This is certainly appropriate

remind me to make a thumbnail for my sidebar. Might as well make this template as noisy as possible, violating every typeface and design rule known to man and causing seizures in as many readers as possible. You can't get that just anyplace.

blog No Smoking_LACC Originally uploaded by Duane.

tee hee.

Maybe this should be my template photo.

pho shizzle Originally uploaded by Abu.

No matter what I do, my template ends up looking like the inside of my head.

every single time.

AKMA's Photo

More from Flickr, where I found Pippa's Door, which is just so cool. AKMA says: "Pippa has turned social activist, though her cause is not so well-publicized or globally significant as WMDs or torture. On the other hand, thereâ??s a nascent feminist consciousness at work there, and some remarkable slogan-writing capacity. . . ."

Pippa's Door Originally uploaded by AKMA.

Gary, courtesy of Flickr

Flickr has a great new blog-this-photo feature I didn't know about. Til I found a photo of Gary Turner, and decided I needed to blog it so I have it to look at, and I noticed that Gary is blogging, which is good. Gotta run and read.

Walkabout Originally uploaded by Gary Turner.

Cigs were my friends because they...

Were always there
Listened empathetically
Talked me through every problem
Celebrated with me
Cried with me
Calmed me down
Got me up in the morning
Helped me through traffic
Reminded me to breathe
 
Yes, I know that sounds screwed up. But it's true.
 
They also...
 
Made me smell
Took me away from my kid
Made me cough
 
... uh, anyone?? That doesn't sound so bad.
 

the bonds of blogging

I find it quite adorable that these blog guys go shopping together. (for electronics and gadgets, of course.)
 
;-)

That's when you'll really begin to feel better...

Step 5: Go cold turkey. The majority of experts agree that it's the most effective way to go. So when the chosen day arrives, toss your cigarettes — even the secret stash behind the hamper. If you can get through the first two weeks without a slipup, you've got a good chance of staying smoke-free. According to Linda Hyder Ferry, M.D., M.P.H., cravings during the first three to four days are the most powerful; on days five to 10, the intensity plateaus, and after that, the hunger for nicotine begins to dwindle. That's when you'll begin to feel better. Really.
 
Really?
 
From the P.S. Department:
 
What the hell's an MPH degree? Miles Per Hour? I want a Miles Per Hour degree.
 
Jeneane Sessum, M.P.H.
 
TWO WEEKS SMOKE FREE.
 
who would have thought...

One Hit Wonder Follow-Up Songs

Darren takes his shot at it.
 
Here are mine:
 
((for the 40 and over crowd))
 
Come On, Billy, Be a Hero, Be a Fool with Your Life!
Jessie, No Way I'm Depending on You Son.
Suicide's Really Not So Painless After All.
Oklahoma Wants Me
Weeds Grow Where My Rosemary Goes
Turning Taiwanese
Believe It or Not (I'm Falling Right on My Ass)
Brandi, You're an Idiot (and You'd Make a Lousy Wife)
One Toke Next to the Line (if I could see the line)
Timothy, the secret's out; we ate you
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thank Heaven for Little Rants...

Doc points to this nice rant from Roland over at the Global PR Week blog, which was SORELY in need of a rant.
 
The thought and the work behind the Global PR Week 1.0 blog and the idea of such an endeavor impressed me initially, but much of what I've read over there--'til the rant--has struck me as, well, the typical incredibly unclued speak of Industry Professionals.
 
Industry professionals, I dedicate these previous posts from yours truly to you: 
 
Bye Bye BigPR : "Where once Big PR boasted about best practices and a global network of communications professionals, they don't have that anymore. Instead, we are the ones creating nimble networks among one another, which are growing larger and more valuable. We are nimble enough (most of us working out of our homes) and lean enough to charge much less and deliver much more. A network of one-off specialists, experts in their areas, linked through the power of the Web and personal contacts. Voice to voice, we are changing the face of PR and marketing. You heard it here first."
 
Ketchum Comes Unclued: "Meanwhile, in the ranks at Ketchum, I know of a few bloggers who do not have an AAE, AE, SAE, VP, SVP or Director title. In fact, they work in a capacity where most of the folks with those titles on their business cards wouldn't think to ask these workers' opinions about marketing, business, and the Internet. Yet, I would wager that these individual bloggers are tied into more voices, knowledge, business-related interactions, and personal relationships of value by genuinely participating in this space than the highest ranking, highest billing PR Strategist in that same organization. You see? That is how it's working. And they don't have a clue."
 
 

Atlanta Bloggers

Go See George in

Tambourines to Glory

at the Alliance Theater

from now until the end

of July.

People are basically pains in my ass.

SO, I see the bloogle interface has eaten some new features and shit them out upon my screen with no notice. COOL! I don't know what I'm looking at. Looks like some bastardization of the MS Word toolbar. I guess I'll be playing with colors N shit here to see what it does.
 
This is HTML for complete idiots.
 
THE NET IS GREAT!
the net sux.
 

Blogging is everything.

Blogging is nothing at all.

These two statements are not mutually exclusive.

 
People think that links breed familiarity. They do. But not intimacy. We need to employ at least one other medium/dimension for others to see us for who we are.
 
Oh my, this e-z color-n-size capability is going to add to the noise ratio of blogging, or at least of my brain.
 
Now, 13 days without a fucking cigarette.
 
**************************************
 
Jenna said, "Are you mean again today because of that quit thing you're doing?"
 
"I'm not mean."

"Yah, you are. You totally are mean."
 
"You're not listening. No body listens to me. Then I get called mean for yelling. If people would listen to me in the FIRST PLACE, then we wouldn't be talking about whether or not I'm mean because of that quit thing."
 
"Well, you're still mean."
 
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

12 days no cigs.

Miss you ciggies. So sorry I had to go. There was no other way.

Taking Requests.

More pig news

Two days ago George was in a wrinkle as he watched the goings on out the kitchen window. The Stupid Boxer from the pig people's yard has been back in our yard a few times since last we addressed the pig topic here on Allied. This makes George crazy. Because Stupid Boxer comes up onto our deck and barks at us, rather mindlessly but meanly, as we look out wondering why the hell Stupid Boxer is doing what it's doing.

Our dogs now completely ignore Stupid Boxer. If you're a dog owner, you can attest to how unusual it is that two dogs -- one who likes to play with other dogs Very Much -- would ignore a visiting dog, especially if the visiting dog is stupid enough to bark at them endlessly.

Anyway, George hates Stupid Boxer and has come to feel a genuine fondness for Pig.

This made for an extra dose of angst the other day when George watched through the window as Stupid Boxer (in her own yard) barked and jumped (as boxers do) endlessly at Pig in the 90 degree heat. Not only that, but the other two black labs (the only two animals I THOUGHT lived behind us) joined Stupid Boxer in what became a Dog Mob scene, a barn yard bullying festival, which continued for a good 15 minutes. Barking, circling Pig, leaping at Pig, more barking.

Poor Pig would turn to the side when Stupid Boxer would leap at him. The thing about boxers is they can jump and jab really quickly and I think the thing about pigs is, once they weigh 600 pounds, they don't move so fast.

Back to George. Trauma issues surfaced as he watched the bullying, no doubt recalling his school years in Upstate New York. He was livid that these neighbors were letting Pig get assaulted. He decided he would kill the Boxer, which would solve the problem.

I urged him not to kill the Boxer because it could elicit attention from The Authorities.

He thought about that.

