May 06, 2003

I am ignoring everyone

I haven't linked in these 30 in 30 attempts. Sometimes I do. This week I've kind of rolled in my welcome mat, or more appropriately, my go out mat. I'm welcoming people in, but I'm not reading many blogs this week. I go through these phases. For two weeks I may read a dozen or so new blogs, add them to my blogroll, follow them daily or even more frequently, become inspired by the writing there, have so much to say thanks to the sparky synapses they ignite.

Then a week or two after, I fall off reading most of them--one or two usually stick with me and our intersections remain permanent. The community grows outward, theirs and mine.

Then comes a week when I don't remember who I read or why I do this. I find myself visiting the three or four blog buddies I started with, revisiting old friends, trying to remind myself that blogging is worth it.

Generally after that comes a few days or more where I roll up my awnings and close my door. I write from inside. I don't care much what's going on out there with you or you or you. I'm glad when you come to visit me. I get pissed when you don't. My hit meter suffers. I go from 150 or 200 readers a day down to 100 or even fewer.

I get a little excited about that downturn, wondering how low can I make it go. What do I have to write that will make no one come? I'm just curious. You know. It's about feel, it's about give and take, it's about soloing and see who sticks with you, lays back so you can have your say, and is still there to come back in when you're done.

Yes, I do that.

Freaky kind of.

Somewhere during my solo, when I'm not really here or there, but I'm paying attention mostly to what I'm saying, not what you're saying, but glad that you're still on stage with me, I start to rekindle what I love in this, about this, for this, for you and you and you, my own sound makes me care again because it is informed by all of you, it's not pure, it's hybrid, and I remember that when I hear myself.

That's when the compulsion to reach out regenerates and I move back outside this place to care, talk, scream, link, and add more layers to my own voice, through you.

Coming soon--jeneane lays back and listens. Followed by Jeneane takes it out.