12 posts tagged “blogging”
...but.... I would like to take this opportunity to celebrate my TWO NEW NEIGHBORS! who added ME, making me feel both Important and a little Self-Conscious (sorry about the mess... I've been.. away...)
I think you'll find that since i joined facebook, my blogging quality and quantity has dropped about 7000% from the mediocrity of before.
You need to blog, like NOW. Because i finally got around to RSS-subscribing some blogs from a list you gave me back in june-- written on a teeny tiny notebook paper, in aqua colored pen, and with adorable, long, ladylike tails on your g's, p's, j's and etc.... and i'm immediately reminded of two things:
hi.
a couple things happened today, which have caused me to reflect, rethink, but mostly reflect.
1) one of paul's friends contacted me on facebook, and says he wants to hear 'our story' (as i had referenced it once on Paul's obituary web-page guest book site). OUR story. as in the story of paul and me, the whole heartbreaking, spirit crushing fifteen-year mess of it, in all its excruciating, gory detail....
the truth is, i would love to tell this story. for one, it's a good story. Paul was full of surprises. for another.. gawd. i deeply DEEPLY need to get this out of my system. It's not enough to tell it here, i want to tell it to someone and please please, hear them say, 'i know. i get it. it was like that.' i need someone else out there to have felt as afraid and powerless as i did, to have loved him as cautiously as i did. i want someone to relate. Is that even possible? or did he and i exist in some weird vacuum and i'm forced to forever and ever remember it all alone?
So i emailed the guy and explained that this story could really challenge his memories of Paul. and if he wants to hear it, i'll write it up and send it. but he is forewarned, forearmed.
we will see.
2) i was going thru my old posts.. i've written so many about paul and wanted to see if there was anything there i could simply cut and paste. of course there was nothing appropriate.. there's a level of anguish that just feels so right in one moment, and totally overwraught and exposing in the next. Not suitable for public consumption. barely suitable for my own.
3) my boyfriend is awesome, and it makes him feel bad that i'm still 'hung up' on some 'ex'. but paul wasn't an ex, in the strict sense. and in any case i don't feel hung up because he was the one i couldn't 'get', just because he was the one i couldn't 'save'. I was never meant to save him, i guess. but that's a really tough heartache to carry around. i had so many chances... didn't i? but i have a feeling it always was going to end this way. but really, wasn't there something?
I will never know.
4) totally unrelated to paul-drama.. I used to actually blog. i actually had opinions, once. and an interesting way of phrasing them. moving to tennessee has made everything easy and I've gotten complacent. My job is great, my bf is fantastic, and i can't even complain about traffic or coworkers anymore. it's all very .. NICE.
i need some conflict. just a bit.
This started as a comment on Shush Now's release 41 post, but it got away from me, so I am posting it here.
Re: You'll get used to it
My feeling is that Vox has a reason for the direction they've chosen. It could be that they need to make money via ads, it could be that they want to enrich the experience with content they provide. Maybe they wanted to develop an editor position for their staff and were looking for a way to do it. Not all of their decisions are good ones for me, but I feel like the product is so above-and-beyond wonderful for something free on the internet, that I can get used to the occasional unwieldy change.
My use of vox is pretty basic. I compose, i 'my neighborhood', and when I'm feeling particularly ambitious, i'll 'explore'. I don't care if it's tab or drop down, really. The [this is good] changes are somewhat annoying, but really, i just won't use them as much. and that's it.
Vox has been awesome about communicating with the user base. So overwhelmingly awesome, in fact, that I removed 'Team Vox' from my neighborhood long ago due to the volume of their posts, which generally didn't concern me. Their latest statement indicates that they get it: the users don't like X,Y, and Z, and those will be corrected in the next release, as for their stance on [this is good] and drop-downs.. well...
...Well, i kind of admire the 'you'll get used to it' attitude. It's direct, it's the hard-line. It says: This is our product, and we feel like taking it here and here. You are welcome not to enjoy this. We expect some people will dislike it enough to leave, and we've done all the math, and we are willing to risk it. Have a nice day!
I just love a good stance.
You know, out of everything that's changed, the thing that bothers me most is that the 'compose' button now says 'create'. When I click it, I feel less like I'm blogging and more like I'm failing some sort of artistic prerequisite. But that's just me. :)
Anyway, I'm in with Vox, for the long haul. At this point, I'd probably even pay for service this good.