He decided that the next time Stupid Boxer was in Our Yard barking at Us, then he could simply toss Stupid Boxer back over the fence. Not hurt or kill it. Merely hurl it.

I urged him not to toss the Boxer over the fence because, judging from her temperament, she might bite him. And he has a particularly important role in Tony Award Winning Director Kenny Leon's new musical, playing at the Alliance Theater this month, called Tambourines to Glory, which demands that he NOT be bitten on any existing Arm or Hand--Especially not on Any Fingers, especially since he's on stage for the next two weeks, and on payroll.

He thought about that.

He decided to have some coffee.

I called Animal Control for our county. I wanted to report a Pig Attack. It was Saturday. They were closed. They had a number for the non-emergency Police on the recorded message.

I thought calling the Police might be a bad idea, especially since, when I looked back out, all animals had retreated to their comfort zones: Pig in Dog House, Two Black Labs on Deck, and Stupid Boxer with her head through a hole in the fence, barking at Our Dogs.

A BUSINESS ALERT! ATTENTION PLEASE!

While the Feds fiddle with interest rates and business tries to decide if war is bad or good for business, Phil Libin got his office a new coffe machine.

People--THIS IS WHAT'S IMPORTANT.

Please take the Poll at the end of Phil's post and do your part to bring AMERICAN BUSINESS back to its GLORY DAYS.

Thank you.

The drive is harder than the meeting

Had an all-day meeting today, which I wish were this all-day meeting, but it wasn't that exciting.

I noticed I didn't think about smoking at all during the meeting. I was engaged in learning, conversation, and a kick-ass lunch with one of those great MEETING salads--blue cheese, grilled chicken, pecans, rasins, baby field greens, and vinagerette dressing. Mmmmm.

On the drive there, though, I missed smoking every mile of 30-mile ride (one way).

I was a big car smoker. Atlanta can challenge you that way.

Now I don't smoke.

Now my car doesn't stink so badly. I suppose that's good.

But I almost fell asleep from the boredom of driving without my fix.

I remember when I quit last time, the biggest gap for me to cross was accepting that it was okay -- that it could be tolerable -- for me to do only ONE thing at a time. When you smoke, you are always doing more than one thing at a time. Every time you light up you are smoking AND thinking, walking, breathing, sitting, talking, pacing, driving, writing, drinking, whatever. Usually you are doing several things at once. That's what stimulants do best--let you multi-task and enjoy the rush of it.

Losing the ability to escape the perplexing LENGTH of a single moment is perhaps my biggest loss in giving up cigarettes.

There must be some joy to be found in those seem-to-last-forever-moments -- another stretch of highway, another commercial, another bill collector, another Zoom episode, another press release, another Web site. There must be something people enjoy about being present inside of those tick-tock-ticks of time. For me, it is extra time to be anxious.

I've got a long way to go, friends.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

An all-you-can-eat buffet.



Why does this still look good to me.

I'd be smiling too if I got to smoke that much!

Dag. They're getting serious in Singapore.

Sometimes it's hard not to say, "No Duh?!"

Enjoying what was new about hyperlinked friendships and collaboration, we spent the later part of 2001 contemplating our blog navels. Many of us involved in those discussions still circulate 'round as friends; more of us, probably, have gone.

When I look back, I think that we had a lot of things right. I am also astounded at how little the current day pundits of blogitry reference the good thinking that took place when this medium was in its toddler days.

Here is Tom Matrullo on what blogging might mean to corporations ala Gonzo Marketing back on Gonzo Engaged in 2001.

Today it reads like prophetic thinking (at least better than most current-day conference session abstracts). As usual for Tom, it is also great writing:

One way of looking at "The Value Proposition" – (though Mr. Locke might not put it this way) is: If a corporation understands no value other than its core capital, then it is at war with everything on earth that does not form part of or enhance the core.

As Hernani noted, the book calls for corporations to invest in, to underwrite, enterprises that in no direct or measurable way contribute to the enhancement of its capital. In a sense, instead of the usual ho-hum mode of “invest x to get return y,” the corporation is invited to take a flying leap of faith that its capital, plowed back into the loam of people, ideas, enthusiasms, issues, communities - in short, values other than those of the balance sheet – will turn, twist, explore, resurface, appear rather odd, wither in part, explode, propagate and, much like the nonlinear mode of "the story" that is explicitly a structuring theme of Gonzo Marketing, yield unexpected fruit. This would appear to represent a substantive change in current business practice for most corporate capitalists.

Well said. Perhaps as the blogworld drones on about emerging this-n-that, we could look back on what has been dreamed, thought, said, argued, and include the best of that as we thread our discourse forward. It would only make sense for a medium built upon links to build threads of value backwards as well as forward.

Unfortunately, with search engines geared toward delivering us "current events" the "news of the day," the "latest book reviews" and (my least favorite) "hot topics," the solid thinking and once-upon-a-time wonder of early net writers is not easily referenced.

It's more than unfortunate. It's frustrating.

What? FREE FOOD?

If I'd known they'd be feeding us breakfast, I would have at least tried....

Thanks Jeff. ;-)

Putting Winer to Good Use.

If this guy can quit smoking, so can you.

Next time I want an easier habit to kick

The "oops i smoked" dreams have begun. Those are the dreams I will now have for the next number of years, with me, in all sorts of situations, somehow forgetting that I've quit and lighting up, only to startle awake (later on they don't wake me up--just jiggle my sleep) realizing that it was all only a dream.

The ooops I smoked dreams, oddly, are now intersecting with my other only recurring dream, which is that I get back to Jamaica for vacation but somehow run out of time or forget to ever actually get into the sea. That is also a very disturbing dream. The ooops I smoked dream now joins the ooops I forgot to get into the sea dream to ruin my rest. What's that about?

Without cigarettes so far I feel:

depressed
hopeless
angry
tired
mean
pissed
sad
lost
reclusive
old
did I say lost?
unsure
lathargic
unhappy
confused

I don't remember it taking this long to start to feel some good about quitting in the past.

I wonder about six times a day what I'm doing.

I guess that's better than the 26 times I wondered a few days ago.

ugh.

With apologies to Frank

While Frank Paynter puts his hands over his ears, I will tell you now about the steamroller on my coat of arms.

For most, there would be no pride in relating this story. Nor for me. Not pride. More a matter of fact, a question of genetics, a warning of sorts, more full disclosure, and at least a wee bit entertainment.

I've thought a lot about how to say this--should I tell the story, should I name names, probably not, will I be misunderstood, etc.

I opted for a shortish version.

When George first came to Rochester from California in the late 70s, the local news was buzzing with a murder mystery, a crime so horrific (for the victim at least) it evoked a universal shudder.

The story was that a head of a local construction company, for a reason that remained untold--at least by the media--killed his business partner by running him over with a steamroller.

The victim had a wife and a family. They appeared on the news a couple of times. They appeared, as one would expect, saddened and in shock. There was another look on the wife's face, though. To this day, I'm not sure what it was. But I'm pretty sure it meant something.

George remembers watching the evening news back then to learn the latest on the story. It was the topic of conversation at the clubs he was playing, at the grocery stores. It was a relentless story. It wouldn't die.

Meanwhile, my mother was explaining to me that some kids at school might ask me about Bobby, and whether or not I was related. Of course I was. He was my favorite cousin. He was the kindest of them, a surrogate uncle more than a cousin, the guy who always played football with me at the family gatherings, who always sat patiently with the kids to tell them stories. Blue-eyed, handsome, young, genuinely nice, and the guy who ran over his business partner with a steamroller.

