Sometimes I think about what it would be like to have a secret alter ego. Especially musically. When I’m home alone and cooking (and by cooking I mean heating up chicken nuggets in the toaster oven), I tend to make up bizarre songs, using different voices and styles. At times I’m silly about it, and try singing random songs in the style of Bjork, because that’s just plain hilarious. But frequently I’ve been coming up with these strange, Peaches-like techno songs. And it’s fun. A lot of fun, actually. And if I wanted to record them, I have all sorts of kick-ass effects that my traditionally singer-songwriter style songs have never merited using. But that urge to compartmentalize creeps back in, and I feel like I would have to set-up an entirely different space to experiment with those sounds, instead of allowing them to simply be a continuation of my thoughts and creative inclinations.

I’m puzzled by this tendency of mine; why don’t I ever feel like I can present myself as a whole? When I am involved in activities or interests that have specific, receptive communities–like, say, knitting, or fandom–and I write about those interests outside of those communities–like, say, here–I feel like I’m infringing them upon everyone else who might not give two craps about them. Ideally, I’d like to be able to confidently say, “Hey, that’s cool if you’re not interested, but it’s part of my life, it’s what I’m interested in, and it’s my blog, so suck it up.”

And what makes these feelings particularly ridiculous is that I don’t exactly have a huge following of readers (if any), let alone readers that are complaining. Yet the feeling lingers. Sigh.