7 posts tagged “blogging”

Apparently, also insomniac's relief! :-) This just in from my friend, m ...

Hi Venus,

I’m having a night of insomnia.  Not that unusual.  But guess how I spent the last half hour?  Catching up on Venus' Blog!  Enjoyed it enormously.  Love the new bike, by the way.  Have you and T thought about venturing down here for our wonderful bike path?  Great shot of you in your kitchen and very impressed that you could have a sit down dinner for that many!  Loved the video of the hamster and watched it twice.  How can I email it to a friend?  There’s more I wanted to comment on but I’m feeling sleepy now, so I will give sleep a chance.

BTW, I realized as soon as I saw the opera singing winner of the Brit show, that I have seen him perform.  WONDERFUL!

Thanks for everything.

m

See? Blogging ... not just for breakfast anymore!

A cynical person might interpret this to mean that my blog is so boring that it makes insomniacs too sleepy to comment ... but, of course, I am not a cynical person.

Since switching from LiveJournal to Vox, I've had a relatively blissful blogging life. By which I mean that no one has spammed, harassed or taunted me. Having had this happen at LiveJournal, I must say that I am very happy with the privacy and commenting controls that allow me to discourage such interaction here. Comments from anyone other than a "friend" must be "approved" by me before being published on my blog. No anonymous commenting is allowed here.

I read Deborah's post this morning over coffee and followed a few of her links. It seems that all is not well in the blogging world ... people are being mean to each other out there.  There is a movement afoot for more accountability in the blogging world - here are a few posts and articles to consider:

CupCate's post: Take Back The Blog! & Stop Wrestling With the pigs. Please note that this post includes Take Back The Blog! Day - April 28, 2007. Hm - perhaps I should post-date this entry!

The Blog Herald: Is Your Self-Worth Wrapped Up in Your Blog?

Tim O'Reilly's First Draft: Blogging Code of Conduct. I read with interest the importance of "no anonymous commenting" and "don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person".

My own reflections on blogging (Bloggin' 2.0) when I moved from LJ to Vox last year.

The line between my online life and my concrete reality gets a bit blurry. I have off-line, "in-person" friends who read my blog but do not comment. I have off-line "in-person" friends who read and DO comment and interact with me here as well as in person. (I really love that part - mwah!)  I have on-line "friends" whom I've never met but who do drop by read, and occasionally comment. (New Love finds it weird that there are people out there in the world whom I've never met in person yet refer to as "friends". :-) )  There are, apparently, on-line readers who lurk here.

The standards of behaviour remain the same for all of you, regardless of where we intersect. Treat yourself, and me by extension, with respect, decency, generosity and courtesy and you will get the same back from me. You may even find loyalty and affection over time.  The moment I feel trashed, discarded or somehow reduced in worth, I get red flags. We will have a conversation, you and I, in private - either on-line or somewhere in the real world. At least, I'm going to try to. I have found that some people get very squirmy when they see me coming to call them on their shit. If I collect enough red flags from your less-than-respectful behaviour, I will simply back away from you. I'm too old for that shit, either on-line or in person. I just won't allow it in my life anymore. It drains me and I don't need it.

I want to underline something here. I've learned that when someone treats me badly, it is about THEM, not me. This has been a monstrously difficult lesson to learn and I do admit to having forgotten it a few times, very recently. A person being underhanded or vengeful is is acting out THEIR inability to be adult and direct - it isn't about me. It is about their own self-respect, or lack thereof.

Because I'm too old for sandbox behaviour, I have learned that it is quite okay to restrict the conditions under which crappy behaviours flourish, hence the commenting restrictions. I don't mind being called names like "control freak" for this. The label "control freak" has served me quite well over the years, actually. Don't knock it! In any case, I wouldn't invite the mudslingers to my house ... therefore, I am not going to create a welcome environment for them to my blog space. I will not choose to be where they are.

