ALLIED by Jeneane Sessum: 2006-06-25

July 01, 2006

Presenting.... Winertoons!

just trying to spread a little sunshine around the net.

thanks to prblog, cartoon generator,
gnomedex, and dave.

my friend has one of those chairs that you see in the bottom right square of my StyleFeeder. She doesn't let anyone else sit in it. When my other friend and I are over at her house and the chair-owning friend goes to the store, we sit in it.

We sit and sit and sit and giggle. We lean back, we lean forward. We don't abuse the chair; we simply use the chair.

She doesn't know it. DON'T tell her because my chair-sitting friend told me she saw it this week and it has a rip in it! I swear I didn't do it. She swears she didn't do it. We think the raccoon did it--he comes at night.

coveting, deck furniture, lounge chairs, friendship = Powered by Qumana

that stylefeeder thang

all of my friends and readers, have you heard the news? it's widgetmania 2.0...

Shhh, look at that. Over there on the sidebar ---->

over there--------------------------------->

That's StyleFeeder... see my style, love my style, feed my style--yum!

Last one to buy the monkey thing is a rotten egg. okay chimp. but i like to call him, "monkey."

what kind of monkey goes: "Ah-ahhhhhhh!"

Shhhh! don't say it out loud. leave it on the comments.

Top 10 Sources just acquired StyleFeeder. I got to help announce it. How cool is that?

I like to work. If I make money, then one day I can get my monkey thing.

do you have a monkey thing? animatronics. wooohoooo!

do you have StyleFeeder on your blog?

you should.

do like the monkey says: Eee-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Tags: StyleFeeder, Top 10 Sources, Monkey, Chimp, Blog, Blogs, Blogging, Web2.0, Acquisition, new media, widgets, photos, photo tagging = Powered by Qumana

June 30, 2006

blogerhood... blogra nosta?

Elaine tugs at my Sicilian heart with this idea.

The good thing is that memory is inherent on the Internet. And bloggers, as the net's superusers, have the longest memories of all. Archives. Google. The Wayback Machine. Word of Mouth. Hypermemory.

We have our own loosely joined thesmokinggun.com's, decentralized but connected through relationships and hyperlinks.

Our memories are co-owned here. There is redundancy in what we know now, and what we keep an eye on tomorrow, the day after, and the next day. I count on that. To me, the brotherhood/sisterhood part of blogging is one of its most endearing qualities.

Unlike some, I don't just write here. I have family here.

Don't ever underestimate the power of the online Family.

To Elaine's idea, I wonder if there are retired lawyers who could educate and even provide services to women and men online through online skype sessions, webcasts, or referrals to local lawyers, or standard contracts, or whatever. I wouldn't think a practicing lawyer would be able to ethically spearhead such a venture. But I would bet somewhere there is someone who has the key to Elaine's idea.

Tags: Blawgs, Law, Justice, legal, blogging, web2.0, tech, Internet, mandarin meg = Powered by Qumana

June 29, 2006

hadn't checked my aggravator in days

after spending a half hour going through my aggravator, bloglines, i am happy to report that i have missed absolutely nothing by being off and away for a couple of days. It is tempting to try it some more.

The substance gap is growing.

The substance gap is the length of time you can ignore the Internet without it really mattering.

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unconference, unreal.

Was it Frank who said that the "unconference" format that dave winer jumps up and down about is the same format as facilitated meetings, which we've been using in business for the last 20-something (or more) years? Frank doesn't see anything so mindbowing about the unconference format--and he should know. He's been to all four bloggercon, a rare and commendable (?) distinction.

Tags: frank paynter, conferences = Powered by Qumana

and so.

How do we clumsily resume writing online after losing a friend online, when that surprise loss has slapped us hard, not quite settled in, left us wondering with every visit: When is she going to post? How can it be?

I've learned what I needed to know, although meg's going doesn't sit gently with me, at the core, where there is always more I want to understand. To know. To figure out, even though doing so isn't likely to change a thing.

Somewhere in all of this I'm rolling the meaning of love around in my head, tasting its different flavors, understanding it has no single look or feel. How is that?

I talked about it some in group, processing it more than grieving it. Trying to understand the layers of this reminded me of an experience I had during my ten-day, near-death hospital stay eight years ago, when I so badly wanted to live, and so badly wanted the unrelenting panic to stop that I wanted to die, all At The Exact Same Moment. That duality, multiplicity, is maddening: when things don't make sense at all but feel so overwhelmingly powerful that feeling alone takes over your being; you are nothing but skin and nerve endings.

Understanding the multiplicity of love and pain and joy and agony and loss and celebration simultaneously, that's where acceptance comes in, I suppose. Or at least an 'okay for now.'

Sometimes that's all we can give. Or all we're given.

Tags: loss, grieving, michelle goodrich, mandarin design = Powered by Qumana

June 28, 2006

Obituary for Michelle

There is a guestbook you can sign at Meg's sacramento bee obituary page. I would think, based on reading it, that covering the place with flowers would be our job. I also hope maybe Sacramento Bloggers can represent us all on the 30th?

June 27, 2006

watch me watch your back and wait

I'm not over Meg being dead. I'm just not. If I'm holding her spirit back from it's journey to that better place, then she'll just have to wait a few days. I'm sorry Meg, I'm not so good at letting go either.

Tom wonders what's it all about and how good, or not so, we've become with all the fine tools 2.0 we have at helping one another. It's a good wonder to have. Clearly, we can do better. Where is the virtual life saver--the webring of support that's really, truly Always On, that can be there 24x7 without sacrificing any one person's ability to function and work and live while still being able to "Be There."

Or are we There at all?

We've got the tools to figure out better ways. We've got people who give a damn. For Ebay's Sake, we even have Skype!

So what is the missing piece? I don't know.

And to a lot of people, these words about Meg from Meg's friends may seem cryptic.

I've gotten more than one email asking, what happened? What are you all hinting at?

WHAT HAPPENED?

That's what I want to know. To my knowledge, the word has not come from her family. Her daughter did send me a very nice email saying that they would know more soon and let us know--she thanked us for caring, but caring about Meg was and is easy. In the end, it's their decision what to share.

But as one of those people who have shared some very personal emails with Meg, I'm not going to pussy foot around. She had been depressed, despondent, not okay for some time. But at times lately, she seemed to be doing better. My god she had been through a hell of a lot. But there were other things going on too. And while I am not jumping to conclusions, I want to know.

The way I figure it, there are four ways we leave this world--natural causes, accidentally, at our own hand, at the hand of someone else. One thing is clear: Something bad happened. And I want to know what. Not out of a sense of morbid curiosity. Not out of a sense of selfishness. But because she was a friend.

So this is a notice of sorts: I don't intend to blog about work 2.0 or web 2.0 or clients 2.0 until I find out precisely what happened. And if there is anything Meg would have wanted us to do--anything she specified to her family--I want to do that next. So in the mean time, I'll wait. Because I want to know.

Does it matter?

When it comes to Meg and what she shared, it matters to me.

And then when I know, I'll grieve it and let it go. And her spirit can move on along the journey Doug speaks of . In the mean time, Meg and I are waiting.

And not blogging.