Great, great piece! Blogging behind another name just gives you an unimaginable amount of freedom, doesn't it? You get to be a better version of who you already are, but in your own mind it's safer & more comfortable. - or maybe I'm projecting! Either way, I'm with you!

Trinket:

Precisely! Some bloggers, in fact, reveal the most intimate details of their personal life and the most "forbidden" thoughts and desires--things they might never choose (or dare) to share with even with their own spouses, friends, and colleagues. As you point out, the freedom can be very liberating. Being bipolar, I've also found writing and reading blogs to be the best--and cheapest--therapy I could ever hope to find.

Thanks so much for the comment!

I agree, completely. Although i blog under my real name, I've never met most of the people who visit my blog, and yet am able to 'connect' with them much better than with a lot of the people around the 'real' me. That's another thing about blogging and the internet in general, you get to select the kind of people around you (in terms of interests, mindset etc) to some extent, which is impossible in the 'real' world.

My blogging persona is really who I am, privacy needs and all. I never imagine what other bloggers might look like, but it's interesting to get insights into who they are.

Good piece. And here I was thinking you were the real Elvira I grew up with with her slinky revealing dress and making double entendres.

To me its depressing; that you're "more" everything in psuedo doesn't - as you present it here anyway - say much for your happiness.

I respect anybody's right to blog anonymously. That being said, I could never do it myself. I'm such a loon about the 1st amendment, that I just can't help taking potshots at politicians and such, knowing that at any minute the Department of Homeland Security will read it and show up at my door, and I want to make sure they know who they're looking for. (not as unlikely as you think. A student, in Mass. I believe, got a visit for the DHS because he ordered Mao's Little Red Book through interlibrary loan for a class project.) I relish the thought of standing there screaming "ACLU!" while they take me away to a secret dungeon never to be heard from again. Maybe it's the bipolar lunatic in me, I don't know. I want everyone who reads it to know who I am. Maybe I'm just a megalomaniac.

And to the Department of Homeland Security: Bring it on fellows!

I should've added that it doesn't mean you've nothing to offer. This was written well, it was just very depressing.

Ah now Temple, its not really depressing. There are millions of shy people all over the globe. If blogging lets Miss Black break out of her shell and meet lots of people, and make friends then I say hoorah!

The mystery of who is behind the blog only adds to the fun and the drama of blogging. I am not completely anonymous on my blog, but I don't reveal my whole identity, either.

I agree with you that anonymnity gives us bloggers a new freedom to be ourselves; more of ourselves, occasionally, than in "real life". We sometimes pay the price, though, if we go to far!

Hi Elvira, another great read from Ms Black. Totally know where you're coming from on this. I'm known as Alienboy in my blogging and gaming life and was also for the first few months here. I wish I was only bipolar though!

While I have a specific name on the net, I don't truly blog anonymously. I can understand where you're coming from, though. For one thing, I actually go by my middle name on my blog. This is because it's the name I prefer since my dad and I share the same first name. I go by my middle name with family and friends but at work (and some other dealings), I go by my first name. I don't look at the names as personas...I look at them as stage name (my middle name) versus legal name (my first name).

I also see the appeal of blogging anonymously and creating a persona. Sometimes, I want to say certain things about people I know but I don't because it's quite possible that they will either find my blog or that they read my blog. I've thought about creating an anonymous rant blog. Since I like to sometimes (try to) write fiction, I have also played around with the idea of writing a completely fictional blog as a sort of continuing online "literary" work. I sort of tried this out on April Fool's Day 2005 where I wrote posts as several different fake bloggers.

Despite some of the fascination I have with writing from a different perspective, I ultimately decided not to truly create an online persona separate from myself. Until I was in college, I basically created "personas" to deal with friends and acquaintances. The people I talked hip-hop with in high school would have no idea that I was starting to like Radiohead just as much even if they assumed that just based on the fact I was a little nerdy looking. When I created my blog, it gave me the freedom to be myself. It may be a mishmash of sorts...but I'm kind of a mishmash myself.

Anyway, thanks for such an interesting (and thought-provoking) post Elvira!

well now, i certainly wouldn't know anything about remaining anonymous....nope...not me

but as we have always said...

i'm a schizophrenic

and so am i

nuff said?

Excelsior!