Huh.

He went to prison for the crime, and at the time had cancer. He died of cancer in jail. If I had been older--old enough to take myself--I would have gone to visit him.

I never believed he did it. The story, I believed, was bigger and twisted with more complicated knots than the media could untie. But some things are better left for what they appear to be on the surface.

In addition to a morbid sense of humor, I also have a well-controled raging killer inside me. Perhaps we all do. Do you?

My Bobby has a little lever that turns off just in the nick of time, but can feel what it would be like to discharge. I can feel the discharge ripple through my muscles. It's me in the driver's seat of the steamroller.

When I introduced myself to George in 1984, I saw the double take he did when I said my last name. It wasn't that first day, but I think the next when he asked me if I was related to the guy who...

Oh yes, I said.

He smiled.

Just one of the reasons he asked me to marry him.

###

For more on my steamroller totem, sing along with me:

Got my eye on you while your eye’s on him
Got the hurt planned out as the gear slips in
Got some demolition plans for you, baby….
The steamroller’s rollin’ on in.

The brownish pack on the counter--that was my brand.

wistful but not wanting

missing you.

Deanne Delivers

7/9 on 7/9. (weight/birthdate)

He joined the world this past evening around 7:30, happy, healthy, after a 2 hour labor by a 43-year-old third-time mom. Textbook flawless, and I was there to watch my first ever non-c-section birth.

Three of us lady friends stayed in the birthing room with her (never mind the story about the husband--I'll tell you all in person one day), one of us with no children, one of us with three, and me, the scheduled c-section mom of one sweet daughter.

It amazes me, as complicated as my friend's situation is right now personally, as old of a mom as she is starting over, mostly on her own, that it never really entered her mind that anything would go wrong. It just doesn't happen that way in their family. These things go along fine.

Me? I would have had myself dead on the table six times and the baby born with eight heads if I had been in her situation. There's something to those folks who take life as it comes instead of attempting to envision every anomaly (read: catastrophe) that might possibly occur one in eighty-thousand times.

As I sit here now, back at home, I'm still looking for something more than, something deeper, some unseen concern, some untold shoe on high. And I'm telling myself to cut it the fuck out.

It couldn't have been more simple. We stopped by the doctor around 5 p.m., who said, "Oh dear, you're at 5 cm--get over to the hospital," and we put the kids in the van and drove the two blocks to the hospital, where she got her epidural, then we gabbed for a couple of hours while we watched the magic arches on the monitor go up and down, tuned into CNN for a little bit, until the nurse stopped by and said, "Lemme check you again," followed by, "Okay we're gonna push now." So it was one-two-three pushes and out he came, full of hair and full of life, cheesy and pretty darn mad at all the poking and prodding that ensued.

For me, the overwhelming complexity of what it means to be human is to let things be simple, to perceive as deep what seems so very uncomplicated.

My challenge is to be still of mind and heart long enough to notice.

Some things are taken care of before we even get there.

Sometimes we just walk in, laugh for a while, and kiss a baby hello.

RB Delivers

I commissioned Mr. Boy to create my personal totem, an image similar to those grafikal creations of his we've all come to know and love. Minus the porn.

I wanted my totem to brandish a threatening steamroller at the top (more on the steamroller later). Yes, I paid real money. Wow, what $15 can get you these days! (Note to IRS: We used Monopoly money.)

Mr. Boy accepted the assignment, but on further reflection decided that a Coat of Arms was a better backdrop for my steamroller totem. Leveraging the Coat of Arms from Pope Urban VIII (1623-44), and why not, he rendered me a beauty:



I will be finding a nice spot on my template to display my arms coat.

Now, some may be wondering, why a steamroller?

It's in the genes.

More on that soon...

Get It On.

"The Domino's Pizza of Liberation".

[[i'm not worthy.]]

It's true, really.

Wandered over to Euen's and found this:



purdy much.

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow their house in.

News like this, from NY, makes me want to blow smoke at them. Cigarettes that put themselves out. Kind of like blogging a conference.

The question is whether the newfangled smokes can make a difference. Even with the special safety paper, a forgotten cigarette may burn for several minutes before going out on its own. And some smokers may try to defeat the law by buying cigarettes outside the state.

Then there's the potential added hazard to smokers, who may take more and deeper drags to make sure that they won't have to light up again. Still, if it's a choice between further endangering the people who smoke by choice or the potential victims of fires set by cigarettes, we'd opt for the former.

Yes, and if it's a choice between a live pig and barbeque ribs, I'm eating the pig.

Idiots.

Second Hand Ralph

You should be able to smoke where you drink.

Neither is illegal and they're pastimes traditionally enjoyed in tandem.

Ban drinking because of second-hand vomit then!

It's only right.

(Don't worry my smoker friends. I won't betray you.)

Is it possible to gain 600 pounds in a day?

Take female hormones and add them in on top of quitting smoking, and I'm pretty sure you've got the recipe for triple digit weight gain.

I walked back and forth inside the olympic size pool today. Thought about things other than cigarettes. For at least 33 seconds. I jogged a few laps in the water, even swam some. Yesterday I shopped at Whole Foods so I wouldn't buy junk.

None of this has mattered.

I'm switching to wood.

If that doesn't work, it's Oxycodone for the stomach upset side effect. Not to mention the slight high I'll get.

Clean & sober & toothy

Still not smoking. Not a puff. Oh. How. I. Want. One. Now. I. Don't. Remember. Quitting. Being. This. Hard. Don't. Wait. Until. You're. Over. 40. to. Quit. It. Sux. Real. Real. Bad.

I want to chew things. Not like gum or candy. I want to chew leather sofas, cedar shingles, and baby grand pianos. Right now I'm looking at my piano, and, quite literally, thinking how good the splinters would feel in my gums if I gnawed on it. Once I get past the finish, I imagine a sweet, slightly acrid taste. And soft wood pulp giving way...

Someone ship me a nylabone, quick.

Instead of ruining a family heirloom, I have made other plans. I'm chomping on those fat-free pretzel things that are the size of a bear's paw. I'm quite sure I've loosened three fillings, but I'm actually looking forward to the root canal. Mmmmmm. Saweeet. Only two nerves? Oh, I was hoping for four.

Anyway those pretzels apparently have no fat, no calories, no nothing except the cardboard from the box they come in, which is what they taste like.

But I don't mind the taste because, you see, they move every part of my oral network when I chew them. They absorb all of little parts of me missing my ciggy friends. I wish I could think of something even harder to chew on--like maybe steel.

What is this?

What the fuck is this feeling? I feel like an animal in a steel-jaw leghold trap ready to amputate myself free.

Chew or be chewed.

Well. That's what it's like to be me just now.

And there's a pig just over the backyard fence.....

Oh, you poor poor fellas.

The Big Boy Bloggers' Club laments the pressures of actually having, um, readers.

Whoa. It's tough out there, ain't it Instadoughnut?

Related news on doughnuts.

That Old Black Magic

Cigarettes. I've been thinking about them all day. Because I quit sucessfully a couple of times before (is it successful if you go back at all in your lifetime? Maybe not), the patterened thinking of my addicted mind is familiar to me.

I love cigarettes. I love them. If I had one here in my hand, I would lick it with love. I would sniff and sniff and lick and lick and slobber all over it. Then I'd take another one out and smoke it. I'd inhale deep and hold. Hold my love, my first love at 12, my family, my childhood best friend. Come back to me. I could rely on you. Didn't matter when, who, why--you were there. Always. A block away on a bad day.

