I'm assuming, being a first-time mom of a five year old, that I have learned something important the last few weeks, something that will serve me well the next decade: that summer is meant to be chaos.
Schedules out the window--I fought so hard to get her on one, you know. No real plan. Is it sunny? Okay, let me finish my work and we'll spend six hours at the pool (when I should be home finding more work). Is it rainy? Okay, how about summer camp today. Is it partly cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms? Let's ride the scooter or bike for a while, or drive over to Big Lots and find a treat. Is it breezy? Let's take you and your friend to the playground.
Is it midnight? Well then it must be time for you to go to SLEEP, Jenna!
SLEEP so that I can do that WORK I was talking to you about. You know, the work that makes it possible for us to go to Big Lots. No work, no Big Lots.
Today was the worst mom-daughter day so far this summer. She was on half a night's sleep after refusing to give into sleep last night until nearly 1 a.m. Then up at 9. That's not enough sleep for a five year old. That means guaranteed crankiness, guaranteed clinginess. And no work for the weary.
I had a 2:00 client call, and she was here, so naturally we went head to head battling for an hour before the call about how she needed to be quiet, just for 15 minutes, just for 15 seconds, just for a nanosecond. She made it through that call, barely, after two time outs and a hushed okay by me to take the picnic basket of food (meant for the pool) up to her room to keep her quiet so I could take notes.
Then, an unscheduled client call after my 2:00 threw her for a loop. This was not in our deal. No way. This meant that she was off the good behavior wagon and could crank up her toy electric guitar and follow me around with it as I tried to escape with the cordless phone and a tiny bit of my professionalism in tact.
"That's my daughter--sorry... summertime and all."
Shooting glaring looks at a kid who's off on summer break doesn't work. They smile back at you. In cohoots with summer itself. HA HA mom--I don't have to do anything I don't want to do because it's summer and you can't make me.
Shit, I'm ready for Fall.
This is the first night Jenna has been to sleep before 10 in a month. It's the first time I've had any chunk of time to think at night. So naturally, I spend it blogging about what it's like to NOT have that time.
And all the while, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about my one and only little sweet baby starting official school in just five weeks and it blows my mind. How could this be? I still don't believe I can't just squeeze her back inside of me. Surely there must be some mistake. I'm living a dream that moves in time without me.
Maybe next year I'll be looking forward to summer chaos, time to ramble around and just generally not care about anything.
Maybe next summer. If I make it through this one.
July 08, 2003
oh mexico
Tom's latest post, a reflection on the largeness of our culture and the absurtity it heaps upon us in our havings and wantings, is a great read.
And who could resist? Not me:
Way down here you need a reason to move
Feel a fool running your stateside games
Lose your load, leave your mind behind, Baby James
Oh, Mexico
It sounds so simple I just got to go
The sun's so hot I forgot to go home
Guess I'll have to go now
"Americano" got the sleepy eye
But his body's still shaking like a live wire
Sleepy "Senorita" with the eyes on fire
Oh, Mexico
It sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low
Moon's so bright like to light up the night
Make everything all right
Baby's hungry and the money's all gone
The folks back home don't want to talk on the phone
She gets a long letter, sends back a postcard; times are hard
Oh, down in Mexico
I never really been so I don't really know
Oh, Mexico
I guess I'll have to go
Oh, Mexico
I never really been but I'd sure like to go
Oh, Mexico
I guess I'll have to go now
Talkin' down in Mexico
-Mexico, James Taylor
And who could resist? Not me:
Way down here you need a reason to move
Feel a fool running your stateside games
Lose your load, leave your mind behind, Baby James
Oh, Mexico
It sounds so simple I just got to go
The sun's so hot I forgot to go home
Guess I'll have to go now
"Americano" got the sleepy eye
But his body's still shaking like a live wire
Sleepy "Senorita" with the eyes on fire
Oh, Mexico
It sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low
Moon's so bright like to light up the night
Make everything all right
Baby's hungry and the money's all gone
The folks back home don't want to talk on the phone
She gets a long letter, sends back a postcard; times are hard
Oh, down in Mexico
I never really been so I don't really know
Oh, Mexico
I guess I'll have to go
Oh, Mexico
I never really been but I'd sure like to go
Oh, Mexico
I guess I'll have to go now
Talkin' down in Mexico
-Mexico, James Taylor
July 07, 2003
mailing the dead
I was thinking just now, and I don't know why, except that I was paying bills online, and maybe that had something to do with it, me and my legacy of account numbers, I was thinking about how much mail came for my father, and for how long, after he died.
I was eleven and the mail would still come. A piece here, a piece there, falling through the cracks and into our mailbox. Me hoping for a package from the American Quarter Horse Association, and instead finding an envelope addressed to Alphonse Dimino, 217 Somershire Drive, our new address, our home without him, after leaving the farm he made for us and relocating to a small house in the suburbs.
Sifting through envelopes, looking for my name, must be something for me, about horses, stickers should be coming, or even the hot air balloon pattern I ordered from the back of one of my teen magazines. And then: Alphonse Dimino. Huh? Why. Why did they have to remind me, surprise me, his death surprising me a thousand times or more, years without end.
Surprise! Your dad is still dead!
Thank you. You shouldn't have. Really.
One day, a rare day of me mentioning "him," I said, Mom, why does he still get mail?
She said, Sometimes you get on a list--they don't know; they just send it.
The surprise of the unexpected, the I-should-know-better, like a lightning bolt to my heart.
And still, it's like that, every time you let me down.
I was eleven and the mail would still come. A piece here, a piece there, falling through the cracks and into our mailbox. Me hoping for a package from the American Quarter Horse Association, and instead finding an envelope addressed to Alphonse Dimino, 217 Somershire Drive, our new address, our home without him, after leaving the farm he made for us and relocating to a small house in the suburbs.
Sifting through envelopes, looking for my name, must be something for me, about horses, stickers should be coming, or even the hot air balloon pattern I ordered from the back of one of my teen magazines. And then: Alphonse Dimino. Huh? Why. Why did they have to remind me, surprise me, his death surprising me a thousand times or more, years without end.
Surprise! Your dad is still dead!
Thank you. You shouldn't have. Really.
One day, a rare day of me mentioning "him," I said, Mom, why does he still get mail?
She said, Sometimes you get on a list--they don't know; they just send it.
The surprise of the unexpected, the I-should-know-better, like a lightning bolt to my heart.
And still, it's like that, every time you let me down.
July 06, 2003
Deconstructing the Male in relation to Other Males (and females)
Jonathon Mays reveals the thought pattern of men who are homophobic. In doing so, he sort of sums up malehood in all its glory--alphamalehood even. hee hee.
July 05, 2003
HOLY COW--We nearly/kindof missed Marek's Birthday...
Looking back on my archives, I see last year about this time we were celebrating a certain notorious Pole's birthday. Marek, buddddyyyy, happy birthday. Come home to RGE soon...
where'd all the funnies go?
Remember how we used to break eachother's balls? Vintage RB for them asses. I mean the masses. It's a tribute, actually. Don't ya feel like a tributary?
shhh. osmosis in progress.
shhh. osmosis in progress.
July 04, 2003
tanning by the numbers
Sun and water, water and sun. I don't know what it is--I'm addicted this summer. Can't drink enough into my pours--not enough. I sleep it, dream it, float it, drink it, eat it, sleep it, pee it. Maybe it has something to do with starting to understand I have a body attached to my head. I don't know. I think I've tried to avoid this thing that walks my brain around for quite some time. Let it go to pot. Ignored it. Who needs a body to think and strategize and write?
Then it catches up with you. You say, shit--I used to feel a lot better when I knew this thing that my head sits on. Have I ever known it? Maybe once, a long time ago, a different body than I have now. An old friend. I want her back.
In the sun, you know your flesh. In the water, you feel it, swirling, sinking, diving, floating. Your head is the last thing you think about, you can leave your brain under the umbrella, or roll it up in a beach towel. All you need in the sun and the water is skin.
My skin is turning brown and browner. Jenna says, "Mama, you're catching up to me, but I'm getting tanner, so you'll never catch up to me; or maybe I'll turn peach and you'll turn brown. The boy at my school, Jordan, he calls it 'white.' Isn't that silly? He calls peach white."
Skin, pours, veins, flesh, sink in to cool water, submit to scalding rays.
Find yourself there.
Then it catches up with you. You say, shit--I used to feel a lot better when I knew this thing that my head sits on. Have I ever known it? Maybe once, a long time ago, a different body than I have now. An old friend. I want her back.
In the sun, you know your flesh. In the water, you feel it, swirling, sinking, diving, floating. Your head is the last thing you think about, you can leave your brain under the umbrella, or roll it up in a beach towel. All you need in the sun and the water is skin.
My skin is turning brown and browner. Jenna says, "Mama, you're catching up to me, but I'm getting tanner, so you'll never catch up to me; or maybe I'll turn peach and you'll turn brown. The boy at my school, Jordan, he calls it 'white.' Isn't that silly? He calls peach white."
Skin, pours, veins, flesh, sink in to cool water, submit to scalding rays.
Find yourself there.
July 03, 2003
why am i still up?
went to sleep at 10 two days ago. i thtink it was. i was going to sleep after the last post, but i'm still up. i don't know why. too wired to sleep. can't get on the down escalator to sleep--too tired to put my foot out and step on, too scared to step between steps, and then they open up, you know how they do that on an escalator, and my foot's all half on and half off the step, I'm trying to keep my balance, not fall and tumble all the way down, down.
if someone could just pull the red level for a minute while I step on, I'd really appreciate it.
hmmm.
no one here. no one. not even a comment lately. good americanz are out celebrating the holiday early maybe. so where are the bloggers? down down on the escalator. jenna calls them alligators, and I like it so much I don't correct her.
i do that a lot with her.
so many voices out here--are we paying attention to anyone anymore? i don't know. to ourselves. if that's all then that's something. maybe the biggest thing of all.
i knew if I decided to post, to write with my eyes closed, I would find sleep. And it's coming. I feel it. My eyes are closed and there go my fingers tumbling around the keyboard, glorious. what's behind my eyelids this evening? let me see....
shhhh.
there is a couple, she's in a green blouse and he's in a grey polo shirt, I only see his back, an dhe's shouting at her, an dthen I'm in the uniform store where I just bought jenna's uniforms for school next month, yah, we start early down here.
oil barrels, ponies, glue sticks, shopping cart, let them come, the images behind your eyes, nail polish, carrot sticks, cutting board, mailbox, she had blue eyes. Restorration. reverence, thinkking about that one tonight, that one makes sense, but no tthe carrots.... what else? tube socks on ankles, hairy, a boy's, sixteen or seventeen maybe, flashes a smile leans a forearm against a wrought iron fence. A polka-dot dress on a little freckled-face redhead, maybe she's three, four, digging her pinkie into her dimple and smiling.
You can't beat your own movies.
Okay. I'm going down down...
more later.
if someone could just pull the red level for a minute while I step on, I'd really appreciate it.
hmmm.
no one here. no one. not even a comment lately. good americanz are out celebrating the holiday early maybe. so where are the bloggers? down down on the escalator. jenna calls them alligators, and I like it so much I don't correct her.
i do that a lot with her.
so many voices out here--are we paying attention to anyone anymore? i don't know. to ourselves. if that's all then that's something. maybe the biggest thing of all.
i knew if I decided to post, to write with my eyes closed, I would find sleep. And it's coming. I feel it. My eyes are closed and there go my fingers tumbling around the keyboard, glorious. what's behind my eyelids this evening? let me see....
shhhh.
there is a couple, she's in a green blouse and he's in a grey polo shirt, I only see his back, an dhe's shouting at her, an dthen I'm in the uniform store where I just bought jenna's uniforms for school next month, yah, we start early down here.
oil barrels, ponies, glue sticks, shopping cart, let them come, the images behind your eyes, nail polish, carrot sticks, cutting board, mailbox, she had blue eyes. Restorration. reverence, thinkking about that one tonight, that one makes sense, but no tthe carrots.... what else? tube socks on ankles, hairy, a boy's, sixteen or seventeen maybe, flashes a smile leans a forearm against a wrought iron fence. A polka-dot dress on a little freckled-face redhead, maybe she's three, four, digging her pinkie into her dimple and smiling.
You can't beat your own movies.
Okay. I'm going down down...
more later.
July 02, 2003
sleeeep
I had four client deadlines in the last two-and-a-half days. This entailed one all nighter, pulled last night, after which I now feel like milky toast. Pull an all-nighter. I always loved that phrase--used to do it all the time in college. Pull one. Wonder what's to pull about it. Really you push your way through it. Unless you take No-Doze like I used to, write my way through the night on fire thinking I was motherfucking Hemmingway, who I don't even like, but still, he can pull the crap out of a sentence, can't he?
The difference to me, now that I have what is resembling my own business versus pretending to care about the morbid corporate culture of my past couple of years, is that I have to pull more all nighters. Because of the money. Because I can't say, really, gee, no, no thanks, I'm kinda tired and I have three other clients who need stuff done, so sorry--catch you next time! Because you just can't--well, not yet I can't. I am good enough that they would be back. But how soon, that's what I can't play around with right now. I need them as much as they need me. Ain't that a kickinthehead.
It's fun, the work I'm doing these days. Much of it is enjoyable. My clients are all nice people. Otherwise, I would say no. That much I know is true.
Which reminds me, I got that novel by Wally Lamb--I Know This Much Is True--and can he knit a yarn this guy. Holy. It's like 900 pages, and I'm only on about page 50, but he really pulls you, this guy does. He can pull a novel this guy like I can pull an all-nighter.
Too tired to link tonight. Just take it for what it's worth, these pixels. Pixel litter. I made that up a couple of weeks ago. I think I was talking about Meckler's blog, which isn't worth the finger muscles it would take to link to it. Did I make up Pixel Litter? I think I like it.
I can pull a metaphor, can't I?
I couldn't pull a baby bird away from the neighbor's cats tonight though. Shit. I went out for a smoke, yah, I still haven't beat the habit, and I see Chas the tabby from next door batting this poor baby robin around my driveway. The baby robin was, like, hey, I'm not sure what's going on here, but I don't think I like being batted around, tweet tweet! And I'm yelling, Chas, cut it out! go away! and then I see the mama robin.
I felt bad for the baby, and you know the cats who haven't been fed regularly except by me since my neighbor is away in some form of rehab again, but I didn't stop it. I called my brother in law--he works with animals--as the two other cats converged to torture the speckle-chested, no-flying tiny baby robin (hop hop. tweeet! hop hop tweet!). I say, "Unnie--what do I do?"--we call him Unnie cause he's jenna's uncle--there's this baby robin and the cats have him. He's not dead. He's hopping around and tweeting and his poor mother robin is trying to buzz these cats to get them to leave the baby alone. Unnie tells me leave it alone. Go do somethting else. It's nature. It's how it works. It took me a long time to accept it, but that's how it is. And I decide Unnie's sounding wise these days, so I close the door, but not before I take time to watch the mother robin.
fearless as a motherfucker.
she's zooming in cawing like a crow that she isn't--or screeching is maybe a better word--and she's getting so close to the cats' heads, she's using everything she has to save her baby, dodging and diving and ditchcing just in time. and you know what? the cats didn't even look at her--didn't even give her the respect of looking at her, no nod of recognition--no thanks for the baby ma'm--thanks for dinner--no fear from them, like HEY! Watch out for the mother robin! She's after our butts! No. None of that. They didn't even see her. All of her might, all of her instinct compeletely and utterly ignored.
what's worse than that?
And then I left them. To do it.
And now I leave you, because I'm almost there, almost asleep, and so goodnight.
The difference to me, now that I have what is resembling my own business versus pretending to care about the morbid corporate culture of my past couple of years, is that I have to pull more all nighters. Because of the money. Because I can't say, really, gee, no, no thanks, I'm kinda tired and I have three other clients who need stuff done, so sorry--catch you next time! Because you just can't--well, not yet I can't. I am good enough that they would be back. But how soon, that's what I can't play around with right now. I need them as much as they need me. Ain't that a kickinthehead.
It's fun, the work I'm doing these days. Much of it is enjoyable. My clients are all nice people. Otherwise, I would say no. That much I know is true.
