I have, from time to time, stumbled onto a blog in which someone is being very forthright and full of details about some event in their lives. What is prompting this remark is a blog that a few years ago talked about a middle-aged man suddenly finding out he had asymptomatic heart failure, a condition his father had died of at 35. His wife, an author, chronicled the daily progress of his condition; he eventually stabilized.

I suppose my point is that I did not know these people and it was hard to keep in mind that they were real and not characters in a novel or soap opera. Time went on and then he had a major event and she began reporting on what was happening; then she stopped, and not because he died. I find myself thinking, “Well, what happened, what is going on?” It is like falling asleep at the end of a movie and not knowing how things turned out. Of course, I have to keep reminding myself it is not fiction at all, but part of me is wondering about the continuation of the plot, although, as I said, it is not a plot, but real.

It all makes me feel like a voyeur jerk.