July 19, 2008

Bloggers As Webkinz

Our daughter collects Webkinz, which is not in and of itself unusual. What IS unusual is that she has named her most recent webkinz purchases after women bloggers. Specifically:
I know that in this age of blogging awards and celebrations of our womanhood online through conferences and link love, lists are a little overdone.

But this is the first Webkinz-as-Women-Bloggers List, folks. Sqeezem if you gottem.

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Because RWW Comments aren't working... some more women bloggers

Neither Frank nor I could leave a comment yesterday on the RWW post about women bloggers, so he left one here. Now I see 27 comments there, so maybe they are working. For those adverse to clicking, here's Frank's list of women's bloggers to add to the cause:
Marshall's blog is broken. Well, it wouldn't let me leave a comment. Maybe I'm on a list. Anyway, here is what I tried to leave there. I reformatted it in hopes that I was merely being screened for too many links. Didn't work. But I always enjoy this exercise, no matter how many times we do it. Maybe someday we can do lists of bloggers who suck. Wait. That may already have been done. Anyway, here's what I tried to contribute at ReadWriteWeb...
* * *
http://allied.blogspot.com/ Jeneane Sessum (who showed me the way here),

http://www.timegoesby.net/
Ronni Bennett,

http://www.jessamyn.com/indexindex.html
Jessamyn West,

http://betsydevine.com/blog/
Betsy Devine,

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howell/
Denise Howell,

http://burningbird.net/
Shelley Powers,

http://lavachequilit.typepad.com/
Leslie Winer,

http://tamarika.typepad.com/mined_nuggets/
Tamar Jacobson,

and http://theeverydaycafe.com/
Anne Zelenka.

There are nine names off the top of my head... people about whom I can't say enough. I'm sure there are another dozen I should highlight, and there are several women already listed who would be on my list if they hadn't been acknowledged already. Comparing the sheer numbers of people I respect and enjoy with the mere half a dozen or so who chafe my scrote, well... I'm coming out ahead.
Now, the job is to embed them into the mainstream, not highlight them as prime catches of a separate species.

July 18, 2008

Men O'Pause

My friend emailed me a couple of weeks back, "I think I'm going to lose my job - I can't remember anything. I look at the page and all the words look like one another. Nothing is making sense." An elder woman at the pool tells me she had to quit her job at the University - she had no idea what was wrong, but suddenly a very competent professor was rendered incapable, and was so stupefied by her failing intellect that she resigned. My friends and I grasp for words that remain elusive and use words that are nonsensical in their place. We forget we said we would call one another, leave the stove on until we remember dinner is ready by the feint scent of burnt.

We are menopausal.

If you haven't been there yet, just wait. If you've survived, send me your number.

I am blown away. I hear that this phase of confusion and forgetfulness passes. I'm always afraid to ask how long that takes.

Men, don't expect the 40-somethings in your office to let you in on their suffering. It's not exactly a selling point. You can't really add "don't get lost again on the way to work" to your job description. And a project lead that suddenly forgets the names of her team members isn't exactly an A-player.

I was talking to a friend at lunch earlier this week about how it feels to be blindsided by this rite of passage each of us has earned - a time that is supposed to find us in our prime, but not before it knocks us to the ground with a staggering case of amnesia.

My friend said she was longing for the day when there would be a 'maternity leave' at the other end of the fertility spectrum. An infertility leave, if you will. An egg loss sabbatical. We made great plans for getting through this phase of 'the change,' and had a great lunch. And best of all, we laughed.

Now, if I could only remember who I was with....

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good reading list from RWW

Marshall has a good starter list of women bloggers in honor of blogher. There are some good blogs there, although some are the usual suspects. Comments didn't seem to be working, but if they start to, leave your own faves there.

Sure glad RWW isn't following in the steps of The Industry Standard.

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Hank Ranks in My Book

Read Hank Williams on I'm a Nobody, on the recent dustup with The Industry Standard's lame attempt to gloss over Golson's stupidity. Nuances and face-changing attempts are fascinating. Hank runs them down well.
When you think about his words, the real subtext becomes clear. The truth is, once he came to my site, the argument ceased to be about "prominence". He actually made a judgment about me as a person, and not my prominence. To say he couldn't "take me seriously", based purely on the color of my, excuse me, nature of my blog template is really a very different matter than discussing my visibility in the marketplace.
Read More (and comments).