I need people around me who enrich and nurture themselves and others. People who are fundamentally kind and decent, loyal and direct. People who know about personal boundaries, privacy and basic ethics. I think such people are rare. From time to time, I hope I fulfill this personal mandate myself. I strive to - I like to surround myself with others who also set these elements as a personal standard. People who, like me, may slip occasionally but who "get" that their treatment of others mirrors their own feelings of self-worth.

Am I attempting to create a cosy, frictionless little fantasy world where no one disagrees? That just hasn't been my experience. There is a world of difference between disagreement and disrespect. However, when you get down to it, shouldn't we all be building lives with people around us who will support us, rather than tear us down? Isn't this the healthier choice?

So, I wonder about blogging sometimes. Meaning that I wonder about the activity itself. Sure, I often ponder specific posts and topics, usually when I'm hurtling down a highway or waiting for some students to finish some in-class group work. Neither of these times are conducive to the activity of writing, thinking, processing, creating.

But I also wonder about blogging itself. I love to write, but lately I don't have much to say, which makes the act seem indulgent somehow. I like to talk about my life, but then wonder about that value to others. Then I look at my own blogging pattern and I notice a profound upswing in my own interest/energy re.: blogging in the fall/winter, with a falling off as the New Year begins and my life gets more active.

I've started a new relationship, and I wonder if the energy that used to be spent writing is now being spent in conversation with her ...? When in doubt, I think it is probably a good thing for real life to trump on-line life.

My New Love wonders if blogging / writing is my way of working things out and I think there is some truth to that. Maybe the energy of a new relationship reduces the angst (or sets it aside for a while) so that there is less to work out?

Maybe I'm still in vacation mode ...? Reverse hibernating?

In any case, I just wanted to say that I really am still around, as evidenced by my willingness to destroy my professional reputation by sending out jokes that make no mathematical sense whatsoever but are good for a chuckle. (See below.) I'm reading other people's stuff. I'm enjoying Jennifer's new blog immensely and highly recommend it to

others. Her talent scares me. I can't imagine how she has been so kind to praise my blog when she writes as blazingly well as she does.

I miss wizzy and wish she would surface. Confession: I ate sushi pizza this week with Lex and margotinto in "our" place. Can you forgive me?

Bad E-Mail Joke that EVERYONE has called me on for the math. I don't write 'em, I just send 'em and yes my MBA filter was off  or broken or still in Hawaii. I don't know ... but here it is ...

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock three years ago, it would now be worth $49.00.

With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1000.00.
WorldCom, you would have less than $5.00 left.

But if over the last three years you had purchased $1000.00 worth of beer, drank all the beer, then returned the cans or bottles for your refund you would
have $614.00.

So based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. 

My friend Jennifer has just started her first blog here. She is a smart, witty, philosophical sort, in that down-east sort of way, and a fine writer to boot. Please drop by to welcome her to the blogosphere.

I say this is her "first" blog because I know she is going to get hooked and will soon be managing several.

Yay, Jennifer!

I'm due at my friends' in a couple of hours where more Christmas festivities will begin. In preparation, I'm putting the final touches in a few appetizers ... curry chicken roll-ups (always a hit - I leave out the butter and use 10" tortillas instead), devilled eggs, and brie/mango quesadillas.

I like to have the TV on while I'm cooking but it needs to be on something I don't have to stare at continually, obviously. Something like a movie I've seen before. I thought the documentary on John Lennon, Imagine, would be appropriate on Christmas morning, while I cook.

Lennon is one of those touchstones in my life, an iconic figure, giant yet so very human and fragile. Fascinating. Anyway, one of the first questions asked by an interviewer in this fabulous film is "Why are you doing this? Why are you filming, documenting your life like a diary?"

Which made me wonder ... wouldn't John have LOVED blogging? In fact, he would have LOVED the Internet - a way for ordinary people to get their own message out. To reach out to other ordinary people to find their own extraordinary-ness.

