The Address of My Secret Blog
Received the following email from a reader today:
I don't want to seem too forward, but I was wondering what the address of your secret blog is.
I responded:
You mean my other blog? That'd be The Valve.
Reader replied:
I know about that one. I mean the secret one where you talk shit about your department and the profession. (A friend told me about it.) I'm adjuncting right now and could use some comical venting.
I responded:
Are you sure your friend was talking about me? Because to the best of my knowledge—and I'd be the one to know—I don't write a secret blog.
Reader replied:
Understand if you don't want to share. That kind of complaining can be political dynamite. Don't worry, though, I won't tell anyone about it.
I'm not sure how to respond. I'm almost certain I don't have a secret blog. I mean, is this my secret blog? Maybe this is my secret blog? Because I'm pretty sure I don't have a secret blog. Unless I write one I don't know about, like in that book by Philip K. Dick.
I wonder, though, is there a secret blog out there in which people slag UCI faculty and whinge about the profession? That might make for some interesting reading. Who do I contact to get its address?
You actually went out and created those blogs. Can I have one of them?
Posted by: jake | Wednesday, 27 February 2008 at 07:06 PM
My secret blog is in my head: It's not funny, particularly, and the URL isn't, to my knowledge, accessible to any known technology. All the rants I never write; all the dirt I never dish; all the dirty laundry I never air; all the skeletons I leave in the closet.... yeah, I have that blog. We all have that blog. We are the blog....
Posted by: Ahistoricality | Wednesday, 27 February 2008 at 07:09 PM
you are actually psychotic, hilarious, but insane. you created secret blogs for this....bahhhh! you should start writing in them now as the person you thought you were, or wish you were, or might yet become.
Posted by: adjunct whore | Wednesday, 27 February 2008 at 07:29 PM
Hilarious! And creepy --- I think I need to break out my PKD in celebration.
you should start writing in them now as the person you thought you were, or wish you were, or might yet become.
This phrasing sounds so cool you may as well go ahead and do it. It would be very Borgesian.
Posted by: Sisyphus | Wednesday, 27 February 2008 at 09:26 PM
Stay away from Robert Downey Jr. He's trouble and he'll rat you out for drugs or just attention. Woody Harrelson's probably fine though.
Posted by: JPool | Wednesday, 27 February 2008 at 10:32 PM
You seem to be a wacko-magnet. Or else you just make everything up.... or perhaps don't even exist at all.
I believe, however, that via Unfogged I have met, in the flesh, people who claimed to have met you in the flesh. I think....
Further research is required, but I've tentatively granted your existence.
Posted by: John Emerson | Thursday, 28 February 2008 at 07:40 AM
I think the lot of you are ignoring how easy it is to create blogs in Blogger. Took me all of two minutes to set them up.
you should start writing in them now as the person you thought you were, or wish you were, or might yet become.
I like the "might yet become" option, esp. if it includes a TT job.
And creepy
It wasn't creepy at all. This person genuinely believed what s/he'd been told: that I have another, more personal blog that 1) no one knows about and 2) requires a password to view. Thing is, I know a few people who have them, just not why this reader thought I was one of them. (I think I know who they were confusing me with, actually, it just wouldn't have been funny to write that.)
You seem to be a wacko-magnet.
Not a wacko, this person. Just some genuine confusion.
I believe, however, that via Unfogged I have met, in the flesh, people who claimed to have met you in the flesh.
They have! Of course, I've met neither Unf nor ogged, and remain convinced that ogged is actually an advanced self-trolling bot.
Posted by: SEK | Thursday, 28 February 2008 at 08:16 AM
Brilliant! Maybe I'll link to your post the next time someone asks ~me~ if I have a secret blog. May Acephalous is my secret blog?! - TL
Posted by: Tim Lacy | Thursday, 28 February 2008 at 10:35 AM
What's the password he should have used if he had wanted to get access to your secret blog? If he hadn't misspelled seekrit, would have you let him in?
Posted by: John Emerson | Thursday, 28 February 2008 at 11:25 AM
Maybe they think you're one of the Compound Cronies at RateYourStudents.com.
Do you enjoy margaritas and laughing at student mayhem?
Posted by: The_Myth | Thursday, 28 February 2008 at 12:56 PM
This is all just an elaborate cover-up for your real secret blog, right? Don't worry, mum's the word. The password, that is. Mum's the password to the secret blog, isn't it? What's your mum's name again?
Posted by: Uri | Thursday, 28 February 2008 at 01:40 PM
c'mmon, Scott, just give it up already, stop playing hard to get - what is the secret blog's url?
Posted by: Mikhail Emelianov | Thursday, 28 February 2008 at 03:56 PM
Meanwhile, in a parallel/hallucinated/more-real-than-this universe, Acephalous exists only as a thought experiment played out in a comment thread on the Secret SEK Blog.
Posted by: September Blue | Thursday, 28 February 2008 at 04:41 PM
I've been telling everyone that my blog is your secret blog. It helps me get readers.
Posted by: Nate | Friday, 29 February 2008 at 06:32 PM
Ha!!! I wasn't saying the person who emailed you was the one being creepy. Look, my point will be proven when all those alternate SEKs start emailing each other and posting snide comments on each others' blogs.
Ok, either that moment, or the moment they start a blogwar amongst themselves.
Posted by: Sisyphus | Friday, 29 February 2008 at 07:28 PM