Which reminds me, I got that novel by Wally Lamb--I Know This Much Is True--and can he knit a yarn this guy. Holy. It's like 900 pages, and I'm only on about page 50, but he really pulls you, this guy does. He can pull a novel this guy like I can pull an all-nighter.
Too tired to link tonight. Just take it for what it's worth, these pixels. Pixel litter. I made that up a couple of weeks ago. I think I was talking about Meckler's blog, which isn't worth the finger muscles it would take to link to it. Did I make up Pixel Litter? I think I like it.
I can pull a metaphor, can't I?
I couldn't pull a baby bird away from the neighbor's cats tonight though. Shit. I went out for a smoke, yah, I still haven't beat the habit, and I see Chas the tabby from next door batting this poor baby robin around my driveway. The baby robin was, like, hey, I'm not sure what's going on here, but I don't think I like being batted around, tweet tweet! And I'm yelling, Chas, cut it out! go away! and then I see the mama robin.
I felt bad for the baby, and you know the cats who haven't been fed regularly except by me since my neighbor is away in some form of rehab again, but I didn't stop it. I called my brother in law--he works with animals--as the two other cats converged to torture the speckle-chested, no-flying tiny baby robin (hop hop. tweeet! hop hop tweet!). I say, "Unnie--what do I do?"--we call him Unnie cause he's jenna's uncle--there's this baby robin and the cats have him. He's not dead. He's hopping around and tweeting and his poor mother robin is trying to buzz these cats to get them to leave the baby alone. Unnie tells me leave it alone. Go do somethting else. It's nature. It's how it works. It took me a long time to accept it, but that's how it is. And I decide Unnie's sounding wise these days, so I close the door, but not before I take time to watch the mother robin.
fearless as a motherfucker.
she's zooming in cawing like a crow that she isn't--or screeching is maybe a better word--and she's getting so close to the cats' heads, she's using everything she has to save her baby, dodging and diving and ditchcing just in time. and you know what? the cats didn't even look at her--didn't even give her the respect of looking at her, no nod of recognition--no thanks for the baby ma'm--thanks for dinner--no fear from them, like HEY! Watch out for the mother robin! She's after our butts! No. None of that. They didn't even see her. All of her might, all of her instinct compeletely and utterly ignored.
what's worse than that?
And then I left them. To do it.
And now I leave you, because I'm almost there, almost asleep, and so goodnight.
The artist's side of RIAA and file sharing
George has a post I really dig that outlines the thought pattern of the professional musician, or at least this one, about file sharing and the all-seeing-all-knowing RIAA.
I hate to spoil the ending for you, but I have to. It's beautific:
"I am going to analyze in depth how pop music and its machinery have worked...awww forget it. I don't have time for this crusade! I just want to make some music and make enough of a living to keep the lights on. When you guys figure it out, let ME know. I'm going to go practice...."
It's a good thing I'm married to him, because if I were reading him for the first time, I think I would have just fallen in love.
I hate to spoil the ending for you, but I have to. It's beautific:
"I am going to analyze in depth how pop music and its machinery have worked...awww forget it. I don't have time for this crusade! I just want to make some music and make enough of a living to keep the lights on. When you guys figure it out, let ME know. I'm going to go practice...."
It's a good thing I'm married to him, because if I were reading him for the first time, I think I would have just fallen in love.
Creation in a Flash
Richard at Peaceful Waters found the perfect project for his first try at flash animation. He used flash to create animation about creation.
Say that ten times fast.
Richard had posted some thoughts about creation, a poem really, a few days back, although the linear nature of a textual post didn't do it justice. So he gave it melding-meaning-swishing-dancing life with flash. I was hoping he would. Nice.
Here it is.
Say that ten times fast.
Richard had posted some thoughts about creation, a poem really, a few days back, although the linear nature of a textual post didn't do it justice. So he gave it melding-meaning-swishing-dancing life with flash. I was hoping he would. Nice.
Here it is.
July 01, 2003
Admit you're a fake--I like it!
Anthurian who remains among the living where we once bumped cubicles, has an interesting approach to steering PR clients who want to get in on the blogging thing in the right direction.
Since Anthurian knoooowwwsss that not all clients (read: probably none) are ready to strip naked of logos and messaging and streak through Blogaria in the buff, he's advised them to offer a service that bloggers can get some use out of, and to ADMIT that their blogs are, well, not for real.
SO, the stragegy if I read it right is to offer some help by giving bloggers a service or application they can use in their blogging, but, Mr. Big Corp., as for your own "corporate" blog, don't try to make it into something it's not, something that we'll all see through in a fly's sneeze. (Do flies sneeze? I was trying to be southern.)
No one likes the kid at the party who acts like Mr. Cool bringing the Cool beer and then he walks in with a six-pack of Bud in cans. Generally, that's the kid you give oregano-wrapped-in-rolling-paper joint to so everyone can laugh at him when he starts acting stoned.
Not that I would know. YES, so don't be the fake cool kid. Instead, admit who you are, brand the shit out of your corporate blog, and then hussle us off to some ACTUAL cool places that we'll actually care about. And we might ACTUALLY think kindly of you.
Good, Anthurian. I can live with that. Thank goodness for all of us that you still have a say and a voice in the big-wide-world-of-marketing. Because I know what we could all be in for if, well, some were left to their own devices.
And you don't know HOW BADLY I WANT TO DO SOME SPOOF BLOGS OF MAJOR HOME IMPROVEMENT AND LEADING IT SOFTWARE AND CONSULTING COMPANIES RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I HAVE ALREADY CREATED THESE SPOOF BLOGS IN MY MIND, AND SO IF I DO SO UNDER AN ASSUMED NAME PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IT ISN'T ME! (See, I'm kind. I left off the industry of the client you're really talking about.)
But I can say whatever I want, because it's National Libel Day!
WSHEW!
So, thanks to my take on Anthurian's post, we have step-one advice for corporations interested in this hip-new-blogging thing: ask your employees if anyone blogs and let HIM OR HER run the project and the strategy, or at least don't breathe without HIS OR HER (i.e. Anthurain's) say-so.
Since Anthurian knoooowwwsss that not all clients (read: probably none) are ready to strip naked of logos and messaging and streak through Blogaria in the buff, he's advised them to offer a service that bloggers can get some use out of, and to ADMIT that their blogs are, well, not for real.
SO, the stragegy if I read it right is to offer some help by giving bloggers a service or application they can use in their blogging, but, Mr. Big Corp., as for your own "corporate" blog, don't try to make it into something it's not, something that we'll all see through in a fly's sneeze. (Do flies sneeze? I was trying to be southern.)
No one likes the kid at the party who acts like Mr. Cool bringing the Cool beer and then he walks in with a six-pack of Bud in cans. Generally, that's the kid you give oregano-wrapped-in-rolling-paper joint to so everyone can laugh at him when he starts acting stoned.
Not that I would know. YES, so don't be the fake cool kid. Instead, admit who you are, brand the shit out of your corporate blog, and then hussle us off to some ACTUAL cool places that we'll actually care about. And we might ACTUALLY think kindly of you.
Good, Anthurian. I can live with that. Thank goodness for all of us that you still have a say and a voice in the big-wide-world-of-marketing. Because I know what we could all be in for if, well, some were left to their own devices.
And you don't know HOW BADLY I WANT TO DO SOME SPOOF BLOGS OF MAJOR HOME IMPROVEMENT AND LEADING IT SOFTWARE AND CONSULTING COMPANIES RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I HAVE ALREADY CREATED THESE SPOOF BLOGS IN MY MIND, AND SO IF I DO SO UNDER AN ASSUMED NAME PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IT ISN'T ME! (See, I'm kind. I left off the industry of the client you're really talking about.)
But I can say whatever I want, because it's National Libel Day!
WSHEW!
So, thanks to my take on Anthurian's post, we have step-one advice for corporations interested in this hip-new-blogging thing: ask your employees if anyone blogs and let HIM OR HER run the project and the strategy, or at least don't breathe without HIS OR HER (i.e. Anthurain's) say-so.
skip
His name, the one who handed me back my will to live through the next two hours, the one who shocked my nervous system into submission with two different IV pain medications, the one who took away my pain, his name was Skip.
Three times a muffled "help" from me, and no one came, heads moving somehow relating to the voices of one another, that was what I saw, dizzying motion. "This is the busiest Saturday night we've had in recovery." "I think so." voices. everyone's but mine. Moaning from others like me. Why did theirs worked when mine didn't?
I saw him turn, see me, what was it, what my face must have looked like, afraid to move even my lips, afraid it could get worse, not imagining how it could, how anything could be.
He was the first one to come, to tell me to hang on, soon it would get better. Whatever he read in my eyes, since nothing else moved, was something. Tears. Yes. And me eyeing the baby bootie pinned to my gown, maybe.
I was in recovery two hours. After an hour, I could whisper loud enough to communicate. Skip the recovery room nurse (is that what they're called?) told me his name, that my blood pressure was still climbing some, they had to monitor it, and talking to his recovery room colleagues I heard him say, "It's probably the pain," and me, rigid, still wondering if I wanted to bother surviving. Still thinking maybe not.
But once my whisper came back, stronger, and once the first two layers of pain peeled away with the drugs, I choked to Skip over and over, "Thank you." "Thank you. "It's better than it was." "Thank you."
Skip told me jokes, none of which I remember. He also told me he would come see me while I was in the hospital. And he did. I didn't remember his face when he stopped by the room. But I remembered his voice. The voice that took my pain away, that brought me back from my six-hour near-death nap.
Skip, from Recovery at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, if you're out there somewhere, and if Google is kind enough, you may see this one day, and if you do, you can hear me say one more time: "Thank you."
Three times a muffled "help" from me, and no one came, heads moving somehow relating to the voices of one another, that was what I saw, dizzying motion. "This is the busiest Saturday night we've had in recovery." "I think so." voices. everyone's but mine. Moaning from others like me. Why did theirs worked when mine didn't?
I saw him turn, see me, what was it, what my face must have looked like, afraid to move even my lips, afraid it could get worse, not imagining how it could, how anything could be.
He was the first one to come, to tell me to hang on, soon it would get better. Whatever he read in my eyes, since nothing else moved, was something. Tears. Yes. And me eyeing the baby bootie pinned to my gown, maybe.
I was in recovery two hours. After an hour, I could whisper loud enough to communicate. Skip the recovery room nurse (is that what they're called?) told me his name, that my blood pressure was still climbing some, they had to monitor it, and talking to his recovery room colleagues I heard him say, "It's probably the pain," and me, rigid, still wondering if I wanted to bother surviving. Still thinking maybe not.
But once my whisper came back, stronger, and once the first two layers of pain peeled away with the drugs, I choked to Skip over and over, "Thank you." "Thank you. "It's better than it was." "Thank you."
Skip told me jokes, none of which I remember. He also told me he would come see me while I was in the hospital. And he did. I didn't remember his face when he stopped by the room. But I remembered his voice. The voice that took my pain away, that brought me back from my six-hour near-death nap.
Skip, from Recovery at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, if you're out there somewhere, and if Google is kind enough, you may see this one day, and if you do, you can hear me say one more time: "Thank you."
There's a little black spot on the sun today
That's my soul up there
It's the same old thing as yesterday
That's my soul up there
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top
That's my soul up there
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
That's my soul up there
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I always thought that you could end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain
-From King of Pain, The Police
I've said this before, but when it's a rainy night in georgia...
it really does feel like it's rainin' all over the world.
help.
When I read this story on Rachel Lucas' blog, I shuddered, visibly.
Because for me, this kind of pain is not a memory, really, because it never leaves me, the remembering. It may be past, but it is past present. Not a memory at all--this is what I live, churning.
To tell of unanesthetized surgical pain is to tell about longing for death to save you. It is to tell of a grand paradox: save me/kill me. Anything but this. I will barter with my life if you will please make it stop. I will give you all I have--me--to stop this moment, this second, this instant. How can I undo myself. Undo this, undo me.
Understanding this kind of pain requires that you let go of all constructs of time--this kind of pain lenghtens the ticks between seconds. This kind of pain has no voice.
No lights, cold cold cold, blankets like lead weights, where does the table end and where do I begin?
Where do I begin.
With an operation that took more than six hours. With emergency surgery, surgical staff and panic swirling like whirlpools, bringing me down, down to the OR. With wondering, will I ever see my 9-week-old baby again, or will she see me? The pain in George's eyes, mine reflected back.
And none of that even compares to the pain waiting for me when I woke up, still in the operating room, without a stitch of pain medicine in my veins. Them finishing, pulling up the rails, getting ready to wheel me to recovery, a ride I take in my mind again and again.
I can't go any further down into it, not now.
Fire, red orange, yellow hot burning cascading waves.
I can't tell you that the tears in this woman's eyes, the inability to speak, to have no voice left with which to cry out, to whisper only one word, too shallow, no breath, throat raw from tubes: "help." Too softly for anyone to hear, but me. Me recognizing my own screaming silence.
I can't tell you about ears that can't receive the human voice, can't hear "Hang on--we're going to get some pain meds in you," instead ears that speak, because the mouth cannot, don't do that, please kill me. I can't tell you what that's like.
To wait.
In my case, there was no one to blame. I had run out of blood, out of fibroid tumors, and nearly out of time, hung in that delicate dance of anesthesia, between death and waking, too long. It was for my own good that I woke up too soon, you see. "That happens sometimes," the doctor said. "They have to keep it light toward the end. Six hours is a long time."
Six nanoseconds of live remembering of every slice is longer.
And the living memory of that pain doesn't go away, or at least the memory of having no voice to cry out won't go.
In a flash, I am there, me seeing her seeing me, looking up...so bright, oh please, please no:
"help."
Because for me, this kind of pain is not a memory, really, because it never leaves me, the remembering. It may be past, but it is past present. Not a memory at all--this is what I live, churning.
To tell of unanesthetized surgical pain is to tell about longing for death to save you. It is to tell of a grand paradox: save me/kill me. Anything but this. I will barter with my life if you will please make it stop. I will give you all I have--me--to stop this moment, this second, this instant. How can I undo myself. Undo this, undo me.
Understanding this kind of pain requires that you let go of all constructs of time--this kind of pain lenghtens the ticks between seconds. This kind of pain has no voice.
No lights, cold cold cold, blankets like lead weights, where does the table end and where do I begin?
Where do I begin.
With an operation that took more than six hours. With emergency surgery, surgical staff and panic swirling like whirlpools, bringing me down, down to the OR. With wondering, will I ever see my 9-week-old baby again, or will she see me? The pain in George's eyes, mine reflected back.
And none of that even compares to the pain waiting for me when I woke up, still in the operating room, without a stitch of pain medicine in my veins. Them finishing, pulling up the rails, getting ready to wheel me to recovery, a ride I take in my mind again and again.
I can't go any further down into it, not now.
Fire, red orange, yellow hot burning cascading waves.
I can't tell you that the tears in this woman's eyes, the inability to speak, to have no voice left with which to cry out, to whisper only one word, too shallow, no breath, throat raw from tubes: "help." Too softly for anyone to hear, but me. Me recognizing my own screaming silence.
I can't tell you about ears that can't receive the human voice, can't hear "Hang on--we're going to get some pain meds in you," instead ears that speak, because the mouth cannot, don't do that, please kill me. I can't tell you what that's like.
To wait.
In my case, there was no one to blame. I had run out of blood, out of fibroid tumors, and nearly out of time, hung in that delicate dance of anesthesia, between death and waking, too long. It was for my own good that I woke up too soon, you see. "That happens sometimes," the doctor said. "They have to keep it light toward the end. Six hours is a long time."
Six nanoseconds of live remembering of every slice is longer.
And the living memory of that pain doesn't go away, or at least the memory of having no voice to cry out won't go.
In a flash, I am there, me seeing her seeing me, looking up...so bright, oh please, please no:
"help."
It's National Blogger Libel Day!
Say something really nasty today. No, it's okay!
Doin' the happy dance over here. We can say ANYONE and ANYTHING sucks! Do I have this right? Can I start writing about ex-employers and nasty-meaning family members now?