That is why I love my friends, cigarettes. That is why at this moment I see no reason, not one single reason, why I should not have one. And then the darkness. You can't. No, you can't have one. Doctor's orders. And Jenna. Remember? Remember? What's wrong with you. You would have had one RIGHT THEN if it were sitting in front of you. Why can't you remember why? Where does it go? How does making sense come to make no sense and not making sense become sensible?

I can't think too good these days. At Group tonight I rambled. The sound of my own voice scared me. It had no idea which way to go without the reliable next step--go out and smoke.

I hate cigarettes. If they loved me like I loved them, those pieces of shit American Spirits, they'd let me go, let me breathe, let me live.

Oh shit. It's not like that, my papered pets. It's not you. It's me. You're sweet and wonderful and make me feel so alive. You taste like candy.

Except that I really hate you, you fucking coffin nails.

LET ME GO!

[[still clean, -j.]]

Day 5, sans cigarettes

getting pissed. it's working.

I've quit before. Once for four years. Always cold turkey. Because I like the way it hurts. It creates a memory that keeps me quit--at least for some years.

Have to. Have to. Don't want to, but do want to, but HAVE to. Can't wait for that feeling good thing when I don't have to remember to bring them with me. Not there yet. Still wanting. BAD.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Winer Watch

Dave continues to demonstrate he's wacked (is that better? I don't much care) with recent posts on scripting attempting to pick at his enemas, I mean enemies, while glorifying himself.

It is masterful work in projection from one who calls posses to dig up dirt on the women who dared to say "WTF, No You Can't", has stated that certain women are out in blogland fucking their way around weblogs.com, and has vowed to make sure those who have something to lose DO lose.

Today we see a kinder and gentler Dave, the new self-appointed Dr. Phil of blogland, wagging his finger at those who have in some way -- he's really going back a long ways now -- offended him. These people are HONEST about their world, not afraid, and have nothing to lose here by telling the truth. Dave can't get to those kind of people online because they have nothing to lose, and that drives him crazy.

Projection unmasked:

The Golden Rule comes before The Cluetrain Manifesto. If you aren't trying to treat people as you would like to be treated, you can't possibly do good, imho. You guys have taken a big detour, I think you've lost your way. When I first read the Cluetrain I was cheering, it was exciting. Now it's degraded and sick. Time for an intervention. Wake up guys, people matter. I still believe you're better than this. Much.

Yes, dave, what you said.

The close of day 3 sans cigarettes

Want to. Gotta. Can't. Must. Won't. Mmmmmmm. No. tap. walk. breathe. want. no. don't. won't. don't want. doctor. can't. good. hope. dark. want. have to. door. outside. no. upstairs. downstairs. tv. no tv. work. no work. sniffffff. cough. tap. have to. what? why not? Just one. Not one. who cares? makes good sense. sniffff. sigh. buses pollute. suck. walk. sleep. panic. sleep. snifff. breathe. hack. miss. cry. gone. gone? why not? no don't. Just one? Not one. One more. No more. tap. walk. breathe. sigh. why not? no can't. just one? not one. work. sleep. wake. cramp.

fuck.

Good reading, good writing.

I dug this post over at blogsisters from Tild's blog, where I also found 21 reasons why the average republican seems confused, at which I giggled long and often.

good reading + good writing = funw/blogs

Let sleeping pigs lie

the pig slept in the dog house for so long that I thought he must be dead.

today he moved. took himself out for a walk around the muck.

It didn't rain all day today. We had some sun. We were all quite frightened. I got sunburned.

The answer is: When pigs fly.

I wonder when the neighbor's going to start on that fence...

Maxims

Pigs sleep a lot.

Babies don't come when you want them to.

Coveting Ham

I've been watching the pig. It's been a week or so now. Today I decided that he's kind of cute. All joking aside, he seems to have adapted to life in suburbia better than I have. Sometimes when I stare out the kitchen window, I switch places with him. I play mind games. I'm in the dirt pushing around lettuce leaves and he's in my messy kitchen, and neither of us seem to notice the difference.

The thing is, I guess, pigs adapt.

He has no sense that he doesn't belong a mile off I-75 near a strip mall and an elementary school playground. What does he care? He's got dirt and food and can snap his curly tail (I've seen him) when the flies bother him. He could be in Oklahoma. He could be in Buckhead. He doesn't give a shit. Because he's a pig.

I like the pig now. I like looking out my window and seeing a pig where he shouldn't be, not caring one way or the other where he is.

He's happy for the dirt and the lettuce and the long days of rain that have made his mud hole that much more enjoyable.

You go, pig.

don't know nothin' bout birthing that baby...

I'm supposed to help my friend have a baby in about 12 hours.

Isn't that something?

I don't know what will happen.

I had a baby. I had a c-section. It's not the same.

Don't know nothin' 'bout no labor.

Today I'll know more.

Happy labor day.

In the dog house

The Pig has a dog house now.

I saw the big pig in the dog house today.
I saw his big pig head and big pig legs sticking out.
His big pig snout was resting on his big pig feet,
And he was having a big pig nap.

I wonder what happened to the dog.

Homesick

So What do they do in there?

Well, in a word or two, a lot.



Simply magnificent.

A dog's blog / A cat's blog

Again, from my brother-in-law (who really should start blogging himself) I got this via email today. Hadn't seen it before. You? Since we're on the topic of animals... tee hee.


*/Pet Diaries Uncovered /*

*As seen in a dog's diary:*

*8am - Oh Boy! Dog food! My favorite!*

*9am - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite*

*10am - Oh Boy! A walk! My favorite!*

*11am - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite!*

*Noon - Oh Boy! The kids! My favorite!*

*1pm - Oh Boy! The yard! My favorite!*

*3pm - Oh Boy! The kids! My favorite!*

*4pm - Oh Boy! Dog food! My favorite!*

*5pm - Oh Boy! Mom! My favorite!*

*7pm - Oh Boy! Playing ball! My favorite!*

*9pm - Oh Boy! Sleeping in master's bed!! My favorite!*

-----------------------------------

*/As seen in a cat's diary:/*

* Day 183 of my captivity...*

*My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.
They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal.
The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture.*

*Tomorrow I may eat another house plant. Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded -- must try this at the top of the stairs.*

*In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair -- must try this on their bed. Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body, in an attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was. Hmmm, not working according to plan.*

*There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the food. More importantly I overheard that my confinement was due to MY power of "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.*

*I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird on the other hand has got to be an informant, and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room, his safety is assured.*

*But I can wait, it is only a matter of time...*

Excuse me, do you have a pig?

Good fences make good neighbors. That's been my personal mantra of homeownership since I first home-owned in 1988.

Strange thing about fences here in Georgia, at least in our county, is that there are no ordinances about which way a fence must face. In other words, when we built a fence in New York (and I think in any other state in the union), we would of course build our fence with the posts and rails facing INTO our yard.

For lack of a photo here--the pretty side faces out; the ugly side faces in.

There's no such rule in our county. Although our back fence faces into our property, it belongs to our backyard neighbor. In fact, he once got an insurance settlement on the fence, when a tree fell on it, but unfortunately had better things to spend the money on (aka his new hot tub). That was not good news for the fence, or for us. During the last decade, the six-foot stockade fence has been eroding away, slowly but surely.