1) I'm getting a haircut/color tonight! I have the best stylist ever, and she's going to make me gorgeous, she always does. she's a magician.. no.. a good witch. I think we may talk about 2008's roadmap for my hair. Grow/bleach/reddish/chunks?/panels?. I'm thinking of getting a little black in the mix. I want my hair to be like a box of godiva chocolates; rich, creamy, and all different colors. Luxurious, uncommon, and very, very expensive. Yay. so there's that. 2) I'm not sure b/c it was darkish and there was no coffee (!!) but I think my boyfriend is even cuter than he was yesterday. I will let you know 3) Tonight at 6pm and 1 second, my vacation begins. and 24 hours later, my parents and grandma arrive. Seriously? I could pee that's how excited I am. Forget that it's Christmas and there will be opening of presents and general togetherness and joy and FOOD.. i miss my folks. They're the best. *pees* 4) I've got like ten books to finish this coming vacation week. I should probably get rolling on 'I am legend' since I wanto to see the movie and sound like I know what I'm talking about at book club 5) I have the most awesome magical Vox 'explore' button ever. Everytime I click 'explore', somewhere in the top-five most-recent posts there is some awesome, hip woman posting about truly interesting things. How lucky am I? (collect the whole set). For now, focusing on the next um.. 7 hours. which should feel like 15, courtesy of the 'vacation dialation' affect on spacetime. (it's a theory i have)
So this morning I was reminded what it is about blogging, and in particular, my neighborhood that i love so much. You guys are so normal and lovely. There are a lot of blogs out there that are just so damned.. sculpted all the time, you know? Every post involves some life-changing, mind-expanding drama, and the comments resound with affirmations and sympathy. You know those posts where, the comments all start to sound the same after a while?? Those are the ones I'm talking about. and I find these boring. (not to mention I seriously wonder about people who live life on those kinds of rollercoasters) But you guys! you are stunning in your normality. You're real, and you have real lives. For some reason, I'm incredibly interested in what goes on in your day-to-day. I feel like your comments have depth and warmth, and real thought; and I feel like I can relate to you. We have conversations, and we learn things about each other the long way. Almost like real neighbors. right? In the last couple of days, I read a great post about, among other things, how Miss A didn't like her pants. Today I shared a giggle with Shush Now because we got caught dissing bodhibound's QOTD.. oops! And Kitty posted a year in review which, by the time I got to November I wondered what about it compelled me to read every last word.. The answer? nothing and everything -- She's just a woman having a year of mixed blessings. It's the same year any one of us could have had, and it was a joy to read it from her perspective. Sure, it's interesting to read the occasional uber-entry, but my daily bread is hearing about WR's incompetent colleagues, Kelly's movies, Gunderson Bee's and Melissa's kids, and JennyE's dating stories. Crashley doesn't post much public, but her photos are adorable. I'm learning about Finland. I could go on and on and on. some day I will. For now, I want to say thank you and happy holidays to the most neighborly neighbors ever. Thank you all for being a (very real) part of my everyday.
I forget sometimes how many actual people are reading this blog; people who aren't vox neighbors or friends, but genuine in-the-flesh people I know from IRL and my dealings there. I vaguely recall that I've mentioned it, but it always surprises me when someone brings it up-- especially in the context of 'why haven't you posted lately?!?'. I can't believe I'm so interesting that anyone would want to keep up long after I've initially invited them here.
I suppose in the back of my head, I know they're out there-- The really really real folks, who know me in really real life. And to some extent that keeps me both honest and civil. For instance, both my dad and my boyfriend read this blog. So, my naughty bits will never appear on it. Assorted coworkers read this blog, and so I don't get overly descriptive about work or coworker troubles. I don't shittalk my friends on my blog. Nor, really, my enemies (anymore). I barely even mention anyone by their real names. I can't lie about who I am or what I do.. because there's a dozen or more people who know me well enough to call me out on it. Most importantly.. I would stand up for what I have written here. I would stand in front of the person or people or face up to the situation and say this is what i think about it, and i'm not sorry.
I guess this means that this is the real deal. I'm not often dramatic or fascinating, and a lot of times (the last few days for instance) I haven't had anything interesting to share. Or time or energy to sit down and hammer out a bunch of nonsense, hoping for something useful to emerge. Nuh uh. But that's me. all this here, it's been me the whole time.
thanks for checking up on me, anonymous non-voxxer (you know who you are)
k..
well, i wrote like a seven page master's thesis quality blog, and it disappeared when my browser went wonky. that will teach me not to save or draft or something. Fuck.
anyway, it was all happy and hopeful and full of humanity, seriously, it was a sight to behold. a site to behold. haa a pun!
the upshot: i rent a lot of movies, scifi is dying a slow, tragic death, massages are neat, pills are important, i'm not addicted to them, dad you will not find pictures of my boobs on the internet, pretty girls who write witty blogs are great, but i'm not one of them.
um and i posted a song.. THE song, really, by K's choice (hey! i'm a K! and i choose...) coming full circle to the pill thing (seriously, this makes it out to be a big deal about the pills but really there was nothing there, i'm just too lazy to recap.)
oh and i posted a pic of boobs:
(. )(. )
and then laughed about it.
hahah
Oookay... night night folks.
i'm too lazy to go back and edit all my old posts, but don't expect to see anything new if you're not a neighborhoodie.
i don't expect anyone will care, but if this tears you up inside feel free to PM me.