Let's see, where do I begin:
Lou Gerstner picks his nose in public.
Lou Gerstner likes to wear dirty underwear.
I heard Big Blue is going out of business now that Lou's gone.
One time, I saw Lou Gerstner kill a baby chick with his bare hands. He drank its blood.
Yah, so, I don't know if any of this is true, but it's fun to say. Just for one day--this day, which I have dubbed "National Blogger Libel Day."
I think this is great, as long as no one says anything untrue or nasty about me. Of course.
More about this later.
Libel on with your bad selves.
Doin' the happy dance over here. We can say ANYONE and ANYTHING sucks! Do I have this right? Can I start writing about ex-employers and nasty-meaning family members now?
Let's see, where do I begin:
Lou Gerstner picks his nose in public.
Lou Gerstner likes to wear dirty underwear.
I heard Big Blue is going out of business now that Lou's gone.
One time, I saw Lou Gerstner kill a baby chick with his bare hands. He drank its blood.
Yah, so, I don't know if any of this is true, but it's fun to say. Just for one day--this day, which I have dubbed "National Blogger Libel Day."
I think this is great, as long as no one says anything untrue or nasty about me. Of course.
More about this later.
Libel on with your bad selves.
June 30, 2003
she leaps, she falls!
Doc obviously wants me to jump.
Doc, I thought you cared.
Thank goodness David Weinberger was included, with some good quotes, to nudge the marketing folks reading this in the right direction. Only thing is, nudges don't work well with marketing folks. A left to the jaw works pretty well most of the time. I'm just saying...
Doc, I thought you cared.
Thank goodness David Weinberger was included, with some good quotes, to nudge the marketing folks reading this in the right direction. Only thing is, nudges don't work well with marketing folks. A left to the jaw works pretty well most of the time. I'm just saying...
Live Chat Support at Earthlink: Weakening Customer Relationships
All I was trying to do was find out how much I owed them for web hosting. Sounds simple. Can I give you some money now? Really. That's all I wanted to do. Unable to login with either my FTP password or the Control password I set up long ago OR either of our social security numbers, I resorted to Earthlink's Live Chat feature.
It was my last resort. Make sure it's your last resort too.
Here is the transcript of my "mis-conversation" with the Great and Powerful Oz at Earthlink. Mind you, every time I had to wait for him/her/it to answer, it took two minutes or more. By the end, you'll see, I got kind of punchy. ;-)
Please wait for a site operator to respond. While you are waiting, please feel free to begin typing your issue in the box below. Try to be as descriptive as possible. Once an operator responds, click SEND to transmit what you have typed.
'VamsiV' Thank you for contacting EarthLink LiveChat. How can I help you today?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: i was wondering if you could tell me the current amount I owe on my bill--also what is my password?
VamsiV: Sure, I can give you this information.
VamsiV: For account security, could you please verify the secret word/pin number on the account?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: either XXXX or XXXXXX?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: that's what we usually use...
ewriter@bellsouth.net: we don't have email through you--just web hosting.
VamsiV: I am sorry, the information that you gave does not match with that on our records.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: well, where would I FIND my pin? Do you mean our FTP password??
ewriter@bellsouth.net: I can give you that.
VamsiV: I see that the hint for the secret word is SSN, could you please give me that for verification.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: Either XXXXXXXXX or XXXXXXXXX
[NOTE: Decades Pass—Jenna is now in college…]
ewriter@bellsouth.net: hello?
VamsiV: Please hold on for a moment.
VamsiV: Thank you for being on hold.
VamsiV: The verification that you have given matches that we have on our record.
VamsiV: I found that there is amount of $45.75 due on your account.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: okay--when is it due?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: and is this my correct account number: 0000-00XXXXXXX ?
VamsiV: The account is PastDue, you need to pay the amount so that the account is not Inactive.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: can i do this through you?
VamsiV: Your account number is XXXXX.
VamsiV: I found that you are paying by check.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: I have a payment of $46 scheduled for 7/7 through my online bank account... is that too late?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: or should I pay somewhere online at earthlink--and if so what email and password do I use since I don't have an earthlink email.
VamsiV: I am sorry that there is no online payment service.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: SO WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST? can you note that payment with suntrust is scheduled for 7/7?
VamsiV: It is okay, you can send the payment by that date.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: okay, thanks--pls make sure our site stays up. we have some hits coming. THANKS!
VamsiV: Is there anything else that I can help you with?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: yes, how do I log in to the biz control panel--do I use gesproductions.com and my SS? It says my password is wrong, but I haven't tried the SS number yet.
VamsiV: You have to use the password not your SSN.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: what's my password?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: my ftp password?
VamsiV: Please hold on while I give you the information.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: also, can you please verify that this is the account number my check should reference: XXXXX
ewriter@bellsouth.net: thank you
VamsiV: The Password for your account is b92rw7x9 [NOTE: I changed the numbers for security, but the syntax is the same—you get the picture.]
ewriter@bellsouth.net: well, i never would have guessed that one.
VamsiV: You have to use gesproductions.com in the UserId or Domain field.
VamsiV:
ewriter@bellsouth.net: Okay. And is my account number correct? Hey, does anyone ever try to make you guys laugh? You know, like knock-knock, who's there, that kind of thing? Or do you have to pick off a menu of responses?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: I mean it seems like someone should brighten your day over there.
VamsiV: Is there anything else that I can help you with?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: IS MY ACCOUNT NUMBER RIGHT? Is this the one I should reference on my check: XXXXX?
VamsiV: Yes the account number is correct.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: okay, thanks. you can go help some other confused user now.
VamsiV: You're welcome and thank you for using EarthLink LiveChat. Should you need further assistance, please feel free to contact us again.
Your LiveChat session has ended. Once you close this window a survey will appear. Please take a few moments to fill this out & let us know how we are doing. Your feedback is very important to us.
[NOTE: the survey never appeared.]
It was my last resort. Make sure it's your last resort too.
Here is the transcript of my "mis-conversation" with the Great and Powerful Oz at Earthlink. Mind you, every time I had to wait for him/her/it to answer, it took two minutes or more. By the end, you'll see, I got kind of punchy. ;-)
Please wait for a site operator to respond. While you are waiting, please feel free to begin typing your issue in the box below. Try to be as descriptive as possible. Once an operator responds, click SEND to transmit what you have typed.
'VamsiV' Thank you for contacting EarthLink LiveChat. How can I help you today?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: i was wondering if you could tell me the current amount I owe on my bill--also what is my password?
VamsiV: Sure, I can give you this information.
VamsiV: For account security, could you please verify the secret word/pin number on the account?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: either XXXX or XXXXXX?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: that's what we usually use...
ewriter@bellsouth.net: we don't have email through you--just web hosting.
VamsiV: I am sorry, the information that you gave does not match with that on our records.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: well, where would I FIND my pin? Do you mean our FTP password??
ewriter@bellsouth.net: I can give you that.
VamsiV: I see that the hint for the secret word is SSN, could you please give me that for verification.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: Either XXXXXXXXX or XXXXXXXXX
[NOTE: Decades Pass—Jenna is now in college…]
ewriter@bellsouth.net: hello?
VamsiV: Please hold on for a moment.
VamsiV: Thank you for being on hold.
VamsiV: The verification that you have given matches that we have on our record.
VamsiV: I found that there is amount of $45.75 due on your account.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: okay--when is it due?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: and is this my correct account number: 0000-00XXXXXXX ?
VamsiV: The account is PastDue, you need to pay the amount so that the account is not Inactive.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: can i do this through you?
VamsiV: Your account number is XXXXX.
VamsiV: I found that you are paying by check.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: I have a payment of $46 scheduled for 7/7 through my online bank account... is that too late?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: or should I pay somewhere online at earthlink--and if so what email and password do I use since I don't have an earthlink email.
VamsiV: I am sorry that there is no online payment service.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: SO WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST? can you note that payment with suntrust is scheduled for 7/7?
VamsiV: It is okay, you can send the payment by that date.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: okay, thanks--pls make sure our site stays up. we have some hits coming. THANKS!
VamsiV: Is there anything else that I can help you with?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: yes, how do I log in to the biz control panel--do I use gesproductions.com and my SS? It says my password is wrong, but I haven't tried the SS number yet.
VamsiV: You have to use the password not your SSN.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: what's my password?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: my ftp password?
VamsiV: Please hold on while I give you the information.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: also, can you please verify that this is the account number my check should reference: XXXXX
ewriter@bellsouth.net: thank you
VamsiV: The Password for your account is b92rw7x9 [NOTE: I changed the numbers for security, but the syntax is the same—you get the picture.]
ewriter@bellsouth.net: well, i never would have guessed that one.
VamsiV: You have to use gesproductions.com in the UserId or Domain field.
VamsiV:
ewriter@bellsouth.net: Okay. And is my account number correct? Hey, does anyone ever try to make you guys laugh? You know, like knock-knock, who's there, that kind of thing? Or do you have to pick off a menu of responses?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: I mean it seems like someone should brighten your day over there.
VamsiV: Is there anything else that I can help you with?
ewriter@bellsouth.net: IS MY ACCOUNT NUMBER RIGHT? Is this the one I should reference on my check: XXXXX?
VamsiV: Yes the account number is correct.
ewriter@bellsouth.net: okay, thanks. you can go help some other confused user now.
VamsiV: You're welcome and thank you for using EarthLink LiveChat. Should you need further assistance, please feel free to contact us again.
Your LiveChat session has ended. Once you close this window a survey will appear. Please take a few moments to fill this out & let us know how we are doing. Your feedback is very important to us.
[NOTE: the survey never appeared.]
George, your article's up
Here it is. This old PR chick still has her mojo, jo-jo. Actually, the folks at All About Jazz are awesome to work with, and they've set up a fine resource in this site with lots of layers. They like me; I like them. This is what we in the b'ness call a 'win-win'.
later--i'm a busy little spin machine today. must run. ta-ta!
later--i'm a busy little spin machine today. must run. ta-ta!
June 29, 2003
George, your mail's down
I keep getting messages bumped back. You better write b-4 you fly. Jenna's been grabing at the keyboard again...
p.s., this called Musik looks like a German(?) Dutch(?) version of your blogname.
enjoy.
p.s., this called Musik looks like a German(?) Dutch(?) version of your blogname.
enjoy.
This Far by Faith | PBS
I'm watching This Far by Faith on PBS today. Fascinating and amazing stories, and so many things I didn't know. I could blog every five minutes on what I'm watching, but instead I'll be watching.
This show chronicles the African-American journey of Faith, from ancient African religious traditions through the impressions by other religions and clutures--Islam and Christianity for example. Ultimately the show celebrates the distinctly wonderful African-American spiritual core, shaped from all that has influenced it--music, love, loss, hatred, death, pain, suffering, joy, revelation, revolution, rebirth, and more.
Interesting people featured, among them Cecil Williams and Thomas Dorsey.
This show chronicles the African-American journey of Faith, from ancient African religious traditions through the impressions by other religions and clutures--Islam and Christianity for example. Ultimately the show celebrates the distinctly wonderful African-American spiritual core, shaped from all that has influenced it--music, love, loss, hatred, death, pain, suffering, joy, revelation, revolution, rebirth, and more.
Interesting people featured, among them Cecil Williams and Thomas Dorsey.
It's funny how they don't leave you alone
I wonder how long it will take for creditors to find us here. You know, a comment from this blogger and that, and then, sprinkled among the comments, "Jeneane, please call Bank Card Services at ..... This is an urgent business matter." My goodness. Don't tell ANY of them they can reach us here.
I just shivered.
I just shivered.
boy, I'll say...
over at what is wrong with me?, a nice description of what it's like..
How long would it take, without blogging, to come across people who voice feelings of angst and rage to one another the way we do here? How long would you have to be friends with someone to hear them utter these words--and would they? Today, my first read of a blog, hearing-relating-understanding happen in seconds.
With the Google Toolbar "blog this" feature, it takes just seconds to share it with the next set of eyes.
Magnitudes of soul-slapping emotion flying and cavorting and crashing.
Falling in love with blogging all over again.
How long would it take, without blogging, to come across people who voice feelings of angst and rage to one another the way we do here? How long would you have to be friends with someone to hear them utter these words--and would they? Today, my first read of a blog, hearing-relating-understanding happen in seconds.
With the Google Toolbar "blog this" feature, it takes just seconds to share it with the next set of eyes.
Magnitudes of soul-slapping emotion flying and cavorting and crashing.
Falling in love with blogging all over again.
June 28, 2003
Google Toolbar
The new Google Toolbar is quite something else. I can see why the other blog software folks are in a tizzy.
But what do they expect, I wonder?
Let's see, Google shells money out for blogger and then DOESN'T incorporate blogtrinsic applications into its Google Toolbar? How stupid would that be? Catch up and get over it. The leaps and bounds acts by Google are good for all of us, because in the end they make all of you move faster to give us better.
I'm using the little "blogger" button at the top to see how the "Blog This" feature works. Apparently, you can post on the fly when you find a page that's worth writing about using this nifty little deal.
My goodness. Imagine... I wonder if it's post specific--i.e., if I'm visiting Halley's blog, can I "blog this" about a specific post? Maybe right click on the permalink or something and have the "Blog This" option appear?
That would be sahweeeet.
This is pretty sweet itself.
bye bye little "blog this" window--going to post and publish now...
But what do they expect, I wonder?
Let's see, Google shells money out for blogger and then DOESN'T incorporate blogtrinsic applications into its Google Toolbar? How stupid would that be? Catch up and get over it. The leaps and bounds acts by Google are good for all of us, because in the end they make all of you move faster to give us better.
I'm using the little "blogger" button at the top to see how the "Blog This" feature works. Apparently, you can post on the fly when you find a page that's worth writing about using this nifty little deal.
My goodness. Imagine... I wonder if it's post specific--i.e., if I'm visiting Halley's blog, can I "blog this" about a specific post? Maybe right click on the permalink or something and have the "Blog This" option appear?
That would be sahweeeet.
This is pretty sweet itself.
bye bye little "blog this" window--going to post and publish now...
June 27, 2003
sperm.com
Have you heard about this one? The world's first "Internet Baby" will arrive next month.
No, this doesn't mean live blogging from the event, or web-cam assisted delivery, which I'm pretty sure have already taken place. In fact, the story is about man not included, a site that nearly removes the man from the conception equation.
FAQs here.
The service, which is marketed as a kind of e-marketplace or match making service between interested parties--both sperm donors and primarily lesbian couples and single women--gives me the willies. Especially the name, and the branding which has all the panache of a dot.com with a rather twisted business model. Guys--if you didn't know what you were good for before, you do now. Ante up the sperm and get lost.
I see a lot being done to ensure peace of mind and security for the sperm consumer, but I don't see fuck-all about making sure the parents to be are legitimate. I'd feel a lot better if I knew no boy children would be born from those drawn to the site.
The notion of "home insemination" with donor sperm from an online matchmaking service that overtly male bashes and now controls the most sacred of data from participants takes conception to a new level: somewhere between a back alley rape and a sterile motherboard insertion.
I wonder when they'll come out with onesies for the children? Imagine the blonde-haired, blue-eyed toddler boys of the future running around with this logo on their chests. Destiny pre-determined.
Am I being too hard on the site and its members? Maybe. But I'll take that chance.
And I'll even do the favor of giving them a tagline for free--one they would no doubt be proud of: "No guy, no lie."
cross posted on Blog Sisters.
No, this doesn't mean live blogging from the event, or web-cam assisted delivery, which I'm pretty sure have already taken place. In fact, the story is about man not included, a site that nearly removes the man from the conception equation.
FAQs here.
The service, which is marketed as a kind of e-marketplace or match making service between interested parties--both sperm donors and primarily lesbian couples and single women--gives me the willies. Especially the name, and the branding which has all the panache of a dot.com with a rather twisted business model. Guys--if you didn't know what you were good for before, you do now. Ante up the sperm and get lost.
I see a lot being done to ensure peace of mind and security for the sperm consumer, but I don't see fuck-all about making sure the parents to be are legitimate. I'd feel a lot better if I knew no boy children would be born from those drawn to the site.
