On self-censorship

Anyone who happened to stop by a few minutes ago will have seen a different post in this position, which I've taken down for the time being.

Although I post here pseudonymously, my identity is known to several friends—and to my sister and niece. As I re-read the now missing post, it occurred to me that what I wrote about was not my business alone but the story of our family, and that I might be spilling beans that were not mine to be spilled.

My mother (who happens to be my sister's mother, too, to avoid confusing anybody) has the habit of keeping things to herself, of suppressing news that she thinks might disturb us, e.g. the three-week delay between my father's stroke and her informing us that it had happened. My sister jokes that she always insists on speaking to him when she phones home, in case he'd died and Mom was keeping it quiet.

Moving rapidly along as I think we should, I've been in Second Life with M2 a few times now, and am beginning to see the point of it: it's like online chat with pictures. We tend to meet up in favourite places, and just stand around and "talk" for an hour or two. As we were discussing architecture last time, she took me to one of her favourites: a tree-house on the scale of a baobab, with hot tub and balconies and a dance floor. The latter are fairly common in 2L: you both click on the "let's dance" buttons, and the sim takes over your avatars to make them dance together. I found it quite amusing to watch us (note the pronoun).

And finally: L'shanah tovah tikateivu to my Jewish readers. Bless you, and the rest of us too.