Wow, thanks so much for all the great comments. If this were my own blog, I'd answer each one individually, but somehow I don't think that would be good form on a Blogcritics forum. So since everyone but Temple seemed pretty much in agreement as to where I was going with this, I'll address the rest of my comment to him.

Temple, at first glance I thought your comment was gratuitously negative. But actually, you have quite an excellent point. As I've often pointed out on my blog, I've been struggling for the past 9-odd months with the realization that for me blogging has become an addiction that has made me neglect my "real" life to an unhealthy degree. Yes, I make light of it, but it doesn't make it any less true.

Thing is that some people may think that cultivating fellow bloggers as one's main circle of friends is depressing. I disagree. I think that's old-school, pre-digital thinkspeak. Even living in NYC, I doubt I could ever encounter so many terrific, fascinating people from around the country and the world--people I don't have to engage in boring small talk; people who cut to the chase and say what's on their mind. Folks I can converse with intelligently and in depth. In addition, I'm a member of an ever-growing bipolar blogring, which means I have access to others suffering from the same condition I do, who understand more than I can convey in words what it means to struggle with a major mental illness.

However. There is still something to be said for exercise, fresh air, and sunshine. For engaging in real as well as virtual activities. For breaking out of my comfort zone and perhaps trying to befriend more flesh and blood friends as well as cyberpals.

In any case, although my post may have depressed you, and despite my caveat above, I have to admit that I've never been happier in my life. As a writer, blogging is the best thing that ever happened to me, and joining Blogcritics has only added to my newfound joy.

Aside from that, Temple, I think you may actually have a bit of the psychic in you. It just so happens that early this morning, my boyfriend of seven years threw me out of his Bronx apartment. I'm now hanging at my downtown Manhattan coop, which I still share with my ex-boyfriend (of 20 years). We're in the process of getting the place ready to sell so we can each get a place of our own, so perhaps it's all for the best.

Although I do have a personal blog, and I do share my innermost thoughts there, I don't usually get into the deep dirt of my life. Today will be an exception, as I've just posted there in more excruciating detail about my breakup with BG.

Again, many thanks to you all for your great comments.

HEyy Elvira, all I can say is, based on your writing alone, I love you madly and the BG dood must be a total dimwit! And Temple seemed to be in a bit of a low mood yesterday, I'm sure he would admit.

I hope things get better for you soon. Don't be a stranger...

Elvira, you may be surprised some day to find your 'real' persona and your blogging persona converging. I think anonymity allows us to uncover and develop aspects of our selves that we are perhaps too inhibited to express otherwise - but there's nothing there that ain't already there, if you get my drift. If Elvira is a cool chick, it's because Ms. X is a cool chick underneath it all.

Welcome to Blogcritics!

I was just going by what you wrote here Elvira and comemnted to that; I don't know you from Athena. It's just that I've met and know and read quite a lot aobut people who withdraw into a fake perosna to escape. That seemed, for the most part, what you were describing.

It was a first impression based on that writing. I am, of course, happy that you're happy.

Speaking of, Chris, yesterday was the best day I've had in a little while as far as making time for myself and doing abslutely nothing. So rare. So rare. I played on my new laptop, edited photos, and watched the National Football League games. Seahawks get to play Washington and that's a good thing as well.

I'm finishing up a book review for my newspaper, my site and here, and I'm going to write an op-ed based on, coincidentally, "first impressions" of the new city where I work. It's about hearing so much negative about the city for so long, only to find there is a lot underneath the drug reputation, including a great amount of generosity.

Also, (sorry I was just reminded as I saw the line again) what perhaps got me thinking along the line I first commented was the paragraph about not being photogenic. As a professional news photographer myself I hear that line so many times and it's just so much bullshit. I say, 95 percent of people say they don't look good in photos and 5 percent have a reason. At least you didn't say, "I break cameras." I hear that almost every time I point my camera at someone new. In a way it's the natural modesty of people and I find it charming.

testing- what's up?

hmm, seems to work okay for me

Eric: Thanks for checking. I guess it's working ok now, but I definitely lost a few of my comments that were previously posted here and elsewhere.

To Christopher, Lisa, and Temple: if you have any occasion to wander here again, I'd left a response to your kind comments the other day, but somehow it's been deleted--some technical prob, I guess. I'll go back and see if I can cut and paste it in again. And thanks again for commenting.