The notion of "home insemination" with donor sperm from an online matchmaking service that overtly male bashes and now controls the most sacred of data from participants takes conception to a new level: somewhere between a back alley rape and a sterile motherboard insertion.
I wonder when they'll come out with onesies for the children? Imagine the blonde-haired, blue-eyed toddler boys of the future running around with this logo on their chests. Destiny pre-determined.
Am I being too hard on the site and its members? Maybe. But I'll take that chance.
And I'll even do the favor of giving them a tagline for free--one they would no doubt be proud of: "No guy, no lie."
cross posted on Blog Sisters.
Now, this is getting interesting
Some really smart talk is going around on blogging and business. If you're looking for people with less of an axe to grind who are thinking this through--some in ways that make good sense to me--read them:
Alan Karl
Stuart Henshall and again here
Dina Mehta
Alan Karl
Stuart Henshall and again here
Dina Mehta
June 26, 2003
JBMCSE: The Only Guaranteed Approach to Corporate Weblogging
To my surprise, given that not a soul has commented over here in DAYS, I made a run on Daypop yesterday, and I caught the attention of Corante, Tom, Rodent Regatta, and The Happy Tutor, the latter of which always does a fine job of making my jaw drop. Thanks to the tutor, many who meet me read my open-mouthed amazement as a run-of-the-miill, stress-induced facial spasm caused by the lack of a day job. If they only knew it was his fault. All of them.
At any rate, encouraged by someone noticing what I write for a change, no offense to my 96 regular readers each day, whom I love more than buttered toast, I decided to put a positive spin on this corporate blogging thing and come up with Jeneane's Blogging Methodology for C-Suite Executives (JBMCSE).
No, it's not proven. No ROI to speak of.
But results are, nonetheless, guaranteed!
JBMCSE: The Only Guaranteed Approach to Corporate Weblogging
Discovery Meeting: Our weblogging consultants will meet with your management team to introduce the JBMCSE methodology and get a better understanding of your business challenges. During this phase, we will provide you with the latest information about weblogging, micromarkets, and what pundits like Jupiter predict for the future of blogging and corporations. We will then try to frighten you away by using the word “risk” frequently without putting “reduces” before it. Please don’t tell your lawyers about this meeting. Counsel is not invited to attend.
Requirements Gathering: Our work with thousands of your customers (through extensive hyperlinking) and competitors (or people on our blogrolls who work therein) means that we bring unique knowledge of your business and marketplace to the requirements gathering process. During the Requirements Gathering phase of JBMCSE, we will work with you to outline your current processes and document the specific improvements weblogging can deliver. We will also outline critical success factors which must be achieved prior to initiating your corporate weblogging program, such as: 1) You’ve used a computer at least once before. 2.) You passed eighth-grade English class. 3.) You don’t want to be on the cover of Business Week just because you blog. Remember, we promise nothing, but guarantee everything!
Current and Future State Analysis: Where is your business today? Are you effective in communicating with your customers and stakeholders? Are your employees satisfied and motivated? Do you have the ear of key influencers in the media? In this phase we will examine the current state of your sales and marketing processes to determine how effective you are in communicating your messages to your market. The JBMCSE’s exclusive technology and tool set are designed to benchmark your current state against the goals of your organization over time--say the next five minutes. Through Gap Analysis, we can identify the process improvements that will enable your organization to rapidly achieve future state success through weblogging.
Recommendations -- The JBMCSE Roadmap: At the end of the JBMCSE process, the team will present you with your tailored JBMCSE Roadmap, which serves as a blueprint for putting your weblogging strategy into action. Recommendations we’ve made to current and former blue chip clients, include:
1) Rip up your org chart, or forget that you’re on the top line, for at least eight weeks.
2) Read six weblogs a day for six months before you type anything.
3) Tear up 4 (four) of your own business cards and put the pieces in your coffee mug. Every time you think about blogging, try drinking them to remind youself you’re human first.
4) Don’t touch the computer until every one of your employees has been encouraged to blog freely.
5) Tell your counsel that you won’t blog a single controversial word, and then do the opposite. Be prepared to cut them a big check.
These are just a few samples from JBMCSE Roadmaps we’ve developed for organizations just like yours. Remember, weblogging strategies are dynamic and complex. What’s “in” today may not be the savvy approach next week. With JBMCSE, we’ll keep our finger on the pulse of weblogging so you don’t have to. The benefits of our approach are rapid and far-reaching:
1) Cost savings: You can fire your PR agency if you do this right.
2) Efficiency gains: Imagine getting all of your paperwork done at the office so that you can go home and blog all night!
3) Happy Customers: No more expensive, resource-intensive CRM programs. Your weblog comment boxes will put you in direct touch with your constituents who never—not ever—mince words.
4) Improved product and service offerings: Test your products and services first via your weblog so you can roll out the right offerings faster, the first time and every time. For example, our “Stone Throwing” Program lets your weblog readers throw actual (i.e., real live) stones at your laptop when you post about planned product enhancements. (Note: It is important that your medical insurance premiums be up to date prior to launching our Stone Throwing program.)
5) Rapid time to market: Your market is “always on” with blogging. Time to market is dramatically reduced—or, well, eliminated!
These are just some of the tangible benefits you can expect from the JBMCSE approach to corporate weblogging. What’s more, ours is the most affordable blogging methdology in the marketplace. For pricing information or to set up a meeting, visit our web site at www.sessum.com. If that doesn’t scare you away, then you’re already a blogger and you don’t really need our services at all. Congratulations!
At any rate, encouraged by someone noticing what I write for a change, no offense to my 96 regular readers each day, whom I love more than buttered toast, I decided to put a positive spin on this corporate blogging thing and come up with Jeneane's Blogging Methodology for C-Suite Executives (JBMCSE).
No, it's not proven. No ROI to speak of.
But results are, nonetheless, guaranteed!
JBMCSE: The Only Guaranteed Approach to Corporate Weblogging
Discovery Meeting: Our weblogging consultants will meet with your management team to introduce the JBMCSE methodology and get a better understanding of your business challenges. During this phase, we will provide you with the latest information about weblogging, micromarkets, and what pundits like Jupiter predict for the future of blogging and corporations. We will then try to frighten you away by using the word “risk” frequently without putting “reduces” before it. Please don’t tell your lawyers about this meeting. Counsel is not invited to attend.
Requirements Gathering: Our work with thousands of your customers (through extensive hyperlinking) and competitors (or people on our blogrolls who work therein) means that we bring unique knowledge of your business and marketplace to the requirements gathering process. During the Requirements Gathering phase of JBMCSE, we will work with you to outline your current processes and document the specific improvements weblogging can deliver. We will also outline critical success factors which must be achieved prior to initiating your corporate weblogging program, such as: 1) You’ve used a computer at least once before. 2.) You passed eighth-grade English class. 3.) You don’t want to be on the cover of Business Week just because you blog. Remember, we promise nothing, but guarantee everything!
Current and Future State Analysis: Where is your business today? Are you effective in communicating with your customers and stakeholders? Are your employees satisfied and motivated? Do you have the ear of key influencers in the media? In this phase we will examine the current state of your sales and marketing processes to determine how effective you are in communicating your messages to your market. The JBMCSE’s exclusive technology and tool set are designed to benchmark your current state against the goals of your organization over time--say the next five minutes. Through Gap Analysis, we can identify the process improvements that will enable your organization to rapidly achieve future state success through weblogging.
Recommendations -- The JBMCSE Roadmap: At the end of the JBMCSE process, the team will present you with your tailored JBMCSE Roadmap, which serves as a blueprint for putting your weblogging strategy into action. Recommendations we’ve made to current and former blue chip clients, include:
1) Rip up your org chart, or forget that you’re on the top line, for at least eight weeks.
2) Read six weblogs a day for six months before you type anything.
3) Tear up 4 (four) of your own business cards and put the pieces in your coffee mug. Every time you think about blogging, try drinking them to remind youself you’re human first.
4) Don’t touch the computer until every one of your employees has been encouraged to blog freely.
5) Tell your counsel that you won’t blog a single controversial word, and then do the opposite. Be prepared to cut them a big check.
These are just a few samples from JBMCSE Roadmaps we’ve developed for organizations just like yours. Remember, weblogging strategies are dynamic and complex. What’s “in” today may not be the savvy approach next week. With JBMCSE, we’ll keep our finger on the pulse of weblogging so you don’t have to. The benefits of our approach are rapid and far-reaching:
1) Cost savings: You can fire your PR agency if you do this right.
2) Efficiency gains: Imagine getting all of your paperwork done at the office so that you can go home and blog all night!
3) Happy Customers: No more expensive, resource-intensive CRM programs. Your weblog comment boxes will put you in direct touch with your constituents who never—not ever—mince words.
4) Improved product and service offerings: Test your products and services first via your weblog so you can roll out the right offerings faster, the first time and every time. For example, our “Stone Throwing” Program lets your weblog readers throw actual (i.e., real live) stones at your laptop when you post about planned product enhancements. (Note: It is important that your medical insurance premiums be up to date prior to launching our Stone Throwing program.)
5) Rapid time to market: Your market is “always on” with blogging. Time to market is dramatically reduced—or, well, eliminated!
These are just some of the tangible benefits you can expect from the JBMCSE approach to corporate weblogging. What’s more, ours is the most affordable blogging methdology in the marketplace. For pricing information or to set up a meeting, visit our web site at www.sessum.com. If that doesn’t scare you away, then you’re already a blogger and you don’t really need our services at all. Congratulations!
June 24, 2003
Holy Mother Nature!
Jenna and I drove up to her best friend's grandparent's place in Big Canoe today. We climbed the twisty mountain roads for what seemed like forever, two minivans with two impatient little girls traveling caravan style. All the while I couldn't stop looking around, then back to the road just in time to keep from careening off a tight edge.
A tornado came through Big Canoe not too long ago. What amazed me was that you could still see the paths it cut through the woods, trees gone or split so far down at the roots, some completely uprooted, that the destruction took my breath away. I wish I had taken the camera with me. But to be honest, I didn't know what to expect at Big Canoe. I guess I expected... well.... a big canoe and a lake.
In fact, Big Canoe is l-i-v-i-n-g. It sort of made me hanker for a real job and a 401-K plan. I walked through the fitness facility, the indoor pool, swam in the saline-filtered (with MINERAL water) outdoor pool, took the kids to a flat area where they could ride scooters, watched them build sandcastles on the beach, tromped around in the lake, watched folks canoe and ride paddle boats. And I'm thinking, some people get to do this EVERY day. What the heck must that be like?
This saline filtration thing they've got going on now in the world of pools is truly amazing. The water has the bouyancy of the sea. It's crystal clear, clean, and it doesn't sting your skin or eyes at all. An honest confession that you probably wouldn't believe: Today I opened my eyes for the very first time under water. Yes, it's true. I've been swimming with my eyes closed my whole life. Chlorine always hurt my face and eyes so badly that I never dared open them.
I saw a sign with the name of the filtration system on it: Chlor-King, and of course, since a website was listed, I had to come back and spread the news. In this saline mineral water stuff, you can open your eyes and it actually feels g-o-o-d. soothing. Your bathing suit doesn't get all smelly-crummy, and your skin feels like you've come from the spa (like I know what that's like. ha.) Smooooth and silky.
I am hooked. Could easily become addicted.
Now, where'd I put that darn lottery ticket.
A tornado came through Big Canoe not too long ago. What amazed me was that you could still see the paths it cut through the woods, trees gone or split so far down at the roots, some completely uprooted, that the destruction took my breath away. I wish I had taken the camera with me. But to be honest, I didn't know what to expect at Big Canoe. I guess I expected... well.... a big canoe and a lake.
In fact, Big Canoe is l-i-v-i-n-g. It sort of made me hanker for a real job and a 401-K plan. I walked through the fitness facility, the indoor pool, swam in the saline-filtered (with MINERAL water) outdoor pool, took the kids to a flat area where they could ride scooters, watched them build sandcastles on the beach, tromped around in the lake, watched folks canoe and ride paddle boats. And I'm thinking, some people get to do this EVERY day. What the heck must that be like?
This saline filtration thing they've got going on now in the world of pools is truly amazing. The water has the bouyancy of the sea. It's crystal clear, clean, and it doesn't sting your skin or eyes at all. An honest confession that you probably wouldn't believe: Today I opened my eyes for the very first time under water. Yes, it's true. I've been swimming with my eyes closed my whole life. Chlorine always hurt my face and eyes so badly that I never dared open them.
I saw a sign with the name of the filtration system on it: Chlor-King, and of course, since a website was listed, I had to come back and spread the news. In this saline mineral water stuff, you can open your eyes and it actually feels g-o-o-d. soothing. Your bathing suit doesn't get all smelly-crummy, and your skin feels like you've come from the spa (like I know what that's like. ha.) Smooooth and silky.
I am hooked. Could easily become addicted.
Now, where'd I put that darn lottery ticket.
June 23, 2003
something you will never read about on the Jupiter blog
She's a fish.
A low swiming, slip sliding, butt up in the air, no floatie wearing fish.
Today the floatie swim suit came off, she had her first swimming lesson, and the rest is history. By the end of the day she was diving off the edge and swiming half the length of the pool underwater. Our little girl can S-W-I-M!
She was so excited by this quantum leap in ability -- just yesterday she couldn't put her face in the water without gasping and cringing -- that the water felt electric with her in it. She was a supercharged power boat.
"I can SWIM, Mom! I can SWIM! I'm FREEE!"
I was surprised by my own emotion when I took the suit off later in the day and told her to practice what she learned. She didn't of course--instead she took off swimming like an underwater bullet. So much for the bubble blowing exercises. The confidence boost was all she needed. But as I watched her reach this latest milestone, I had tears in my eyes. Swimming today, driving tomorrow, leaving home the next: I'm FREEE!
And I don't know whether to be happy to have instilled in her the value of freedom, of individuality and ability, or devastated that she's already getting her sea legs.
Can't I put her back in? Just for a day? A week or two? A lifetime? That is my unbirth instinct--to put her back inside. Where I can keep my hands on her and love her and protect her and look forward to all of this instead of watching it pass too soon.
A low swiming, slip sliding, butt up in the air, no floatie wearing fish.
Today the floatie swim suit came off, she had her first swimming lesson, and the rest is history. By the end of the day she was diving off the edge and swiming half the length of the pool underwater. Our little girl can S-W-I-M!
She was so excited by this quantum leap in ability -- just yesterday she couldn't put her face in the water without gasping and cringing -- that the water felt electric with her in it. She was a supercharged power boat.
"I can SWIM, Mom! I can SWIM! I'm FREEE!"
I was surprised by my own emotion when I took the suit off later in the day and told her to practice what she learned. She didn't of course--instead she took off swimming like an underwater bullet. So much for the bubble blowing exercises. The confidence boost was all she needed. But as I watched her reach this latest milestone, I had tears in my eyes. Swimming today, driving tomorrow, leaving home the next: I'm FREEE!
And I don't know whether to be happy to have instilled in her the value of freedom, of individuality and ability, or devastated that she's already getting her sea legs.
Can't I put her back in? Just for a day? A week or two? A lifetime? That is my unbirth instinct--to put her back inside. Where I can keep my hands on her and love her and protect her and look forward to all of this instead of watching it pass too soon.
Tom gets it
And writes about it way better than I ever could have. And I'm not saying that just because he references my post.
honest.
You know, I've been in the business world--marketing in particular, PR against my better judgment--for 20 years now. I know motives when I smell them. It was my job to spin them for the biggest of the big for a long time.
I am not saying CEOs shouldn't blog. I am saying corporations shouldn't blog. They should connect with bloggers and support our voices because, well, duh, we are their customers and we are their employees.
I am saying that CEOs shouldn't look at blogging as a way for them to write their own press releases, sound "smart," and save some money on marketing. Because that's really not necessary: WE ALREADY KNOW YOU LIKE YOUR OWN STUFF.
If "legitimate executives" decide to blog, they ought to show something of themselves. They ought to write about the car accident they had last week, about who they talked to on the plane to London and what ideas the conversation sparked, and they ought to do that more than they talk about their next seminar. [Link to Mr. Meckler's blog absent because he doesn't have permalinks yet.]