We've done the things you do when your fence is falling apart. Even when it's not yours. Especially when there are dogs on both sides of the fence who, on most days, hate one another. We chickenwired, we rigged, we tied, we leaned. Those tricks definitely bought the structure another couple of years. But the fence is dying. Decaying, rotting, falling.

And we're stuck with a cheap, unfriendly backyard neighbor who has displayed zero interest in addressing the fence.

But these things--they have a way of a-changin'.

It's a southern thang.

---------------------

Let me go backwards for a moment. Clarify things. We don't live in the country. In fact, we live in an old (by Atlanta standards) subdivision, nothing fancy, no neighborhood pool, where the houses are about 20-25 years old. 3/4 acre lots, a good size yard, lots of trees, but we're not in the sticks. Okay? I can hear I-75 from my porch at night. Are you with me? Good.

Imagine my surprise, then, when George mentioned two weeks ago that he saw a pig in our backyard neighbor's yard. Disbelief is a better word, I think.

I explained it away--it was probably one of their retrievers gone fat, or it was one of their friend's dogs, or he'd had a dream about a neighborhood pig.

He insisted that he saw a pig. And I quote: "With my own two eyes."

My thoughts turned to those interesting pot-belly pigs I'd seen on television specials running through people's living rooms, over their oriental carpets. Always the t-shirt wearing wife in the fancy pants home flapping her lips about what great pets pigs make.

I asked George, "Could it be one of those pot-belly pigs?"

He licked his lips. "No, it's a pig. And I mean a pig."

"Like a p-i-g hog?"

"I know what I saw. It was a pig."

We can see our neighbor's back yard from our kitchen window. The lush trees outside our window, heavy with the summer rain that won't quit, block all but a slice of the corner of our neighbor's backyard.

For two weeks I glanced out the window, with mock wide eyes. Poked fun at my husband. "Yah, you saw a pig. Uh-huh." "Ooooo where's you're little piggy-wiggy?" and the obligatory "oink oink oink--I wants some ribs!"

And then late last week I saw it.

No doubt. No way. No how. A big fat pig. Right behind the fence that separates our dogs from their dinner.

No potbelly. A P-I-G hog.

And of course, the question weighing on everyone's mind: Why?

-------------------

The rain won't stop here. It won't let up. Late at night the moon comes out from behind the clouds, the stars decide to shine, and I want to slap the sky for these days filled with storms and nights filled with quiet.

Yesterday, it was pouring. Relentless. I decided to let our mutt Bando in, and as I opened the door on the deck, I noticed that in addition to our boxer mix, we had somehow inherited a purebred boxer in our fenced yard. Huh?

I ushered Bando in and went to step out on the deck, where miss lady boxer had decided to greet me with a snarl and a bark.

"Who are you?"

"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR ROOOOF ROOOF MOOOF!"

I see heads behind the back fence, examining the dilapidated, half-hanging structure that belongs to them. Yes, the pig people.

"Is this your dog?" I shout through the rain. We aren't on friendly terms since they emptied their inground pool into our yard at the end of last summer.

"Yes--can you chase her this way? She won't bite."

"GRRRRRRRR ROOOF MOOOF MOOF BOOF!"

"Uh, well, go on now girl! go home!"

Like I'm going to step out on the deck with a full-grown boxer growling at me. Not.

"Look, why don't you drive around to our street and get her out the front gate?"

"Okay--we'll be right there."

Hmmmm. My mind is working already.

The Lincoln SUV pulls into our driveway about 60 seconds later, and the lady neighbor gets out. I tell her go on through the gate and get her boxer--that our dogs are inside.

Then I plot. I weigh the right way to ask it, to subtly remind her that I remember her chlorine-water dumping crimes of the past, and that I'm on to her new addition.

As she walks her boxer to the car, I say, as loudly as possible: "Excuse me, do you have a PIG?"

She ignores me. I could let it go. We'd all be more comfortable. The car's running. It's raining. She's got the dumbest boxer I've ever seen trying to figure out what exactly an automobile is for.

No way, baby. I've gotcha.

"Hello--I'm wondering, do you have a PIG?"

Still no response. I stare. She has to acknowledge me now--the dog is in the back seat and I'm looking her face on as she comes around to the driver's side.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you," she lies, looking for the door handle.

"I asked if you have a PIG."

She's defeated. She's busted. Her shoulders hang. I smile.

"Well. yes. it's my daughter's pet."

She looks up at me exasperated.

"I see. Interesting," I say. "We're going to have to talk about that fence,"

She agrees. Says they will get estimates. We'll talk next week.

You better believe we will.


The moral of the story is: Never look a gift pig in the snout.

Birmingham, Cut It Out.

We're floating away here. Not float on pool, but thunderstorms and rain and rain and thunderstorms. Makes me glad for the good dry indoors, even with the ceiling leaks here and there. The roof repair guy seems to have slapped the tar on in the right spots. I keep looking up for drips; just the ugly yellow stains look back at me.

Birmingham, do us a favor and keep your thunderstorms this week. Just keep your rain over there. We don't need any more. I promise. Ask the oak tree in the front yard, ask the weeds, or ask my old dog whose hot spot sprang up from the dampness.

See, I have a kid who's spooked of tornadoes, and she's starting to spook me too. I think I hear sirens now. She's in my bed waiting for me. And it's only sprinkling now. Just cut out all the rain and wind and thunder, and we can shake hands and make nice over the state line.

That's the last time I'm asking nicely.

What does genocide look like?

We who say what we mean say what we mean.

Mike my brother, I almost missed this one. Oh, it's the best I've seen, yah the best I've seen.

Thanks to Shelley for thanking you and for thanking AKMA, otherwise I might have missed your whole diss. And that woulda been tragic.

What I really thank you for is writing about the genocide in Sudan. Because, like, most of my neighbors are so busy slapping their Bush/Cheney 04 bumper stickers on and looking for Bin Laden at the Quick Trip that they've missed that news.

Now maybe they'll listen to me.

Fuckers.

Spontaneously yours...

Oh. Dear. Evil Genius at Work? Dog Island.

So I'm searching up hound mixes online, trying to start networking to find my sister a mix of some or other hound variety, and I come across Dog Island. Have you seen this? Well, you really must.

Check out the Rates page:


The Normal Route, Dog Island: Free Forever

Permanent residence for dogs at Dog Island is free! You will have to pass the interview process and so will your dog. It is not easy, we really want exceptional dogs, and we need dogs who have been properly trained for the island. We never make the implication that it's an easy transition, but the dogs experience themselves anew, so it's worth it.

Dogs never want to leave the island once they experience it, so you will not be able to have your dog again. You can come to the public visiting days, they are three times a year. Sometimes, someone sees their dog again. Usually the dog has either forgotten them, or has grown to resent all the years of captivity. Even with the sweetest relationship, it was always wrong for the dog to not be free.

Vacation Island: Three Weeks

Vacation Island, on the other hand, is very very expensive. It is only for rich people who have that kind of money to spend. This is the only way to visit the island with a dog and still come back with your dog.

If have you have the money, this is often a good way to show your dog what it has been missing, while helping to give it to many, many others. As a rich visitor, your dog will be in ecstasy for three weeks. However, once that period is over, we regret to say your relationship with your dog will be flat for a little while, only because your dog will have had such a great time, that he will now miss it thoroughly.

Not to be missed, get down with the Dog Island groove.

Special Note: We are booked for the next 12 years. Please consider supporting a local chapter.

