What Are You Reading?

OK, I don't pretend to understand the whole diary concept. I'm not knocking it -- goodness knows that the practice has had a long and storied history. After all, without diaries, what would the market be for all those very tiny keys heretofore used to secure them? Think of how bereft would be our understanding of the holocaust without the diary of Anne Frank.

But then we aren't talking these days about the diary of Anne Frank. The diary currently on everyone's mind is the one detailing her romantic escapades with David Letterman by a former Late Show staffer. Apparently, she accidentally left it behind when she moved out on her now-ex-boyfriend who no doubt enjoyed the intimate read until coming across the section on Letterman.

So, here's the thing: for whom, exactly, was this woman writing all these things down? Maybe the volume has been misconstrued. Maybe the book was more "journal" than "diary". "Journal," after all, connotes a kind of reflective process -- writing as a discipline of the soul intended to help one sift through the clods of general experience for the gems of meaning buried within. Maybe, then, the former staffer was simply writing as a way of making sense out of what was happening -- kinesthetic therapy or prayer, as it were.

But "diary" -- the simple chronicling of daily activity -- I suppose I just don't get.

"Dear Diary: today I got up, had breakfast, went to work, slipped off during the break and had a romantic liaison with a famous TV star, made another pot of coffee in the staff lounge, took care of a few more odds and ends at the office, picked up take-out Chinese and headed home to spend the evening with my boyfriend..."

For whom is such a narrative intended -- except an ex-boyfriend you might enjoy making mad by "forgetting" the notes in a conveniently discoverable location? I can't seem to push away the suspicion that diaries are generally kept in the secret hope that, despite the writer's best efforts, they fall into public hands and make the author a household name...at least for that enviable 15 minutes of fame.

I know, that's cynical. Lovers never really do that sort of thing to each other. It was all an unfortunate, albeit titillating accident. That sort of deviousness only happens on TV, in twisted episodes involving famous people.

On late night talk shows.

I have decided to start taking better notes on the interesting and more salacious details of my daily life on the off-chance that nobody will accidentally find and read them. The project will have to wait, however, until I am able to locate a notebook small enough to match the key.