I've seen companies go at blogging early and wrong. I was at one of them. In most of the cases, the company's marketing department or web design group is being charged with the task of "getting us into that blogging thing," and the result is a dramatic increase in pixel-litter on the web. Nothing more.
One of the largest companies in the U.S. was picking my brain about weblogging recently. They were unable to get their heads out of demographic-think and into micromarket-think. They can't stop targeting and start talking. They just can't. And if you think the corporate lawyers will let them think differently, then understand that those lawyers--at least in this case--are paid good money not to let them.
To me, there is more evidence that the business value of blogging lies in the way we connect as 'people' first (people who share passions or concerns AND who happen to work somplace or doing some thing for a living). Then, through this discovery of one another we're doing through blogging, if we click, we go to the marketplace together.
And, damn. I didn't know George Partington had gone until I read Tom's post. That sucks.
honest.
You know, I've been in the business world--marketing in particular, PR against my better judgment--for 20 years now. I know motives when I smell them. It was my job to spin them for the biggest of the big for a long time.
I am not saying CEOs shouldn't blog. I am saying corporations shouldn't blog. They should connect with bloggers and support our voices because, well, duh, we are their customers and we are their employees.
I am saying that CEOs shouldn't look at blogging as a way for them to write their own press releases, sound "smart," and save some money on marketing. Because that's really not necessary: WE ALREADY KNOW YOU LIKE YOUR OWN STUFF.
If "legitimate executives" decide to blog, they ought to show something of themselves. They ought to write about the car accident they had last week, about who they talked to on the plane to London and what ideas the conversation sparked, and they ought to do that more than they talk about their next seminar. [Link to Mr. Meckler's blog absent because he doesn't have permalinks yet.]
I've seen companies go at blogging early and wrong. I was at one of them. In most of the cases, the company's marketing department or web design group is being charged with the task of "getting us into that blogging thing," and the result is a dramatic increase in pixel-litter on the web. Nothing more.
One of the largest companies in the U.S. was picking my brain about weblogging recently. They were unable to get their heads out of demographic-think and into micromarket-think. They can't stop targeting and start talking. They just can't. And if you think the corporate lawyers will let them think differently, then understand that those lawyers--at least in this case--are paid good money not to let them.
To me, there is more evidence that the business value of blogging lies in the way we connect as 'people' first (people who share passions or concerns AND who happen to work somplace or doing some thing for a living). Then, through this discovery of one another we're doing through blogging, if we click, we go to the marketplace together.
And, damn. I didn't know George Partington had gone until I read Tom's post. That sucks.
the last one off the ledge is a rotten egg!
Who will join me in leaping to a firey death after reading The NY Times article on "The Corporate Blog"? Kudos to Halley for fine placement and well-deserved recognition, but now that I got that out of the way, for the love of all that is holy, I must take my own life.
The "corporate blog?"
The CORPORATE blog?
NEWS FLASH: CORPORATIONS CAN'T BLOG. ONLY HUMANS CAN BLOG.
Please, please, if a single executive is left among my readers, READ THIS from ME:
DO NOT blog as your business card title.
Do not blog as a CEO. First, last, and always, Blog as a father, blog as a mother, blog as a lover, blog as a gardener, a kick boxer, a trail walker, a brother, a sister, a pianist, a lover of literature, an auto freak, a war monger, a peace lover, a door hanger, a little league coach, a cross-dresser, a rock-n-roll fanatic, a gadget lover, a cancer survivor, a computer nerd, an antique train collector, a griever, a lover of striped ties or fancy underwear--whatever. Blog from your gut, your places of passion, blog about what brings you joy, what socks you in the middle and knocks the wind out of you, but for pete's sake, don't blog from your BUSINESS CARD TITLE!!!
"Legitimate excecutive" voices like Mr. Meckler's? OH MY, ouch. chest pain. severe. Let's read the humanity in the snippet pulled from his blog in the article, shall we? All together now:
"If an organizer truly pushes the intellectual side first with a well thought out and honest seminar program, critical and financial success ultimately comes one's way. Just like the movie `Field of Dreams' — `if you build it, they will come.' "
If you write one more word, I will puke.
Yes, I understand that legitimate executives like Mr. Meckler are passionate about their business. Fine. Then let them write a book about it. What they bring to THIS place should be something else, should be their genuine voices to share. Splash the seminar speak in along the way if you can't restrain yourself, but don't expect anyone to read it for long.
WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PRODUCT; WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES YOU WEEP. WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR SERVICE; WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES YOU COME.
And I'm not talking field of dreams.
If we like you, if we connect on that level, then we meet in the marketplace, maybe.
Got it? Get it.
Because you won't win here. If you drive us out--if "corporate weblogs" drown out the genuine voices here--we'll find a new place, and the brains and hearts will go there. And if you try to chase us there instead of attempting to listen, understand, and talk with us, we will reject you there too.
God Bless Tim O'Reilly, the voice of reason in the article:
"He views blogging as a way for chief executives to do an end run around the company's public relations firms and "glossy brochures" and speak directly to customers and vendors."
Tim, may you live long and prosper. Please, reproduce soon and often and send your child bloggers here.
Look, I should be sleeping. I am tried. I tried. I thought, NO Jeneane, don't even write about it. It's too far gone. Let it pass.
But I couldn't sleep without addressing this.
Instead I called a blog buddy and said, "Have you heard? Weblogging is dead."
Okay, maybe I'm overreacting. But I fear I'm not. I said that the Jupiter conference was bad news--it had the wrong taste, flavor, and I was afraid the artificial sweetner would kill us all.
Diet Coke anyone?
The "corporate blog?"
The CORPORATE blog?
NEWS FLASH: CORPORATIONS CAN'T BLOG. ONLY HUMANS CAN BLOG.
Please, please, if a single executive is left among my readers, READ THIS from ME:
DO NOT blog as your business card title.
Do not blog as a CEO. First, last, and always, Blog as a father, blog as a mother, blog as a lover, blog as a gardener, a kick boxer, a trail walker, a brother, a sister, a pianist, a lover of literature, an auto freak, a war monger, a peace lover, a door hanger, a little league coach, a cross-dresser, a rock-n-roll fanatic, a gadget lover, a cancer survivor, a computer nerd, an antique train collector, a griever, a lover of striped ties or fancy underwear--whatever. Blog from your gut, your places of passion, blog about what brings you joy, what socks you in the middle and knocks the wind out of you, but for pete's sake, don't blog from your BUSINESS CARD TITLE!!!
"Legitimate excecutive" voices like Mr. Meckler's? OH MY, ouch. chest pain. severe. Let's read the humanity in the snippet pulled from his blog in the article, shall we? All together now:
"If an organizer truly pushes the intellectual side first with a well thought out and honest seminar program, critical and financial success ultimately comes one's way. Just like the movie `Field of Dreams' — `if you build it, they will come.' "
If you write one more word, I will puke.
Yes, I understand that legitimate executives like Mr. Meckler are passionate about their business. Fine. Then let them write a book about it. What they bring to THIS place should be something else, should be their genuine voices to share. Splash the seminar speak in along the way if you can't restrain yourself, but don't expect anyone to read it for long.
WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PRODUCT; WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES YOU WEEP. WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR SERVICE; WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES YOU COME.
And I'm not talking field of dreams.
If we like you, if we connect on that level, then we meet in the marketplace, maybe.
Got it? Get it.
Because you won't win here. If you drive us out--if "corporate weblogs" drown out the genuine voices here--we'll find a new place, and the brains and hearts will go there. And if you try to chase us there instead of attempting to listen, understand, and talk with us, we will reject you there too.
God Bless Tim O'Reilly, the voice of reason in the article:
"He views blogging as a way for chief executives to do an end run around the company's public relations firms and "glossy brochures" and speak directly to customers and vendors."
Tim, may you live long and prosper. Please, reproduce soon and often and send your child bloggers here.
Look, I should be sleeping. I am tried. I tried. I thought, NO Jeneane, don't even write about it. It's too far gone. Let it pass.
But I couldn't sleep without addressing this.
Instead I called a blog buddy and said, "Have you heard? Weblogging is dead."
Okay, maybe I'm overreacting. But I fear I'm not. I said that the Jupiter conference was bad news--it had the wrong taste, flavor, and I was afraid the artificial sweetner would kill us all.
Diet Coke anyone?
June 22, 2003
summertime summertime sum sum summertime...
someone's learning to swim. someone's learning to relax.
We love we love we love the water.
happy summer, ya'll.
We love we love we love the water.
happy summer, ya'll.
June 21, 2003
MOVIE TOO! dream a little dream of me
Click to watch mini-movie.
Jenna is the last on the right--the one who did SOOO good.
Dream A Little Dream of Me
Stars shining bright above you,
Night breezes seem to whisper, "I love you";
Birds singin' in the sycamore tree;
Dream a little dream of me...
Say "nighty-night" and kiss me,
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me;
While I'm alone and blue as can be,
Dream a little dream of me...
Stars fading, but I linger on, dear,
Still craving your kiss;
I'm longing to linger til dawn, dear,
Just saying this:
Sweet dreams til sun beams find you,
Sweet dreams that leave our worries behind you;
But in your dreams, whatever they be,
Dream a little dream of me
Instrumental part.
Stars fading, but I linger on, dear,
Still craving your kiss;
I'm longing to linger til dawn dear,
Just saying this:
Sweet dreams til sun beams find you,
Sweet dreams that leave our worries far behind you;
But in your dreams, whatever they be,
Dream a little dream of me.
June 20, 2003
no writing
just exhaustion and anger. that's all. something about being let down. I just want to remember this feeling. so I'm putting it here. no more let downs. letting down. feeling let down. what does it mean? two odd words put together. not feeling down. feeling let down. a discernable difference. something about it not being my fault. who do I let down. my kid. so tired... baby I won't let you down. carry the world on my shoulders. and it's so heavy. there are others. letting me down. down.
how much is it not about feeling down, but feeling let down.
i dunno. i know i want to lay down. but i can't. because someone's bopping around getting ready for her dance recital dress rehersal. ought to go til 9.
i really miss sleeping.
every day I say today I'll take a nap. every day I have emails/work come in, calls, every day it's time to get jenna, or she's here so work goes on until midnight. every day i want to lay down, let down. every day i delay. makes me a little angrier. when do I get to let down?
how much is it not about feeling down, but feeling let down.
i dunno. i know i want to lay down. but i can't. because someone's bopping around getting ready for her dance recital dress rehersal. ought to go til 9.
i really miss sleeping.
every day I say today I'll take a nap. every day I have emails/work come in, calls, every day it's time to get jenna, or she's here so work goes on until midnight. every day i want to lay down, let down. every day i delay. makes me a little angrier. when do I get to let down?
June 19, 2003
techno-peasant help
Does anyone know what i have to do to get George's archives to show up? When you click on the archives index link in the sidebar, it takes you to a blank page that says: "template file not found: /opt/tomcat4/webapps/Blogger/templates/76/default_a.html". I have no idea how to rectify this. The archive page was there initially when I skinned his blog, but now it's not. advice????
thank you,
techno-pleeb.
thank you,
techno-pleeb.
June 17, 2003
poooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool
So I coughed up money I don't have and joined the pool at the subdivision behind ours. We've gone three times now. One and a half times we actually got to swim. Seems Jenna and I are human lightning rods, and whenever we get a tinsy bit close to the pool, the skies open up with a light show of magnificent proportions.
But yesterday we got to swim some, play sharks and minows, play Marco Polo, and all day I remember how very much I love the water. When I'm in the water, I don't see any reason why I should ever have to get out. The feeling amazes me anew every single time.
I imagine great channels of water running parallel to the highways and biways of Atlanta, more like water slides than roads, and I imagine going everywhere by scooting along my magical blue highway. I imagine towel stops instead of traffic lights. I see entrance ramps welcoming dozens of happy travelers onto my watery route.
It would solve traffic congestion, wouldn't it? Forget busses and MARTA. I want to lobby for great lanes of water, and inner tubes for all. Five months of the year, everyone would be more tan, more fit, more relaxed, if not a bit wet, in their comings and goings to work.
I imagine walking wet headed and sunburned into my next client meeting, ten minutes late, with a smile, saying "The current was against me today--sorry," and everyone understanding, them wet headed drinking bottled water, ruddy and beaming, "Yah, a wild ride today."
No more road rage, just giggles and tumbles and swirls as we float our way through the day.
And why not?
But yesterday we got to swim some, play sharks and minows, play Marco Polo, and all day I remember how very much I love the water. When I'm in the water, I don't see any reason why I should ever have to get out. The feeling amazes me anew every single time.
I imagine great channels of water running parallel to the highways and biways of Atlanta, more like water slides than roads, and I imagine going everywhere by scooting along my magical blue highway. I imagine towel stops instead of traffic lights. I see entrance ramps welcoming dozens of happy travelers onto my watery route.
It would solve traffic congestion, wouldn't it? Forget busses and MARTA. I want to lobby for great lanes of water, and inner tubes for all. Five months of the year, everyone would be more tan, more fit, more relaxed, if not a bit wet, in their comings and goings to work.
I imagine walking wet headed and sunburned into my next client meeting, ten minutes late, with a smile, saying "The current was against me today--sorry," and everyone understanding, them wet headed drinking bottled water, ruddy and beaming, "Yah, a wild ride today."
No more road rage, just giggles and tumbles and swirls as we float our way through the day.
And why not?
June 15, 2003
Uncle Monkey!
Elaine mentions on blog sisters that the Discovery channel has an evolution show on that tows the hardline evolution monkey-to-man theory. Bunch-o-Bunk. Enjoy it if you have cable. I get the picture from the pictures on the site. Too bad the Times article on the discovery in Ethiopia blows this theory out of the water. Too bad we've always been human. Ah well... who am I to say.
Everyone, PET A MONKEY TODAY! HE MAY BE YOUR LONG LOST UNCLE! Check out the site and see your relatives. Then be very proud that we have come so far. Wshew! Glad we're out of that nasty fur.
June 14, 2003
she really IS devine!
Everyone's favorite Betsy Devine was interviewed by that Barbara Walters of Blogland, Frank Paynter, and the interview is here..
And as a side route on the road to enjoyment, and thanks to Dave, King of All That Is Blog (D,KOATIB), Betsy's DAUGHTER is now blogging from the netherregions of Harvard. Check out her blog--this woman child inherrited her mother's genes for wit and writing.
Seriousity!
I was saddened to see that it took frank FOUR questions before he asked Betsy anything sexual in nature. Frank, you've got to get back into practice. Remember, you act all innocent in question ONE and then throw the sex stuff in question TWO. I think you need to do a few more interviews to get back into shape over there at Sexhill Trek or whatever you call that joint, Paynter.
But seriously, great job, and fantastic interview with a gem of a subject. I admire Betsy to the eyebrows, even if she didn't like Locke's battered women recipe--something we riffed on during a phone call when he was making battered chicken or some such breaded dinner--and especially since Ms. Devine was thrown out of her first prep school, the Mary C. Wheeler School of Providence, RI, the year I was born. I'm more proud than ever of my birth year.
Rock on.
And as a side route on the road to enjoyment, and thanks to Dave, King of All That Is Blog (D,KOATIB), Betsy's DAUGHTER is now blogging from the netherregions of Harvard. Check out her blog--this woman child inherrited her mother's genes for wit and writing.
Seriousity!
I was saddened to see that it took frank FOUR questions before he asked Betsy anything sexual in nature. Frank, you've got to get back into practice. Remember, you act all innocent in question ONE and then throw the sex stuff in question TWO. I think you need to do a few more interviews to get back into shape over there at Sexhill Trek or whatever you call that joint, Paynter.
But seriously, great job, and fantastic interview with a gem of a subject. I admire Betsy to the eyebrows, even if she didn't like Locke's battered women recipe--something we riffed on during a phone call when he was making battered chicken or some such breaded dinner--and especially since Ms. Devine was thrown out of her first prep school, the Mary C. Wheeler School of Providence, RI, the year I was born. I'm more proud than ever of my birth year.
Rock on.
Growing Up Blog
Jenna was playing with her cymbals last night that Uncle Gary Turner and family sent her for her fifth birthday.
