Last night during derby practice, I fell – a lot. At one point, I was hip checked so hard I went airborne. While I was in the air, someone canopenered me. Next thing I know, I’m flat on my back on the track, my skates under me. I’d like to show you my butt because there’s a fairly nice shiner on it.

Before I could really register what happened, though, I had gotten up and started skating again. I was halfway around the track before I realized that holy crap, I was in a world of hurt.

A few months ago, I spoke on a panel at a social media breakfast here in Memphis. Things were going pretty well – I was chatting about what I do at the day job and how I try to inject some personality and humanity into news updates.

At one point, one of the other pannelists said “I’m not going to go around advertising the fact that I’m in roller derby.” That’s totally how she said it. The “roller derby” was very much in vocal italics, and she was looking right at me.

It was a little weird. Yes, several times a week, I dress up like a super hero, lace my skates up and play a full-contact sport. Most of the time, I’m just your average social networking Girl Friday with a record and books addiction.

I don’t separate myself in my head, so why should I when I meet people? More and more frequently, work lives and personal lives are blending together. It’s not a bad thing – instead of fragmented people, we’ll have more whole ones.

What do you think? Should people keep their work lives and their personal lives separate? Do you? Would you rather do business with someone you knew on a personal level, or not?