I mean with a business model like this, what could go wrong?

If your dog is accepted, there is no cost at all! This is completely free. We make this possible by some funding from rich people with big hearts, and by the money we make from the rich people who like to use the Vacation Island.

Southern Africa's Beauty

Saw a special on Atlanta TV the night before last on Mateya Safari. A mere $1,500 a night for a piece of peace.

Mmmmmm.

While they're busy catching those bad guys without WMDs who had nothing to do with 9-11....

Hypocrisy

The U.S. Agency for International Development estimated that at least 350,000 people will die of disease and malnutrition over the next nine months.

Hypocrisy

Returning from a recent trip to refugee sites on the border between Sudan and Chad, a team of investigators from Physicians for Human Rights issued a report that found several indicators of genocide in Darfur. The eyewitness accounts from refugees are heartbreaking. The destruction of villages, the killing, the hot pursuit of survivors, the systematic rape of women -- these crimes form a pattern the report calls genocide.

Hypocrisy

According to estimates by international humanitarian organizations, at least 1.2 million people in Darfur have been forced from their homes and scores have been terrorized or killed by Arab militias known as the Jingaweit.

And I'll keep talking about it.

Don't Sue Me, Or Do--I'm Posting It Anyway

My bro-in-law forwarded this article from today's Boston Globe. He said it reminded him of me, and even the writing did. He's a good egg. It is indeed well written, way well, better than I could do justice to, and it is also the stuff my brain turns round and round all the time. Go Dr. Ely.

-------------------------------

The subtler injuries kids bear

By Elissa Ely, Globe Columnist | June 27, 2004

MY LITTLE GIRL was in mourning for someone she loved. It was not a consequence of fire or war. The beloved in question was still alive. But logistics and distance had caused a natural separation, which time then extended. Calls were not answered, dates left unarranged. The love affair had become one-sided, and there was no explaining to her that intimate bonds can dissolve into yearning on one side and disinterest on the other, that this happens more often than not, and that, through nature and time, better bonds will form. After much unhappiness, she wrote a poem in pencil, then copied it in glowing yellow highlighter onto a piece of paper covered with hearts:

Life is good But not so good

Without a friend

Like you.

She mailed it off. There was no response. Over the next weeks, references to the beloved tapered off. After they finally stopped, I understood that her heart had quietly broken, along lines of cleavage I could not repair. That night we were watching a video of her choosing with two adults who have no children. We had convinced our friends to forgo more age-appropriate options by promising them charm, wit, and jaw-dropping technical effects. The video is considered a recent children's classic, a marvel of computerized animation. Most important, my little girl wanted to see it again.

She sat in my lap and looked expectantly at the adults across the living room. She is very fond of them and wanted them to love her movie. She was setting them up on a blind date for romance. "Isn't it great?" she said, the instant the title appeared.

They wanted to like the movie, too. They were prepared to chuckle at childish things and appreciate young humor. They lounged on the floor, pillows piled around, looking relaxed. It was a break from the profound films they usually take in.

But we had forgotten -- because we are so used to it -- that the movie was filled with incidental violence. The plot itself is benign, and the main characters emerge untouched, but there are dozens of unfortunate special effects: steel cutting skin, heads banging, and once, a little bird blowing up when a tone-deaf heroine sings to it. Our friends raised their eyebrows at first, then winced, then grew stiff and dropped all pretense of enjoyment.

My little girl could not understand. The violence did not interest her: Not one blow drew a chuckle. She put up with it, and watched for the sake of adventure.

Our friends did not want to hurt her feelings. After the video ended, they spoke in neutral phrases until she had gone, puzzled, to bed. Then they erupted. It was a critique full of inarguable thoughts about the hazards of children absorbing violence and the media honing it so attractively. They were appalled at the exploitation and enraged at a world where millions of dollars fine-tune hurtful visual effects so children will laugh harder.

My husband, always invigorated by the prospect of disagreement, answered with spirit. He said a parent's job was not to prevent media exposure but to help children learn discrimination. He pointed out that the mother doe's death in "Bambi" was far more devastating than a movie in which peripheral characters no one knew or cared about disappeared quickly off the screen. He said there was much worse out there in children's programming. He dropped Bugs Bunny into the argument to make a point about historical continuity -- someone was always being banged by Bugs's frying pan or wearing gunpowder from his musket, and our generation survived. He looked over to me for reinforcement.

My own thoughts were drifting elsewhere, to my little girl's recently broken heart, and her yearning, unanswered poem. I was thinking that there are gross violences, casual and pervasive, and so extensive that they become background voltage in the lives of kids. They are wrong, and of course children's movies would be safer for children without them.

But I was also thinking about the subtler kinds of injuries children absorb -- not intended, not life-threatening, not technically violent, not even anybody's fault, but still life-changing. I know it is a luxury to worry about a broken heart in a world where broken lives are standard trauma. I know how lucky we are that this is the worst the little girl has faced. And yet, it didn't feel that way. She had stepped away from Eden, and there was no protecting her.


Elissa Ely is a psychiatrist.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

How ya feelin'?

This site can't be beat for emotive art. Thanks RB for the trip. I mean tip.

And the winner is:



Xanax 1993. T'was a very good year.

second runner up.

Why my child will never visit the Paynters

Lilapsophobia.

(shhh. no one tell her we live in tornado alley too.)

Dave Can't Shut Up

On Scripting today, Dave links to a comment he left at Shelley's place.

No matter how hard he tries to revise history--just one of his many endearing habits--I maintan that it was the OUTRAGE not the "outage" that moved things, that required MORE THAN that nice little request from Dave, which appeared on the homepage of all weblogs.com blogs one day, to simply "leave your URL and sometime in July I'll get you your files, if you don't whine about it."

Puuuhhhleeeaassseee.

If no outrage, those folks would still be waiting.

Plain and simple.

Not an Outage.

An Outrage.

A deliberate shutdown without a second thought.

One that is now all better thanks to the men of technology.

The outrage encouraged the solution.

The FOD (friends of Dave) responded.

None of them bothered to answer Shelley's technical questions.

And why should they?

'Cause as we all know, a woman blogger's place is behind the camera.

Bite me. Bite me. Bite me.

Dave, go pack a box, take in a movie, read a self-help book. ANYTHING.

I'm done.

The COACEOs Will Blog

Uh huh. Hmmmm. So the Chief of All CEOS is going to start blogging. This is interesting. It would be a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. Bill Gates blogs. Every CEO in God's Heaven will blog.

"And so if I do a trip report, say, and put that in a blog format, then all the employees at Microsoft who really want to look at that and who have keywords that connect to it or even people outside, they can find the information." -- Bill Gates

Note to all other CEOs: You are not Bill Gates. His trip reports might be interesting because he's the COACEOs. Your trip reports, we can do without. Stick with the stuff you care about. Then We'll see how Bill Does.

Gates also has a stable of writers and communications specialists who help produce material. It's unclear whether they would help keep his blog going.

Probably so.

Looked this up for a new blog friend - Corporate Weblogging Secrets...

Me on corporate blogging a year ago. I hope you can see the lump in the side of my cheek, where my tongue is. ;-)


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.

Lilapsophobia

So it has a name. Good old Google.

Lilapsophobia, an abnormal and persistent fear of tornadoes and hurricanes.

Jenna's got it.

We're not talking curiosity, we're talking listening for sirens in the air on a partly cloudy day.