She's turning them over, looking at them top and bottom, and then she asks me:
"Who got these cymbals for me again?"
I said, "Gary Turner, honey." She must have remembered me telling her a year ago that Gary lives in England. Because she says:
"Mom, Is he the king of England?"
I'm smiling.
"Well, no. Not really. He's a blogger."
"Oh. Well, does he wear a crown?"
"I think sometimes," I say.
LONG LIVE THE KING!
She's turning them over, looking at them top and bottom, and then she asks me:
"Who got these cymbals for me again?"
I said, "Gary Turner, honey." She must have remembered me telling her a year ago that Gary lives in England. Because she says:
"Mom, Is he the king of England?"
I'm smiling.
"Well, no. Not really. He's a blogger."
"Oh. Well, does he wear a crown?"
"I think sometimes," I say.
LONG LIVE THE KING!
June 13, 2003
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEORGE!
two minutes to mid-night and a post to wish George a happy June 14th birthday. Hey, honey, I skinned your blog for your present. There wasn't any other way to fix it. Hope you like your new look. Have a happy....
calling all template experts
if anyone can figure out what happened to george's blog, can you let us know how to fix it? Neither he nor I fooled with the template, yet somehow it's turned into a four-column free for all. huh? It was moved to the new blogger interface... but it had been working okay.
stumped,
-jeneane
stumped,
-jeneane
June 11, 2003
The Jupiter Biz Blogging Event Group Photo: What Blogging Means for Business
[Actually I lifted it from Neik, who has an interesting take on why this bizblogconferenceblogging stuff is annoying some of us.]
I, on the other hand, am here pondering how there could be so very many very white people in Barcelona.
back to that
Against my better judgment, I go back to this, and point you to this new article, which declares Ethiopians are our shared ancestors. The writing is all over the place, and evolutionary scientists can't even agree on what it means, but I liked two quotes.
This one: We can conclusively say that Neanderthals had nothing to do with modern humans. - Dr. Berhane Asfaw, a co-leader of the discovery team from the Rift Valley Research in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
And this one: "The team concluded, 'In this sense, we are all African.'"
Wait til I run down the Quick Trip and tell Bubba!
This one: We can conclusively say that Neanderthals had nothing to do with modern humans. - Dr. Berhane Asfaw, a co-leader of the discovery team from the Rift Valley Research in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
And this one: "The team concluded, 'In this sense, we are all African.'"
Wait til I run down the Quick Trip and tell Bubba!
June 10, 2003
Anything But
Over on David's blog Marc Canter gallops in and agrees with my not-so-casual jab at the Jupiter business-n-blogging event, where anyblogger who's anyblogger is speaking, real-time conference blogging, blogging about bloggers blogging, and thank goodness for Halley, at least, looking up a cheesecake recipe or two.
If Halley only knew that Victoria Secret's annual sale is on and that all the good stuff is going fast, I think she'd probably skip out of the Jupiter biz-blogorgy and get to where the real action is.
No. Seriously. It's like this. What the best teachers of writing tell you--and I did have some of the best under Leslie Fiedler at UB--is this simple secret: Don't take writing or English classes to learn how to write. Take philosophy, take history, take music, take anything but. It is the context that surrounds your voice that informs what you say.
So too with blogging. Don't paint it as a discipline. Don't cloak it in a methodology, Don't sully it with law. Live and grow, be bold enough to say what you see, and powerful blogging will follow. And if it doesn't follow us into business, then all the better. Because business will have to rearrange its context to keep up.
So be careful there, Jupiter gang. I love you all, but you're giving me a grand ulcer.
If Halley only knew that Victoria Secret's annual sale is on and that all the good stuff is going fast, I think she'd probably skip out of the Jupiter biz-blogorgy and get to where the real action is.
No. Seriously. It's like this. What the best teachers of writing tell you--and I did have some of the best under Leslie Fiedler at UB--is this simple secret: Don't take writing or English classes to learn how to write. Take philosophy, take history, take music, take anything but. It is the context that surrounds your voice that informs what you say.
So too with blogging. Don't paint it as a discipline. Don't cloak it in a methodology, Don't sully it with law. Live and grow, be bold enough to say what you see, and powerful blogging will follow. And if it doesn't follow us into business, then all the better. Because business will have to rearrange its context to keep up.
So be careful there, Jupiter gang. I love you all, but you're giving me a grand ulcer.
June 09, 2003
Unblogging the Boston Jupiter Blogging Conference OR meta meta meta meta blogging
First, there is something really creepy about a boatload of bloggers blogging a blogging conference.
I wonder why it feels like I just flipped top down with my feet on the ceiling all over again?
To say a blog is a proxy self would demand that you show yourself, non?
Those unsettling old corporate worries come to mind when I think of all that blogging intellectual captial in one place. What if something happened? PLEASE, Jupiter blog conference speakers and attendees, for the LOVE of GOD, take SEPARATE cabs home, SEPARATE flights home. Don't stay in the same HOTELS. We could lose everything we've built up in one fell swoop!
Anyone know where the restroom is?
I signed up for the distance learning panel called, "Stop talking about blogging and blog."
It is right after the session called, "You see me, but I don't see you."
I think I'm losing my mind.
I think two classes of bloggers will emerge: those who show themselves and those who replicate old media traditions, including conferences about disciplines that don't really have any discipline.
I think I know which type will make money.
I think I know which type will make art.
I think I know I better keep a day job.
Oh fuck, I forgot I don't have one.
Can someone pass me a Diet Coke?
Where the hell IS the bathroom in this place?
I wonder why it feels like I just flipped top down with my feet on the ceiling all over again?
To say a blog is a proxy self would demand that you show yourself, non?
Those unsettling old corporate worries come to mind when I think of all that blogging intellectual captial in one place. What if something happened? PLEASE, Jupiter blog conference speakers and attendees, for the LOVE of GOD, take SEPARATE cabs home, SEPARATE flights home. Don't stay in the same HOTELS. We could lose everything we've built up in one fell swoop!
Anyone know where the restroom is?
I signed up for the distance learning panel called, "Stop talking about blogging and blog."
It is right after the session called, "You see me, but I don't see you."
I think I'm losing my mind.
I think two classes of bloggers will emerge: those who show themselves and those who replicate old media traditions, including conferences about disciplines that don't really have any discipline.
I think I know which type will make money.
I think I know which type will make art.
I think I know I better keep a day job.
Oh fuck, I forgot I don't have one.
Can someone pass me a Diet Coke?
Where the hell IS the bathroom in this place?
Nina June
When I was born, my father said, let's name her Nina June, the "I" in Nina being a long I, not a short i.
NineofJune, Nina June, that was my father's sense of humor. Quiet and stealth, and when he'd slide one in to home plate, he caught everyone off guard. My brother inherited that ability. He doesn't say much, but when he pipes up with the wisecrack, it's always the one thing you wouldn't have thought of. That rare breed of sense of humor represents an uncanny way of connecting with people--humor improvisation. Read the moment, interpret it back, surprise them all.
So I wasn't named Nina June, but I was named Jeneane, which is close enough to June 9 in its own right to have made my father happy.
I have always loved my name.
All during my school years, the Heathers and Susans and Allisons in my gang of friends hated their names. "I hate my name!" It was the cliche teenage suburban complaint. Too few other worries. One's name is easy fodder for self loathing. Or drama.
I would always announce back proudly, "I love my name." Maybe that's because I know the story of my naming, that I was almost Nina June, that they let my sister have the honor of spelling "Jeneane," and that she was nine, learning "the first vowel talks and the second vowel walks," which explains her choice of the "ea" in the middle. There aren't many of us. Maybe that's why I like my name.
Maybe it's because I could have been Nina June.
Maybe it's because I still miss my daddy.
Now for what will be another year of my life. This year will be my 35th year without him. It's hard to face your own mortality at six because your father had to face his. Each year it gets a little harder. I've been on borrowed time for a lot of years--at least on the clock I've kept for myself.
It made so much more sense a year, a decade, afterward. With each year I lose more of his face, his voice, his touch, his music, his smile. Now when they come, they surprise me. Except for Nina June.
Nina June is always with me.
NineofJune, Nina June, that was my father's sense of humor. Quiet and stealth, and when he'd slide one in to home plate, he caught everyone off guard. My brother inherited that ability. He doesn't say much, but when he pipes up with the wisecrack, it's always the one thing you wouldn't have thought of. That rare breed of sense of humor represents an uncanny way of connecting with people--humor improvisation. Read the moment, interpret it back, surprise them all.
So I wasn't named Nina June, but I was named Jeneane, which is close enough to June 9 in its own right to have made my father happy.
I have always loved my name.
All during my school years, the Heathers and Susans and Allisons in my gang of friends hated their names. "I hate my name!" It was the cliche teenage suburban complaint. Too few other worries. One's name is easy fodder for self loathing. Or drama.
I would always announce back proudly, "I love my name." Maybe that's because I know the story of my naming, that I was almost Nina June, that they let my sister have the honor of spelling "Jeneane," and that she was nine, learning "the first vowel talks and the second vowel walks," which explains her choice of the "ea" in the middle. There aren't many of us. Maybe that's why I like my name.
Maybe it's because I could have been Nina June.
Maybe it's because I still miss my daddy.
Now for what will be another year of my life. This year will be my 35th year without him. It's hard to face your own mortality at six because your father had to face his. Each year it gets a little harder. I've been on borrowed time for a lot of years--at least on the clock I've kept for myself.
It made so much more sense a year, a decade, afterward. With each year I lose more of his face, his voice, his touch, his music, his smile. Now when they come, they surprise me. Except for Nina June.
Nina June is always with me.
June 07, 2003
June 06, 2003
skin deep
It isn't in the mirror
that she sees the real damage
No, it's in touching wounds
full flesh giving in to kind hands
that aren't her own
she learned what beauty was
society smart class and manners
affected accents and false language
it is the thing writers are made of
this burrowing into the space between
what they say
and who they are.
The middle is where
stories are made.
How could she know
her beauty wasn't her own.
clarity of message unspoken
this isn't your place
it's mine,
my echo.
the roles we play
take their toll in self.
we meet the world with
a layer of cheesy white
protecting delicate skin.
We spend the rest of our days
raw.
that she sees the real damage
No, it's in touching wounds
full flesh giving in to kind hands
that aren't her own
she learned what beauty was
society smart class and manners
affected accents and false language
it is the thing writers are made of
this burrowing into the space between
what they say
and who they are.
The middle is where
stories are made.
How could she know
her beauty wasn't her own.
clarity of message unspoken
this isn't your place
it's mine,
my echo.
the roles we play
take their toll in self.
we meet the world with
a layer of cheesy white
protecting delicate skin.
We spend the rest of our days
raw.
wooden world
each day she awoke
a carpenter
hammering nails into
thin boards
building a world by herself
measure twice, cut once
splashing technicolor
paint onto flaws and knots
show me show the world
that nothing is wrong.
A mirage built for one
but you helped too.
It is in the best interest
of love 101 to keep things
as they aren't.
It takes tremendous care
work, cobbling, coloring
mostly imagination
splitting what is from what
should be.
It's never simple
except in pieces
one board at a time
keep your head down
square the edges
some glue here
some screws there
it is amazing what pain
will build
to protect itself.
when her world was finished
she marveled at its beauty
while underneath
splinters and blood
told the real story
slicing and bleeding
terror and peeling
nothing she made
was built to last.
a carpenter
hammering nails into
thin boards
building a world by herself
measure twice, cut once
splashing technicolor
paint onto flaws and knots
show me show the world
that nothing is wrong.
A mirage built for one
but you helped too.
It is in the best interest
of love 101 to keep things
as they aren't.
It takes tremendous care
work, cobbling, coloring
mostly imagination
splitting what is from what
should be.
It's never simple
except in pieces
one board at a time
keep your head down
square the edges
some glue here
some screws there
it is amazing what pain
will build
to protect itself.
when her world was finished
she marveled at its beauty
while underneath
splinters and blood
told the real story
slicing and bleeding
terror and peeling
nothing she made
was built to last.
June 05, 2003
grieving
it's not that it snuck up on me
like the stairway climb to my father's room
me with a brown paper sack of get well cards
made by the delicate hands of children
him dead.
It's not like that, grief.
you feel it coming
or I have at least
two, three days
up then down wondering
why I feel this way
knowing what I don't know
it eases down
not like terror
not like being jolted from sleep
not like the burning in your chest
before your heart shatters
not like nails dug into the
dirty ash tray on the side door
of the Buick, bearing your weight
hard away from the center line
pressing your 12-year-old feet
on imaginary brakes from
the back seat.
Grief is not like that.
It isn't the warm explosion
that starts in your thighs and
climbs to your cheeks,
dry mouth, clenched hands
immobile. That is still terror.
Grief isn't still; it moves,
finally.
like the stairway climb to my father's room
me with a brown paper sack of get well cards
made by the delicate hands of children
him dead.
It's not like that, grief.
you feel it coming
or I have at least
two, three days
up then down wondering
why I feel this way
knowing what I don't know
it eases down
not like terror
not like being jolted from sleep
not like the burning in your chest
before your heart shatters
not like nails dug into the
dirty ash tray on the side door
of the Buick, bearing your weight
hard away from the center line
pressing your 12-year-old feet
on imaginary brakes from
the back seat.
Grief is not like that.
It isn't the warm explosion
that starts in your thighs and
climbs to your cheeks,
dry mouth, clenched hands
immobile. That is still terror.
Grief isn't still; it moves,
finally.
June 04, 2003
in case that didn't make any sense...
I'm taking a few days off from the blog universe. But I will be writing.
Let me end the week with this. I had a really good therapy session today, if good is defined by hitting on hard things about what was real instead of what was neatly packaged and protected by me from a very early age and with good reason--reasons I'm not supposed to be angry at myself for. Okay. I can try that. I'm wiped though. I feel like my nerve endings are protruding through my scalp, but my body feels tired and slow. I wish I could sleep, but I have to go pick up energetic jenna. It's a feeling not unlike whiplash to go from therapy to jenna.
Mostly today I am amazed at people who can keep their heads above water with the freelance life. I have learned a fundamental truth: In general, it takes forever to get paid. Way longer than the cash in your bank account lasts. Is this one of Murphy's Laws?
I'm depressed today, but not in a bad way. In a good way. In a way that tells me it's good to be still. It's good to sit with this. Good to feel it. It's not going to kill me. It's not the terror i'm used to. It's something even bigger than that. It has to be, since whatever it's called has trumped my panic. And nothing has ever done that.
Maybe it's saying goodbye to a bastard of a 40th year. One I never saw coming.
One I wouldn't trade for anything.
I can't believe I'm saying that.
Who have I become?
me?
Let me end the week with this. I had a really good therapy session today, if good is defined by hitting on hard things about what was real instead of what was neatly packaged and protected by me from a very early age and with good reason--reasons I'm not supposed to be angry at myself for. Okay. I can try that. I'm wiped though. I feel like my nerve endings are protruding through my scalp, but my body feels tired and slow. I wish I could sleep, but I have to go pick up energetic jenna. It's a feeling not unlike whiplash to go from therapy to jenna.
Mostly today I am amazed at people who can keep their heads above water with the freelance life. I have learned a fundamental truth: In general, it takes forever to get paid. Way longer than the cash in your bank account lasts. Is this one of Murphy's Laws?
I'm depressed today, but not in a bad way. In a good way. In a way that tells me it's good to be still. It's good to sit with this. Good to feel it. It's not going to kill me. It's not the terror i'm used to. It's something even bigger than that. It has to be, since whatever it's called has trumped my panic. And nothing has ever done that.
Maybe it's saying goodbye to a bastard of a 40th year. One I never saw coming.
One I wouldn't trade for anything.
I can't believe I'm saying that.
Who have I become?
me?
in my 40th year
I haven't been paying as much time to dates lately as I have to deadlines and creditor due dates. So when I noticed it was June 4th, I was mildly surprised. When I realized that it is precisely five days until my 41st birthday, I was, for some reason, leveled. Meaning I crashed. Came down. Time out. WTF. That kind of thing.
