I didn't even consider doing so. I let it burn off, which my anger typically does in a matter of minutes if I'm given a little solitude and maybe some chocolate. Then I sulked and brooded for a while longer, which is not as quick to pass but, as long as not prodded into rediscussing the wrath-inducing topics too soon, I can be polite and even child-friendly. Then we all picked up our egos, brushed them off, and moved on with the day.

Venturing forth into the blogosphere at any point in that process before the end would have been wrong and inappropriate and stupid, not only because I have been known to come up with some nasty and cutting phrases when angry but because once it's there, in brutal pixels, it never really goes away. No amount of backspacing and editing fully exorcises those words, even if they go unread by anyone but myself. I firmly believe that the written word takes on its own substance, creates its own imprint upon the world, and yes, if the word falls onto a screen and no one is around to read it, it does still have an effect.

So I didn't blog. And won't the next time, either.

Unless I'm mad at, say, a coworker or the operator of a vehicle or the mother of a perfectly normal teenager. Then I'll write about it to my heart's content.