bog standard

"Hello, my name is Ariel and I have written about toilets for a living". At the beginning of 2007, I was asked to kick off a training event by revealing one little known fact about myself. I opted for a surprising and amusing answer that would help dispel tension in the room. Being the class clown is a role I am comfortable with, it is also my livelihood. For now.

I blog anonymously despite the many challenges it presents -  several years ago, I chose public safety over my own, and my life hasn't been the same since. This has made me fiercely mindful of privacy, that of those I write about and mine. A passion and a vocation, writing is also a visceral need. Often, life doesn't make sense to me until it lands on the page in word format.

Blogging is a discipline that lends itself to presenting information in a comical yet slightly obscure light, for effect. If I write in the same sentence that I had plastic surgery at 16 and have been professionally involved in the porn industry, these facts are likely to be misconstrued. If I add that I have also lived in Amsterdam then the information in this paragraph might get shaped up into a story when there isn't one story but three...