It started with watching a weather channel special on twisters. Educational, I thought. What could it hurt?

I have now heard the word twister or tornado approximately 139 times in the last five days. Most frequently as the last word before she falls asleep and the first word upon wakening. And then several times during the day.

"If a tornado comes, will it rip the top off our house?" -- she asked me that as I'm writing this. Just now. In the last three seconds.

As we reassure her and share with her our own fears at her age, I'm hoping that this is just a childhood phase that will wane in time.

But the look in her eyes--it's the look in her eyes and the biting of nails.

They spell Lilapsophobia.

Little girls... what makes them tick?

I should remember. I was one. And I'm not sure if it's that I don't remember, or I wasn't the way little girls are today.

Jenna has a best friend the same age. They met in dance class two years ago. We moms and the two girls started spending time together. A friendship blossomed. You'd think that would be good. But what was once a friendship of giving has turned into nothing but one argument after another, one "she said this, she said that, she did this, she did that." after another.

What I remember about being six and having a best friend is that her name was Debbie and she lived next door, and living out in the country, this was a good thing. We became best friends out of necessity--two girls, same age, next door, none other like us for a mile or so in either direction. Hence, the bond.

I don't ever remember having the kind of catty fights Jenna and her friend have. I've seen it at school too. The notorious: "I'm not your friend anymore." How many times did I see tears through the rearview mirror because Jenna got the word from missy-so-and-so: "I'm not your friend anymore," or the kissin' cousin, "I'm not your best friend."

"I don't want to play with you." tags along in third place, as little girls trade alliances like lunchtime snacks.

Anyway, all of this is to say, the difficulty we moms are having is untangling whatever mess of a fight they bring to us with the "she said, she did" NO "she said, she did" scenarios.

Which is where the baby monitor comes in. I just bought Mom number 2 a baby monitor for her shower. She's nine months pregnant. And 43. Surprise!

SO we've concocted a plan. Next time they play, we are going to straight out spy on them using the baby monitor. We will learn who starts what, how, why. We will trace the trends, examine the dynamics, and if we are lucky, learn more than we ever wanted to about the species known as the six-year-old girl.

Wish us luck, 'cause we're goin' in.

I can dance to it, I like the beat, I give it a 9.

Hee hee hee.

Schwartz Nearly Gets It.

Fascinating, isn't it, to explore the parallel and simultaneous nature of blogging. Just the other day, I happened upon the first really good weblog written by a guy, who happens to be the President of a tech company (that's a VIM - very important modifier, as it's not vice-versa), who really gets blogging. That guy is Phil Libin, whose company is Corestreet.

But Corestreet's name isn't all over his blog, he believes in separation of church and state when it comes to blogging, and he avoids the usual C-Suite pitfall of blogging from his business card title. He talks about his brother, his love for all that is gadgetry, and he's really damn funny. The unintended result, or maybe the entire point, is that he's *likeable*.

incidentally, the PR firm getting credit for spurring Phil to blog is Schwartz Communications, and according to the case study, specifically, Chuck Tanowitz.

Fascinating so far. I am now Phil's biggest fan, since he's doing exactly what I urge CEOs to consider doing when I get questions on, how can we incorporate this blogging thing into our PR strategy..." Wrong question. Phil got the right answer. Chuck, kudos.

Contrast the Corestreet experience with the discussion going on over at Media Guerrilla, which I found through Elizabeth Albrycht.

The item up for discussion is whether or not a company should issue a formal press release when it launches a weblog. So far, they have one no, one yes, and me--well, I'm thinking it out right here.

Far from hypothetical, the question popped up in response to this press release announcing the newly-launched Wifinally weblog, written by the CEO, CTO, and VP of Marketing for Propagate Networks.

My answer to the question at hand will take more than one post.

What interested me, is that Propagate Networks has the same PR company as Phil Libin -- Schwartz -- as noted in the Propagate Networks' release. They are most likely serviced by different account teams, and it shows.

Compare Propagate's Wifinally with Libin's Vastly Important. While incorporating some similar practices, the weblogs are yards apart. Only one, I think, is really even a weblog. Only one, I predict, will get traction because it has a voice for readers to hold on to during the ride. That one is Libin's. The other reads, looks, feels, and smells like a mainstream wi-fi publication written by some industry veterans within an industry that is full of veterans.

And issuing a formal press release sans personality doesn't do anything to help the matter.

I understand that every client is different. I truly understand that many CEOs can't cross the chasm Libin has now widened with a challenge by example. Some of my clients could very easily, if they dared, be themselves online. They are likeable people with opinions beyond their industry, with a life outside of their business, that informs who they are within their businesses.

At the same time, because I care about weblogging, I don't encourage clients who wouldn't do well writing a weblog. I save the secret for the select few I know could resonate in this medium. I know three I wish would take the dare. I know six I will never mention blogging to. For them, there are brochures, white papers, bylined and contributed articles, and formal press releases.

But for the ones who get it, the game's wide open.

So, going back to the question at hand, perhaps what is better asked is, "Should Propagate Networks have issued a formal press release about its newly launched weblog?"

Yes. It fits with the voice, the tone, and from what I can tell, the objectives. It is more a publication than a conversation, so formal PR tactics can be used to support it.

Now, if you'd asked should Corestreet issue a press release announcing Phil Libin's weblog? I would have said no. Let the readership evolve there as it does naturally within this medium. Build trust and genuine relationships through the links that power our conversations here. Talk, don't report.

If a press release were to be issued for Libin's blog, I would want it to be better than, more than, different than, the usual, hum-drum press release.

More later--I have to run outta here and fast.

Another Goodbye, Kinda

The Happy Tutor noticed what I think was one of my best in a long time.

Thanks, Happy.

A final goodbye

Since I was twelve, my sister has never been without a dog, and in that time, she's had only two dogs. I'm 42 now. That's 30 years, two dogs.

Her first mutt, Mac, lived to the ripe old age of 16. I used to baby sit Mac when I was a kid, because he was hell on wheels. She lived on a farm, and on one particularly dicey baby sitting stint, I was talking on the phone to my best friend, it was 11 at night, and she heard the phone wires go dead as I said "Oh no!"

Needless to say, probably, that my friend's parents called my mother, who called the snipers in, and before I knew it, five people were knocking on my sister's front door, expecting to find me dead.

I was eating a ham sandwich.

Mac, aside from ripping up a nice throw rug that night, had also chewed through the phone cord. He was always a hoot.

When Mac's kidneys failed, I was about to turn 28. Mac had seen my sister through three moves to three different states, a marriage, a baby, a divorce. She had him put to sleep at home, and her grief was so big. So big. She went up stairs, and I sat with Mac while he got his shots--one to relax, the other to rest. I laid next to him on her living room floor, told him what a good boy he was, patted his head until the vet whispered, as they do, "He's gone."

She didn't know, then, what to do with him. He was too big for the mobile vet to take, and that wasn't a service he liked much to offer. So he loaded Mac into the back of my station wagon for us, and I set off to find the crematorium, a 40 minute drive. I don't remember what I thought as I drove with Mac, dead in the back. But I remember I thought a lot of things.

About three months after Mac died, my sister fell in love with a puppy, a clumsy hound mix whom her son named Blitz. We put him to sleep yesterday at 14. Blitz saw my sister through four moves, her single parenting of an asthmatic (and often hospitalized) child, that child's graduation from college, and my sister's remarriage.

If dogs could talk.

But then, they do.

