A POEM GOES TO IRELAND and THE PERILS OF CYBERSPACE

Truly, good things happen through blogging. One example? Since I have tons of poetry floating around my house in various forms--some in loose sheaths, some in various computer files, others stored precarously in my head where it occasionally tumbles loose at odd moments, I decided I would organize it on a blog. Thus, Waitress Poems was born--the name chosen largely because it was the first phrase I typed in that wasn't already taken. For the most part, I was doing it as a way of organizing the poems, grouping them together and seeing how they looked on the screen. I never particularly expected anyone to take notice. But take notice someone did--specifically Sinead Gleeson, the editor of one of my favorite on-line journals. Thus, my poem, Smokers, snaked its way from the bottom of my drawer to the virtual pages of this month's edition of Sigla. Ah, life is good, and blogging makes it even more exhilarating.

Except when it doesn't...In a lot of ways, creating a weblog is a lot like going out on the playground in your new pair of red Keds and your flashiest smile on the first day of school. The more you reveal about yourself, the more likely you are to find kindred spirits. And also the more likely you are to attract a recruit from the burgeoning army of lonely misfits who mistake virtual intimacy for the real thing. In a cautionary tale, also from this month's, Sigla, Karina Westermann relates a particularly harrowing account of Cyberstalking.