It isn't, this mood I'm in, specifically about no longer being 40, but instead being "in my 40s"; it's more about what a hard year it's been for me. This 40th year, rites of passage that have to come sometime. "Who me? I've been blogging since I was in my 30s!" I can say that. Hooopty doo.
When I run up against my face in the mirror--facing myself--I often run up against my blog too. Echos and mirrors--that's what's here.
Driving back from dropping Jenna at her summer camp, I was lost in thought. About another year passing. About who I am and who I'm not. About how since I started blogging--writing out loud--my world turned upside down. I thought about being at the tail end of a generation who can remember life before the personal computer, before the Internet mattered, before global conversation, when the real world was the only world, and the only way out of it was through books, music, movies.
I tried to name my feeling. Nostalgia? No, it's not exactly that. At least I don't think so. But maybe. And maybe not. With nostalgia, I think, comes a yearning for what was. I don't yearn for the real-world-as-only-world. It's not that I would have our loosely-joined pieces disappear. Nor wish that they had never emerged at all. But there is something to my day of discontent that I think I need to acquaint myself with, and I don't think I can do that, not today, not the next few days, here. I need some time to remember who I am becoming. I need to think backwards and forwards without writing myself in either or both directions. I need to be still.
I know more things about myself as my birthday approaches than, I think, at any other anniversary in my life. About the world, about people, I'm still not sure.
In discussing the theories behind evolution the other day, voicing my thoughts on how I don't believe in the notion--change yes, "evolution" as symantics that would have us believed we are decendents of ameobas and monkeys, no. Where once I might have felt unsure or timid in my stance, this time I wasn't. The more I see of humanity in this world we're building here, the more I know. The human heart. Accept no substitutes.
I've never heard anyone voice words around the opinion I formed years ago that evolution--the monkey kind--was spawned and is used most often to give credence to the argument that the white Ayrian race is superior and more highly-evolved than any other. That the proposition that our evolving from tree-swinging monkeys to stooped over monkey-men to complex human beings doesn't wash with me. Agreeing with creationists that civilization and the birth of humanity started in virtually the same area, evolutionists -- at least those I read growing up -- would also have me believe that "primitive man" just evolved his way along until, finally, he got smart and got out of the caves, then got out of Africa, where he left his less-highly-evolved kin. Then the great migration. Then whitey. Puh-lease.
So today, in thinking about my own personal evolution/revolution/stinking-traumatic-development, I flashed on the "big bang" and the development of flesh and consciousness as it relates to the Internet, which, if things progress as they are, will become more and more of an alternate world for all of us. Simultaneous and alternate. A separate but equal dimension.
How did we get here, to this place we co-habitate online? Was it change and growth, or would you call it evolution. I bet some will. And I fear the scientific connotations of that word could follow us here. If we let it. Would you define the beginnings of our online universe as a big bang? Did we crawl up out of the swamp of unintelligible beings, technical cave men evolved into a separate but related species, we people of the net? Hmmmm. I smell a missing hyperlink.
Yah, it's like that.
Let there be heart.
And so it was.
It isn't, this mood I'm in, specifically about no longer being 40, but instead being "in my 40s"; it's more about what a hard year it's been for me. This 40th year, rites of passage that have to come sometime. "Who me? I've been blogging since I was in my 30s!" I can say that. Hooopty doo.
When I run up against my face in the mirror--facing myself--I often run up against my blog too. Echos and mirrors--that's what's here.
Driving back from dropping Jenna at her summer camp, I was lost in thought. About another year passing. About who I am and who I'm not. About how since I started blogging--writing out loud--my world turned upside down. I thought about being at the tail end of a generation who can remember life before the personal computer, before the Internet mattered, before global conversation, when the real world was the only world, and the only way out of it was through books, music, movies.
I tried to name my feeling. Nostalgia? No, it's not exactly that. At least I don't think so. But maybe. And maybe not. With nostalgia, I think, comes a yearning for what was. I don't yearn for the real-world-as-only-world. It's not that I would have our loosely-joined pieces disappear. Nor wish that they had never emerged at all. But there is something to my day of discontent that I think I need to acquaint myself with, and I don't think I can do that, not today, not the next few days, here. I need some time to remember who I am becoming. I need to think backwards and forwards without writing myself in either or both directions. I need to be still.
I know more things about myself as my birthday approaches than, I think, at any other anniversary in my life. About the world, about people, I'm still not sure.
In discussing the theories behind evolution the other day, voicing my thoughts on how I don't believe in the notion--change yes, "evolution" as symantics that would have us believed we are decendents of ameobas and monkeys, no. Where once I might have felt unsure or timid in my stance, this time I wasn't. The more I see of humanity in this world we're building here, the more I know. The human heart. Accept no substitutes.
I've never heard anyone voice words around the opinion I formed years ago that evolution--the monkey kind--was spawned and is used most often to give credence to the argument that the white Ayrian race is superior and more highly-evolved than any other. That the proposition that our evolving from tree-swinging monkeys to stooped over monkey-men to complex human beings doesn't wash with me. Agreeing with creationists that civilization and the birth of humanity started in virtually the same area, evolutionists -- at least those I read growing up -- would also have me believe that "primitive man" just evolved his way along until, finally, he got smart and got out of the caves, then got out of Africa, where he left his less-highly-evolved kin. Then the great migration. Then whitey. Puh-lease.
So today, in thinking about my own personal evolution/revolution/stinking-traumatic-development, I flashed on the "big bang" and the development of flesh and consciousness as it relates to the Internet, which, if things progress as they are, will become more and more of an alternate world for all of us. Simultaneous and alternate. A separate but equal dimension.
How did we get here, to this place we co-habitate online? Was it change and growth, or would you call it evolution. I bet some will. And I fear the scientific connotations of that word could follow us here. If we let it. Would you define the beginnings of our online universe as a big bang? Did we crawl up out of the swamp of unintelligible beings, technical cave men evolved into a separate but related species, we people of the net? Hmmmm. I smell a missing hyperlink.
Yah, it's like that.
Let there be heart.
And so it was.
Things fix themselves.
I'd like to say our embeded houshold telematics kicked in and water was re-directed through other pipes, restoring water pressure to its normal strength. But the truth is, things fixed themselves. Whatever it was that made the thud thud and cut the pressure must have repaired itself. At least, I sure hope so!
In other news, I continue to be amazed at the friendships our daughter is developing. One friend leads to two, then three, kind of like blogging and blogrolls, every realword human interaction has the capacity to connect outward.
I think there's something for me to learn in all of this.
In other news, I continue to be amazed at the friendships our daughter is developing. One friend leads to two, then three, kind of like blogging and blogrolls, every realword human interaction has the capacity to connect outward.
I think there's something for me to learn in all of this.
thud-thud-thud-thump-thump-thump-thump
Calling all plumbers.
Sound asleep I was when I was rattled awake by a not-too-good sound coming from the bedroom floor midway between the bathroom and the bed. At least that's where it sounded like it was coming from when I jumped up ready to kick some nighttime intruder in the balls. I wandered the house carefully, thinking maybe one of the dogs had been scratching him or herself against the sliding glass door below. It was that kind of velocity, like when a dog scratches, but way too loud I knew.
I turned on the water, used the bathroom. Water pressure seems to be cut by 3/4 its usual power throughout the house.
Checked the basement--no water pouring or leaking from anyplace. All is quiet now. But water pressure is in a sorry sorry state.
Ideas?
Sound asleep I was when I was rattled awake by a not-too-good sound coming from the bedroom floor midway between the bathroom and the bed. At least that's where it sounded like it was coming from when I jumped up ready to kick some nighttime intruder in the balls. I wandered the house carefully, thinking maybe one of the dogs had been scratching him or herself against the sliding glass door below. It was that kind of velocity, like when a dog scratches, but way too loud I knew.
I turned on the water, used the bathroom. Water pressure seems to be cut by 3/4 its usual power throughout the house.
Checked the basement--no water pouring or leaking from anyplace. All is quiet now. But water pressure is in a sorry sorry state.
Ideas?
June 03, 2003
Little Girls and Fits
It has to be universal. Those scratching slashing fits little girls have. I told Jenna to go to her room after five minutes of her not listening and generally going out of her mind. Every time she fights me all the way to her room. I remember being sent to my room and hightailing my behind to my room at light speed. Home free. But not her. "NO! NO WAY! NOT EVER!" she screams as she runs and slithers, and finally when caught, strikes and scratches, until a fit of magnificent proportions blossoms at the foot of the stairs. It takes me dragging her there, kicking and screaming and biting. All I'm trying to do is to direct her anger to one place in the house where she can work it out while she leaves ME the heck alone.
So this time, I finally get her into her room, and she slams the door with a force no one but her father would believe. So hard, in fact, that the door buckles and the bottom half of the door is sticking out toward me while the top half is where it belongs inside the door frame.
"HELP! HELP"
Suddenly she needs me because she's gotten herself in quite a predicament. Essentially, she's locked herself in her room, and no amount of budging by her or me is moving the door. I take the opportunity to go get a glass of water, and wonder if either of the two ways I feel is right: 1) Ha ha. Now maybe she'll learn. 2) Holy shit I'm going to have to call the fire department to get her out of there.
I wait. Tell her through the door that she is GROUNDED for this one. No sleep over. No bike. And this time, I'm really really sticking to it. And this time, she seemed to know it.
It took a few minutes but I managed to jiggle her door so that the bottom popped back into the frame, and I was able to open the door and see her sad-sack face, "I'M SORRY MAMA! I'M SORRY."
"There are consequences," I tell her. "Yours are that you're grounded. No sleep over. No bike."
Five year old girls and fits.
JEESH!!!
So this time, I finally get her into her room, and she slams the door with a force no one but her father would believe. So hard, in fact, that the door buckles and the bottom half of the door is sticking out toward me while the top half is where it belongs inside the door frame.
"HELP! HELP"
Suddenly she needs me because she's gotten herself in quite a predicament. Essentially, she's locked herself in her room, and no amount of budging by her or me is moving the door. I take the opportunity to go get a glass of water, and wonder if either of the two ways I feel is right: 1) Ha ha. Now maybe she'll learn. 2) Holy shit I'm going to have to call the fire department to get her out of there.
I wait. Tell her through the door that she is GROUNDED for this one. No sleep over. No bike. And this time, I'm really really sticking to it. And this time, she seemed to know it.
It took a few minutes but I managed to jiggle her door so that the bottom popped back into the frame, and I was able to open the door and see her sad-sack face, "I'M SORRY MAMA! I'M SORRY."
"There are consequences," I tell her. "Yours are that you're grounded. No sleep over. No bike."
Five year old girls and fits.
JEESH!!!
June 02, 2003
George on Jaco
A nice article by George on a new article-blog-we'll-see-what-happens blogsite called The Low End. Good reading for any bass fan, and photos of George with Jaco Pastorius and Mike Stern from the 1980s that haven't been published before. Enjoy!
May 31, 2003
shower song
I was taking a shower an hour ago and found myself singing my own rendition of "The Wheels on the Bus."
Join me, won't you?
the voices in my head go round and round
round and round
round and round
the voices in my head go round and round
all day long
the voices in my head go swish swish swish
swish swish swish
swish swish swish
the voices in my head go swish swish swish
all day long
the voices in my head go chatter chatter chatter
chatter chatter chatter
chatter chatter chatter
the voices in my head go chatter chatter chatter
all day long
the voices in my head go wah wah wah
wah wah wah
wah wah wah
the voices in my head go wah wah wah
all day long
the voices in my head go shhh shhh shhh
shhh shhh shhh
shhh shhh shhh
the voices in my head go shhh shhh shhh
all day long
alllll dayyyyy loooooonnnnnggggggg.
Join me, won't you?
the voices in my head go round and round
round and round
round and round
the voices in my head go round and round
all day long
the voices in my head go swish swish swish
swish swish swish
swish swish swish
the voices in my head go swish swish swish
all day long
the voices in my head go chatter chatter chatter
chatter chatter chatter
chatter chatter chatter
the voices in my head go chatter chatter chatter
all day long
the voices in my head go wah wah wah
wah wah wah
wah wah wah
the voices in my head go wah wah wah
all day long
the voices in my head go shhh shhh shhh
shhh shhh shhh
shhh shhh shhh
the voices in my head go shhh shhh shhh
all day long
alllll dayyyyy loooooonnnnnggggggg.
In a Down Economy, Customer Service is the killer app
I've been thinking about this, in fits and starts, about how my personal tolerance for poor customer service and appreciation for stellar customer service has changed over the last few years. There isn't a company out there claiming to have anything but a superior, well-trained, talented, at-the-ready support staff. No one says, our product's great but our service sucks. I know of what I write.
But we have changed. Call us consumers (but please don't), call us customers, call us clients. A rose by any other name still has a wallet. And what we expect out of a company is something of an inverse proportion to the amount of change ding-a-linging in our change purses.
What I mean is this: during recent times of plenty--not now, but think back to the good days that came just after the last time when things were just like this--we didn't expect much. We said we did. But we didn't. Not really. Because we had a lot. Most of us, at least more of the U.S. than is now the case, had more money, spent more money, and felt like business and especially the Internet offered limitless opportunities.
And it was in that spirit that we got involved in, and accepted, a lot of crap. It was cool to grab a beta product, to help companies work the kinks out, to just go ahead and fix things yourself. Gee wiz, they're really busy changing the world over there--should I expect them to be there to answer this simple question? I'm lucky to have my hands on this great product. I'm so glad they accepted me as a client! I uttered, and heard, those words more than once.
My how things have changed.
Now, companies like Dell, and they're not alone, are feeling the wrath and repercussion of a public that put up with a lot and didn't mind it. As we have fewer and fewer pennies in our hands, as fewer and fewer of us have jobs at stable companies--or jobs at all--we have become more demanding. Really demanding. Forget about pulling out and taking our business elsewhere--we're pulling it in and not taking our business anywhere. Forget about beta, I want to pay $19.99 for a solid product, or I won't bother getting one at all.
In a time of haves and haves not, we haven't. And we just won't.
It seems to me, then, that the companies staffed and positioned to deliver on the promise of superior customer service--and companies already leveraging customer information and putting it to good use (amazon is one of the few that comes to mind, and earthlink isn't bad either.)--stand the best chance of all of surviving these challenging times, and actually floating to the top in an ocean full of sinkers.
Who am I to say? I'm a customer, a client, and on my worst days a consumer. And I've also repeated the "great service" mantra in my writing with the largest and tiniest companies for 20 years now. Sometimes I've known it to be true. Sometimes I lied. Sometimes I took a guess. But now, when I see a company that delivers on their language around responsiveness to customers, I know it's something special. I grab it in my writing and showcase it. Because I know my own wallet's empty. I know I'm not experimenting anymore on my dime. And I can appreciate and tend to give my business to companies that "get" that.
Just something that crossed my mind today, as I'm working away on a brochure and simultaneously mopping the kitchen floor. Those crazy multi-tasking consumers. Ain't we something!
But we have changed. Call us consumers (but please don't), call us customers, call us clients. A rose by any other name still has a wallet. And what we expect out of a company is something of an inverse proportion to the amount of change ding-a-linging in our change purses.
What I mean is this: during recent times of plenty--not now, but think back to the good days that came just after the last time when things were just like this--we didn't expect much. We said we did. But we didn't. Not really. Because we had a lot. Most of us, at least more of the U.S. than is now the case, had more money, spent more money, and felt like business and especially the Internet offered limitless opportunities.
And it was in that spirit that we got involved in, and accepted, a lot of crap. It was cool to grab a beta product, to help companies work the kinks out, to just go ahead and fix things yourself. Gee wiz, they're really busy changing the world over there--should I expect them to be there to answer this simple question? I'm lucky to have my hands on this great product. I'm so glad they accepted me as a client! I uttered, and heard, those words more than once.
My how things have changed.
Now, companies like Dell, and they're not alone, are feeling the wrath and repercussion of a public that put up with a lot and didn't mind it. As we have fewer and fewer pennies in our hands, as fewer and fewer of us have jobs at stable companies--or jobs at all--we have become more demanding. Really demanding. Forget about pulling out and taking our business elsewhere--we're pulling it in and not taking our business anywhere. Forget about beta, I want to pay $19.99 for a solid product, or I won't bother getting one at all.