I dare to say that Elvira is a liar.
Ms X is Elvira, she just wants to spread the wealth of her personna.
Besides she is just avoiding the Paparazzi so she could go out and get a decent meal without being photographed eating at her favorite greasy spoon.
Whats a handle or alias but a means for privacy.
I can't see you being any different in you name or as Elvira.
We can't hide who we are as I can't.
Walker is exactly who I am in real life even though its not my real name.

I did see your reply Elvira. It was great. You should have got copies of all comments to your threads in your e-mail. Like this one?

Walker:

As always, beautifully put and right on. In some ways, Elvira is more Ms. X than Ms. X. Moreover, when I note that, after reading your excellent blog for so long, I feel like I know you as a friend, I also know that the Walker you present is the genuine article.

Lisa, I believe you brought up a similar point in your comment above, and I thank you.

Temple:

Many thanks. I will go back and dig through those posts when I can and paste the missing stuff back here. But I'm glad you saw the comment, and thus know how much I appreciated yours.

I think that using a blogging doppleganger lets you start with a clean slate in the Blogosphere and leave all of your personal "baggage" behind.

Good post!

Matt:

Gee, sorry I missed your comment somehow. Good point! Kinda reminds me of the old Mary Tyler Moore show--you know, she left her hometown behind, (I think the backstory was that she broke up with her fiance or something, thus the baggage element) and went off to the Twin Cities to make it on her own...

As for me, Elvira is still lugging around a lot of Ms. X's baggage, but in some ways the blog is a clean break for me. It is definitely not as confessional as a lot of personal blogs out there, though I do reveal a lot about myself--but somehow a lot of it is kind of stylized. Hard to explain--but kind of like trying to use humor and other devices to "depersonalize" and universalize it so it doesn't really focus so closely on "me."

And there's some personal details I won't reveal, and I never use names of family and friends. Plus which, hardly anyone I know (outside the blogosphere) has seen my blog. I often marvel at how "perfect strangers" now know more about my inner workings, thoughts, hopes, and dreams than even my boyfriend (who is computer phobic) does!

Thanks for the comment!

I can see the advantages to blogging anonomously. I could say things that are even dumber than the things I say now!

But I agree with some of the other comments...if the govt or the taliban wants to come and get me...they know where to find me. I try to keep family out of it...every once in a while talking about my wife or one of my daughters...

I like the way Elvira writes...does Ms. X write as well??? and I always liked trying to look down that low cut black dress too!

Andy:

LOL--I'm sure I could be tracked down to my lair if anyone really felt it was in the interests of "decency" and "democracy" to do so...hee hee...

Yes, Ms. X has also written for many a year--both for The Man and as a NYC freelancer. But she's retired herself from the fray and has now let Elvira take up where Ms. X left off. Unlike Ms. X, Elvira has no one telling her her posts are too long, too short, not on the proper subject for the pub, and so on. No tight deadline hysteria either! What fun to ride along with Elvira!

I can just hear that NYC accent too! Mom is from the Village...and wife is from East New York!

Andy:

Fugeddaboudit!!!

Actually, I don't have a full fledged, classic New Yawk Fran Dresher accent, though I was born in Queens. I've lived in Manhattan for most of my life, but am now hanging in da Bronx quite a bit.

I am a NY Jewgirl, though, and my aunts have taught me a smidgen of Yiddish. Very funny when my goyishe boyfriend starts using terms like kvetch (complain/complainer), schrekadik (timid and fearful), and oy vey (oy vey!). Maybe I'm more of a Woody Allen type of New Yorker--you can tell he's from here, but he doesn't mangle his Yinglish as much.

When my boyfriend came to NYC many years ago (he'd lived in Wisconsin, Louisiana, Omaha, etc) he really admired that classic New York accent, and even wanted to emulate it. He wanted to be known as a true New Yorker, and thought that regional accent was the epitome of coolness. Now he knows better, and furthermore, many New Yorkers are "expatriates" from around the country and the world, so you hear less and less of that "charming" dialect in all its full fledged glory.

Now, get me pissed off, and that Queens accent can start to emerge a bit. KnowwhadImsayhin?

talking about accents...I was in Germany last year...when I was at the airport to come back home I met an older couple...the wife was a German national that had lived in NC for the last 25 years...she had a german accent with a hint of southern drawl...sounded AWESOME!

My wife is from ENY...around 80th and Jamaica Ave...really nice neighborhood!!!! yeah...right! My grandparents lived in a little italian neighborhood in the Village that I spent alot of time in as a kid.