A John Lennon blog ... Imagine that ... !

I'm posting about my post, so I guess that makes this a meta-post. :-)

The warm reception that my Bloggin' v 2.0 post received was a bit overwhelming. I realize that I am now experiencing a bit of performance anxiety.

That post actually started out as the body of the e-mail that I intended to send to friends and readers about the change in my blog address. It was Sunday morning, the coffee rocked, and I was riffing about blogging. I get a lot of feedback that my e-mails are "too long" and "too detailed". These days, I think anything written in paragraphs with proper punctuation is deemed "too long". One of my pet peeves is the deterioration of English as both a spoken and written language - but I also think there must have been a tutor in Shakespeare's time who was worried about the same thing. The language has changed and also survived in a continually mutating form.

Nonetheless, as I reviewed the length of this announcement to friends/readers, I realized that no one in their right mind would read the entire thing and that I'd better give them a choice about doing that. So the announcement got shortened to a few lines, the e-mail became that post, and the post wound up on the front page at Vox for 24 hours.

Wow. More than seven people are actually reading this. And thinking about it. And writing back to me. Enter performance anxiety.

My best thoughts about blog posts come to me when I am nowhere near a computer. Usually they arrive when I am driving up or down the Don Valley Parking Lot, wishing I could get out of second gear, and muttering under my breath about global warming.  I'll have an "A-HA!" moment as my engine idles and spews god-know-what into the atmosphere - a confluence of connecting ideas so powerful, moving and obvious that I simply MUST record it in my blog for posterity. Time will pass, classes will get taught, activities will be executed ... and I will get home and remember the "a-ha!" but have no freaking clue what it was about. Yes, I should have a notepad handy, or I could remember that my cell phone has an audio memo feature specficially for this kind of thing.

I guess a "note to self" about taking notes would be a "meta-note"? :-)

About Blogging: For the past year, I've been experimenting with "blogging" as a journaling activity and I have, for the most part, really enjoyed it. I have learned a few things along the way ...

a) Not everyone understands, or gives a rat's a$$ about, blogging.

b) Balancing "honest reflection" with "prudence and judiciousness" is a tough call.

c) Lurkers far outnumber participants.

d) I want more.

Please indulge me a few minutes to look at these a bit more closely.

a) Not everyone understands, or gives a rat's a$$ about, blogging.  Or, as phrased as the title of a recent book on the topic, No One Cares What You Had For Lunch. Lex is doing a great job of exploring this theme. The thing is, though, that people really DO care what Lex has for lunch!

Is the role of the blog to "entertain an audience", or to record a snapshot, a mental/emotional/physical moment in time, within the life of one individual? I'm a Libra, so I'm a bit torn on this, but I do lean towards the latter.

I'm not really sure what my deep-seated psychologial motivation for blogging is - happily, such self-knowledge is not a prerequisite for the activity. It simply appeals to me to have a virtual record of what is going on with me - of who I am - at particular points in time. It appeals to me to think that a handful of people from my "real" world might take a moment to check in with me via the blog from time to time. It appeals to me that complete strangers will stop by and that they might find what they see interesting.

However, I take issue with the author of the aforementioned book. I have discovered that people *do* care what I have for lunch, or as is the case with me more often, for breakfast. I have lost count of the number of times I've run into people in the "real" world who chide me for not updating my blog quickly enough for their tastes. On a number of occasions, the gentle chiding has come from people whom I hadn't seen for months and whose interest in my blog comes as a complete shock to me. More on this under "Lurkers/Participants" ...

b) Balancing "honest reflection" with "prudence and judiciousness" is a tough call.  A blog is not to be confused with a diary. A diary is meant to be read only by the author or, in some rare cases, to be read by the general public after the author's demise.

A blog is a semi-public set of reflections that can be read by lots of people, friends/family/strangers, as soon as the author hits "save".  It is an odd combination of power, vulnerability, and responsibility.