In a time of haves and haves not, we haven't. And we just won't.
It seems to me, then, that the companies staffed and positioned to deliver on the promise of superior customer service--and companies already leveraging customer information and putting it to good use (amazon is one of the few that comes to mind, and earthlink isn't bad either.)--stand the best chance of all of surviving these challenging times, and actually floating to the top in an ocean full of sinkers.
Who am I to say? I'm a customer, a client, and on my worst days a consumer. And I've also repeated the "great service" mantra in my writing with the largest and tiniest companies for 20 years now. Sometimes I've known it to be true. Sometimes I lied. Sometimes I took a guess. But now, when I see a company that delivers on their language around responsiveness to customers, I know it's something special. I grab it in my writing and showcase it. Because I know my own wallet's empty. I know I'm not experimenting anymore on my dime. And I can appreciate and tend to give my business to companies that "get" that.
Just something that crossed my mind today, as I'm working away on a brochure and simultaneously mopping the kitchen floor. Those crazy multi-tasking consumers. Ain't we something!
a bedtime apart
It has been a busy busy week here. So many times I blogged in my head, pushed publish, and sent posts to the back of my brain, where they're lost with thousands of swimming memories. But I wanted to remember to write about the sleeping children.
Jenna's friendship with one of the girls in her dance class has blossomed over the last week. This has involved spending time at each other's houses. I marvel at their neighborhood, not too far from my own, maybe 4 miles, but a world apart. Our houses are similar, same style, same age; our trees are similar, our yards too. But they have the kind of neighborhood built for kids. The kind that bustles with playing children instead of adults worried about work and lawns and shopping. It seems like everyone is always at home and outside on their street. It seems like no one is ever at home or outside on our street. Unless you count the paramedics, who should be pulling up any time now for our alcoholic suicidal neighbor. Anyway, that's for another post. Trauma central.
Back to the children.
Please.
One night last week Jenna's new best friend came to spend the night here. It was supposed to be reversed--Jenna was over there until 10 and was going to try to spend the night, but wanted to come home. So I went over to get her and their sad eyes got to me--please can she come too? PLEASE? Okay, let's switch. You come stay at our house. A good first experience for Jenna.
And so it was, although they were up until 2 a.m., until finally, I completely gave up and let them come sleep with me in our big king-size bed.
There we were. Girl, girl, woman. Jenna in the middle. Me and this beautiful little creature with straight thin blonde hair so unfamiliar to me in every way, like bookends for my daughter. I woke up a lot in the six hours we slept. Kept looking over at this little stranger, curled tight so close to the edge of the bed I kept waiting for a thump. In her sleep she'd roll some, wipe away wisps of hair, smile, pout. All of the things I've seen in my own daughter's dreaming, but never in someone else's child so close, so near, so vulnerable in her sleeping and dream state.
Jenna sat bolt upright at 8:00. I wasn't surprised. She's awoken that way since she was very little. Because she could talk long before she should have been able to, she'd sit straight up in her crib, look to the blinds shining in sunlight, and announce to the world in a voice I can only described as suprise and wonder: "I WAKE UP!" Every morning amazed her that way. She was astounded by the miracle of morning, the concept of waking after sleep.
This morning her friend was right behind her: "We're not tired anymore!" So the two five year olds bounded downstairs and left me to stumble out of bed, still tired, but in an odd way refreshed. As if I absorbed some of their energy while we slept.
My next thought was of Michael Jackson. Yes, a leap. I know. But it occurred to me that maybe, although he's neurotic and likely psychotic, there is truth in what he says of the innocence in sleeping with children. There was something incredibly moving and vulnerable about having these girl children so close, one of them not my own, in such a relaxed and unguarded state as sleep, and something so marvelous about waking and looking at their faces, them looking at one another, and then me. We wake up! It was like that.
I'd like to believe that's all it is for MJ too. That maybe just because he wakes up, a man in a bed with a couple of boys, it's just as genuine and innocent as a women waking up in bed with a couple of girls. And it doesn't matter how many. There could have been five of her little friends piled in that bed and it would have been the same relaxed sleep, the same wonder at waking.
But men don't get that opportunity. Men are immediately suspect. Because this partriarchial culture and heavy western mores say that men don't lie in bed with boys, or even girls. Men need to be men, Alpha Males, and all they should ever think about is sex and work. That men can't be trusted, except to produce and procreate, and that they should never, not ever, be vulnerable. Not for a minute.
Maybe something is wrong with Michael Jackson having children sleep in his bed. I kind of think they would have already hung him if something criminal were going on, since he's been a marked man for a long time in the business. And maybe there is something wrong with the man himself, albeit his particular neuroses are predictable based on childhood.
But maybe something is wrong with us too.
Those were my thoughts, as I made toast and pizza squares and pop tarts for breakfast. As the girls giggled and danced around the living room. And they're still my thoughts today.
Jenna's friendship with one of the girls in her dance class has blossomed over the last week. This has involved spending time at each other's houses. I marvel at their neighborhood, not too far from my own, maybe 4 miles, but a world apart. Our houses are similar, same style, same age; our trees are similar, our yards too. But they have the kind of neighborhood built for kids. The kind that bustles with playing children instead of adults worried about work and lawns and shopping. It seems like everyone is always at home and outside on their street. It seems like no one is ever at home or outside on our street. Unless you count the paramedics, who should be pulling up any time now for our alcoholic suicidal neighbor. Anyway, that's for another post. Trauma central.
Back to the children.
Please.
One night last week Jenna's new best friend came to spend the night here. It was supposed to be reversed--Jenna was over there until 10 and was going to try to spend the night, but wanted to come home. So I went over to get her and their sad eyes got to me--please can she come too? PLEASE? Okay, let's switch. You come stay at our house. A good first experience for Jenna.
And so it was, although they were up until 2 a.m., until finally, I completely gave up and let them come sleep with me in our big king-size bed.
There we were. Girl, girl, woman. Jenna in the middle. Me and this beautiful little creature with straight thin blonde hair so unfamiliar to me in every way, like bookends for my daughter. I woke up a lot in the six hours we slept. Kept looking over at this little stranger, curled tight so close to the edge of the bed I kept waiting for a thump. In her sleep she'd roll some, wipe away wisps of hair, smile, pout. All of the things I've seen in my own daughter's dreaming, but never in someone else's child so close, so near, so vulnerable in her sleeping and dream state.
Jenna sat bolt upright at 8:00. I wasn't surprised. She's awoken that way since she was very little. Because she could talk long before she should have been able to, she'd sit straight up in her crib, look to the blinds shining in sunlight, and announce to the world in a voice I can only described as suprise and wonder: "I WAKE UP!" Every morning amazed her that way. She was astounded by the miracle of morning, the concept of waking after sleep.
This morning her friend was right behind her: "We're not tired anymore!" So the two five year olds bounded downstairs and left me to stumble out of bed, still tired, but in an odd way refreshed. As if I absorbed some of their energy while we slept.
My next thought was of Michael Jackson. Yes, a leap. I know. But it occurred to me that maybe, although he's neurotic and likely psychotic, there is truth in what he says of the innocence in sleeping with children. There was something incredibly moving and vulnerable about having these girl children so close, one of them not my own, in such a relaxed and unguarded state as sleep, and something so marvelous about waking and looking at their faces, them looking at one another, and then me. We wake up! It was like that.
I'd like to believe that's all it is for MJ too. That maybe just because he wakes up, a man in a bed with a couple of boys, it's just as genuine and innocent as a women waking up in bed with a couple of girls. And it doesn't matter how many. There could have been five of her little friends piled in that bed and it would have been the same relaxed sleep, the same wonder at waking.
But men don't get that opportunity. Men are immediately suspect. Because this partriarchial culture and heavy western mores say that men don't lie in bed with boys, or even girls. Men need to be men, Alpha Males, and all they should ever think about is sex and work. That men can't be trusted, except to produce and procreate, and that they should never, not ever, be vulnerable. Not for a minute.
Maybe something is wrong with Michael Jackson having children sleep in his bed. I kind of think they would have already hung him if something criminal were going on, since he's been a marked man for a long time in the business. And maybe there is something wrong with the man himself, albeit his particular neuroses are predictable based on childhood.
But maybe something is wrong with us too.
Those were my thoughts, as I made toast and pizza squares and pop tarts for breakfast. As the girls giggled and danced around the living room. And they're still my thoughts today.
May 30, 2003
stories i've been meaning to tell, part 1.
Jenna's graduation from Pre-K was last week. Right. Already told you. But then there's this.
They're sitting around in their graduation circle during the program, and I notice that one of the boys' brother has joined them there. He's a a year or so older. Striking Arabic profile. Dark hair, carmel skin, and a magnetic personality which he demonstrated by taking every available opportunity to distract his younger brother from his graduation duties. A general cut-up this kid was.
Afterward I asked Jenna if that was her classmate's brother.
I see the look in her eye. The blush. The beaming. "Yes," she says softly.
Oh no, I think. And then I say,
"Well, he is a handsome boy."
She shines the brightest smile I've seen in weeks and blurts out:
"Set up the wedding!!"
And I fall off the bed laughing. I don't mean to. There's no one here with me to help absorb the hilarity--left to my own devices, I crack up silly.
Set up the wedding.
OYE!
They're sitting around in their graduation circle during the program, and I notice that one of the boys' brother has joined them there. He's a a year or so older. Striking Arabic profile. Dark hair, carmel skin, and a magnetic personality which he demonstrated by taking every available opportunity to distract his younger brother from his graduation duties. A general cut-up this kid was.
Afterward I asked Jenna if that was her classmate's brother.
I see the look in her eye. The blush. The beaming. "Yes," she says softly.
Oh no, I think. And then I say,
"Well, he is a handsome boy."
She shines the brightest smile I've seen in weeks and blurts out:
"Set up the wedding!!"
And I fall off the bed laughing. I don't mean to. There's no one here with me to help absorb the hilarity--left to my own devices, I crack up silly.
Set up the wedding.
OYE!
May 29, 2003
Go Anita! Rediff Article on Site Counters and Referrer Logs
Check out Anita Bora's article for Rediff called Hits and Misses, a write up on site counters, referrer logs and and statistics. And not just because she gave me lots of quotes. ;-) Well, okay, partly. But it's also a cool article in its own right, one in which I admit to playing mind games with my stats. What bloggers won't do for fun.
Also interesting was Anita's note on her blog that the bloggers she interviewed responded f-a-s-t to her interview questions. I've found this to be true as well, when I've asked for any kind of information from the community--be it what to feed a baby ferral cat to what women think about blogging. Human response is one of the many processes blogging speeds up--a process that old J journalists could easily leverage if they decide to take up residence in the neighborhood--i.e., join the conversation.
Thanks, Anita!
Also interesting was Anita's note on her blog that the bloggers she interviewed responded f-a-s-t to her interview questions. I've found this to be true as well, when I've asked for any kind of information from the community--be it what to feed a baby ferral cat to what women think about blogging. Human response is one of the many processes blogging speeds up--a process that old J journalists could easily leverage if they decide to take up residence in the neighborhood--i.e., join the conversation.
Thanks, Anita!
The Eyes Have It
I couldn't help myself. As I clicked through the images--all from women so far--who took the challenge to upload their eyes, I had to put them all in one place, because hopping from eyes to eyes to eyes felt really powerful to me. So Here: The Web Eyes Project.
First thing's first: I have linked directly to the photos people posted. If this brings too much traffic to your blog, tell me and I'll take your eyes off. It just seemed to me like the easiest way to link to everyone's blogs--directly through their eyes. Just let me know if you want me to remove your eyes--out with them!--no, really. Or, if you want your eyes included, post a picture on a blog and email me the link to the jpeg plus a link to your main blog page.
Enjoy. All I could think was, Wow.
First thing's first: I have linked directly to the photos people posted. If this brings too much traffic to your blog, tell me and I'll take your eyes off. It just seemed to me like the easiest way to link to everyone's blogs--directly through their eyes. Just let me know if you want me to remove your eyes--out with them!--no, really. Or, if you want your eyes included, post a picture on a blog and email me the link to the jpeg plus a link to your main blog page.
Enjoy. All I could think was, Wow.
May 27, 2003
Ain't Nobody Does It Better...
Some memes were born to be remembered forever. Mostly Gary Turner's slow rising memes, which generally puff up over several days, until they turn from a tasty chuckle into a delicious brew-ha-ha.
If you weren't around for the original Enquirer Covers, some are still left here. Gary, bring back the oldies. Too good. I'm still laughing.... Looky Marek! Oh, God, I'm crackin' a rib over here....!!
If you weren't around for the original Enquirer Covers, some are still left here. Gary, bring back the oldies. Too good. I'm still laughing.... Looky Marek! Oh, God, I'm crackin' a rib over here....!!
May 26, 2003
learning to play
This last two months, with me and Jenna left to our own devices, hasn't been easy. And then, it has been the easiest time I've known in a long time. Because I'm changing. I'm getting to know my daughter. For the first time. There is a lot to write on this, on my inability, until stepping outside of all of my internally constructed walls and relationships, to see her. Really to see her, and to, more than that, let her see me. To play. She has been determined to get me to: to teach me to see her, to get down on the floor with her, to play. To let her in.
So afraid to let her in. I have been so afraid to see her, in seeing her expecting that she would vanish before my eyes, my eyes: see with them, die in them. That's all I have known.
And if you don't die with me, then maybe there is living. Teach me that there is living, a reason, unexpected dips and climbs in season, and that maybe it's enough.
Last night we built a train track on the floor. I was feeling so sick, so exhausted, but I did it. She put her "Cheer Bear" Care Bear under my head: "This'll cheer you up, Mama." I said, "Sweetie, I'm not sad, just so tired." And I watched her, and before long she handed me her recorder to blow through, and soon I was making chuga-chuga CHOO CHOO noises with the recorder as she pulled the train around the track.
And I let myself see her. The pain in seeing her, vulnerable, me vulnerable, how can you stand to love someone so much, and see in her the you, the world, and still dare to touch her vulnerability, to let it touch you, to touch her thigh, her soft skin, wonder at her pores, her sweet brown hairs, as I did last night, and know that it could all be gone, in a flash, and in going, how it would kill your soul, would take you too.
And in loving someone so vulnerable, a child, in knowing she will go one day away from me--has to--in loving like that, with the desparate sorrow I wear around my heart, the loss that was my first life lesson, there is finally, finally, FINALLY, a sweet rejoicing.
I feel with a bone-deep jab of heartache, something else: joy.
I love you my sweet Jenna.
May 25, 2003
Hunter John Willis
NOW
So you're wondering, what happened to that little four-week old kitten you found? He's gotten bigger. More spoiled. He's grown into a man cat, as I have yet to get him to the vet for his final shots and neutering. But he's happy.
jenna's breakfast
Hot dog, tater tots, clindimycin rootbeer float.
My breakfast, levaquin and water.
She wins.
My breakfast, levaquin and water.
She wins.
giving in
Okay, I've kept this illness on the brink of making me sick for the last two weeks--feeling sickly but not quite sick. When I had to use a fork to scratch my throat last night, I decided to give in and take the antibiotics if I didn't feel better this morning. I don't. So I did. Darn. I was hoping to have a personal first--get better without the antibiotics. But I decided that for me, not to go down hill into asthma hell in 24 hours was itself an accomplishment. My cocktails of cold killers must have been doing something.
Echinacea, goldenseal, zicam, B-vitamins, time-release C's. Almost made it.
The weather here has been astounding the last two days. Magnificent. And after all the rain, the sun amplifies the green of the trees, the grass, ten times over. Even the little rollie pollies who've crawled out from underneath everything damp seem to be happy.
Take a clue from the bugs. That's what I'll try to do.
Echinacea, goldenseal, zicam, B-vitamins, time-release C's. Almost made it.
The weather here has been astounding the last two days. Magnificent. And after all the rain, the sun amplifies the green of the trees, the grass, ten times over. Even the little rollie pollies who've crawled out from underneath everything damp seem to be happy.
Take a clue from the bugs. That's what I'll try to do.
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