As I see it, a writer has three choices ... write about oneself, write about others, write about actions witnessed or shared. To write too clearly and closely about one's perception of others in one's life could quickly alienate those individuals. I have heard of fiction writers losing close friends for fear that those friends find themselves as characters in the next published novel. I think something similar goes on with regard to blogging.  Writing about actions witnessed or shared loses steam without the author taking a clear perspective, an interpretation, on what one saw or did. Once you head into interpretive territory, you are really writing about yourself - which is why bloggers are accused so often of being self-indulgent.

Writing about oneself is at once the safest and also most dangerous of pursuits. How much is too much information? Those of us with any kind of artistic bent know that clear access to our emotional life is key to any sense of creativity.  Years ago, someone asked a theatre prof of mine why theatre people were so emotional, so "flighty", so intense. He replied that our emotions are our raw material, creatively speaking. We need them - need to pursue them, to follow the trail, see where it leads - to explore, to take risks.  We need to have not only experienced the entire spectrum, the good and the bad, but also to have examined and processed it. I think this is true across the board for creative expression, not just for theatre peeps. Musicians, writers, painters, sculpters ... passion underlies all these pursuits.

It has come to my attention in the intervening years since my theatre training that not all people in my life have this same risk-taking, exploratory perspective. :-)  I trip over the TMI line all the time, both in person and in my blog. To do less feels dishonest to me ... to do this too often feel terribly uncomfortable for others. I shall continue to feel around in the dark for this fine line.

c) Lurkers far outnumber participants.  For the most part, this is ok with me. My fondest wish would be to have more commentary, more interaction. But perhaps, like Chance the Gardener in Being There, some people just "like to watch".

The most negative experience associated with my old blog address has to do with individuals using the anonymous commenting feature to leave purposefully hurtful remarks. At my old blog address, I enabled the "anonymous" commenting feature to make it easy for anyone to participate without having to sign in, or create an account, or to identify themselves in any way. What was not well known amongst the "anonymous" posters is that I also enabled a feature to track IP addresses. I was able to determine, conclusively, the identity of the computers from which the comments were sent in all but one of these "anonymous" cases. (If you want to know more about how I did this, please e-mail me and I'll explain it. :-) )

Years ago, the Internet was envisioned as a sort of freewheeling, boundary-free, open society - a very '60's concept. I'm a 60's kinda gal, so this appeals to me. My flower-power perspective has changed radically in the past year. One of my key learnings from my first year of blogging is that, given a chance to be anonymous, some surprising people in my life will actually use the cloak of anonymity to be cruel.  I now believe that people need to have the guts to take responsibility and ownership for what they say to me. For walking into my virtual house and speaking with me.

I need to leave that negativity behind now, hence the new blog address. Unfortunately, I also need to exercise more control over how comments are made within my blog. So here is my double-edged message to you all:

1. I'd love it if you were to find something interesting enough to comment on.

2. You'll need to "sign in" to Vox.com in order to do that. I'm not sure what that process entails or how onerous it is.

To the small but active community at my old address - I will still be dropping by and reading your material. And commenting where appropriate. My account will be there in perpetuity. But, as of this morning, I consider my old blog "closed" and my new blog "open".

d) I want more.  The old blog location felt very limited with regard to design and content. The user interface is not easy or intuitive - editing a single post involved numerous click throughs and drill-downs. To add links or integrate content, I had to use raw HTML, which I am neither skilled at or very fond of. So far, the vox.com interface is a breeze and is actually fun and intuitive to use. I can make the content richer and more dynamic here ... the "fun" quotient means that I'll likely feel compelled to post more frequently.

I can summarize the above point simply by saying that I had blog envy. There - I said it. I wanted a cooler blog that is easier to manage and more fun to use.

So - there you have it ... my blogging raison d'être ... I do hope you will stay tuned for more.