I didn't think my sister would be able to go with me yesterday. Our pasts are loaded when it comes to death and loss and the inability to grieve. But she did. She went. She stayed in the room for the first time during the letting go of life. She wept, as we stroked Blitz's head, we shared kleenex, and he went to sleep.

With his nose resting at the tip of her sneekers the whole time.

When death is beautiful, it really is.

This one was.

Such a Good Good Boy

And so It was.

In memory of Blitz, as sweet as they come.
December 1990 - June 2004

If a CEO Blog Could Talk... Hey, Wait!

A guy who likes gadgets, has a brother with a big screen TV, and even writes about his company. He's Phil Libin, the CEO of Corestreet, and this is his personal weblog.

He doesn't blog from his business card title. The fact that he's in the security biz informs his writing, but this is no mainstream column about the space. Even when Phil is talking about his company, it's far from preachy:

About two years ago, when CoreStreet was just over a dozen people, our offices were two adjacent rooms in a (not very recently) renovated 19th century commercial horse stable. It was an inconvenient setup because even though the two rooms shared an interior wall, to walk from one to the other required going out one door, down the long hallway and in through the other door. This added a couple of hundred feet to the walk and required fumbling with keys two times per trip. Among our neighbors on the floor was some sort of “training” center. We never figured out what they taught, but judging by the condition of the single common bathroom, it may well have been toilet training. We kept our doors locked at all times.

This is a good example of what a CEO blog should be.

This is the don't example.

Thanks to PR Opinions for pointing out Phil's blog.

Tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning I get to take old Blitz, my sister's 14-year-old 80-pound hound mix for his final ride to the vet. He's a good old dog. It's time. I'll sit with him, look him in the eye, tell him what a good good boy he is, and pat him goodbye.

What, Not Ladylike Enough for You?

Jump it, Jump it, Jump It!

I like this one best so far. Scott, not Gerry, Mulligan laid it down over on Waxy.

makin' me smile so big.

David on Voice and Authenticity

A discussion of note going on at David's place about Voice with a capital V. I've commented too. Go on now, git.

Gonzo Enraged

Listen, gonzo engaged participants, what is, is. Stop jumping up and down. Now, another new template is in place. Sorry the other one was so sucky, but I'm in the middle of 25 other things over here, and I gave it a shot.

If you wish to continue posting to Gonzo, please update your blogger profiles within the next week. Otherwise I'll assume you don't want to post to the blog anymore and will delete your ass completely. Reason being, it's kinda nice the way blogger has set up the "Contributors" section of the template to pull your blogger profile info, which shows ALL the blogs you post to, as well as things you probably don't want readers of gonzo engaged to know, like your email address and town of residence.

Ah well, another day...

cross posted here.

Another day, another posse

Jesus, Frank. I'm a person, not a company!

Gonzo Engaged Has A New Look Because I Felt Like It.

Gonzo Engaged has lost it's circa 2001 weblog look in favor of a shiny new blogger-2004 getup. But there's a little problem.

If you know what tag I have to add, and where, within the template to get the poster's name (or blogger profile link) to read out at the bottom of each post, can you leave a comment here, or email me?

It's a team blog, so there are several different posters. And I don't know what I did to the lil doodadder what shows who's who.

byebyenow.

For Dads

It's been 36 years since you wrapped your arms around me, lifted me skyward, balanced me in the center of your broad chest, the buttons of a crisp, white cotton shirt pressing into my belly, getting stuck on the waistband of my shorts, carving a memory in my flesh.

There is something, isn't there, when a daddy lifts his baby girl above his own head and she looks down at him on high--to see the part of his hair, his eyebrows from the top, the way his nose forms a ball at the tip.

Little girls can't tell these things about their daddies when their party shoes are on the floor. But from a head above him, I can see everything. The roundness of his cheeks, their slight blush, the few hairs that wander from the rest.

Fathers, lift your daughters today. Spin them round if you can.

They will remember.

Amen, RB.

Can I get an Amen?

Look, I said this a long time ago, and I'll say it again... The sky is open to the stars. Clouds roll over us night and day. Oceans rise and fall. Whatever you may have heard, this is our world, our place to be. Whatever you've been told, our flags fly free. Our heart goes on forever.

People of Earth, remember.

And that had nothing to do with Business®. I spit on Business. Ptui! I spit on Science® and Religion® and Politics®. Ptui! Ptui! Ptui! They are abominations, abhorrent to The Holder of the MasterRemote®, The All Merciful MindBreaker®. Defile not thyselves with these loathsome heresies. Ptui! But rather goest thou and kill the Infidel deader than A Fucking Doornail®. Then bloggest thou in Peace® and let not the vile lying vermin cosksuckers disturbest thy rapt contemplation of My Works®...

Keep Voice Alive. Donate.

Just Thoughts...

It has been a strange few days. It feels like a few weeks, but days. Only days.

Anyone who has been to this place before, and everyone new, knows I stepped into a fray by speaking out soon after the weblogs.com fiasco began. I wouldn't change a word of what I said. Not a word. Yes, I struggled for a bit with "Psychosis," since this seemed to be a sticking point around the whole "ad hominem attack" debate. I toyed with posting an apology saying that I should have used the word "Neurosis." In the end, though, after all was said and done, I felt okay with "Psychosis."

I had a talk with a blogger friend today on some interesting issues around getting personal, being real, and resonance. These same issues have been giving me pause lately about blogging. As blogging beats the door of the mainstream, with more bloggers covering more mainstream events/issues/topics, and fewer bloggers getting personal, I see a dilution of voice--the kind of genuine voice that kicked blogging into gear in 2001/2002--and a spike in the boredom level of blog reading and writing. Until this past week, FOX News was more exciting to watch than surfing the top blogs on Technorati.

Part of it is that. Driven by the evolution of tools that categorize us--whether we want them to or not--by mainstream standards. Technorati now makes it so easy to search on discussions around current news and current hot topics, even current books. But what about current loss, current dreams, current cancer, current love affairs, and current babies being born. Show me the top images recently posted across blogs, like Shelley's flowers and Halley's new tan. This is the place where I don't want to care about what I'm told I'm supposed to care about. This is the place where I want to care about you--and me.

In that phone conversation today, we also wound around the blogworld's notions of flamers and trolls. I don't know when the use of these terms became standard license for shutting people up, but that's what has happened. What is a flamer and what is a flame war? It's like obscenity; I know it when I see it. But these words, you see, they are tricky.

They can be so easily used by others who would prefer you remain silent. Stake your claim, get personal, say, "You're full of shit," and you're a flamer. Stick around somebody's site and call them on inconsistencies, or alert them that they've wandered too far from home, and "you're a troll."

No no no.

It's okay,
incite.
Spark to flame,
ignite.

Remember?

If you do remember, you'll also remember that the use of the word "Flamer/Flame War" and "Troll" were once rare here. I think maybe non-existent. Go back through your archives and comments from 2001/2002, or go through mine. You won't find folks in blogspace who disagreed with one another, and got personal about it, called "flamers." You won't find the folks who showed up in your comments to keep you honest called "trolls." Just didn't happen that way. And there's a reason for that.

It goes back to that mainstream thing--standards and protocols not of technology, but of behavior and voice. Copy-catting the status quo. Taking the easy way out.

Now, more bloggers measure what they say, try to provide "balance" and "fairness." Both sides. Equal time. Please, no profanity and keep it at the 3,000 foot level.

To me, that sounds like old-school journalism. Reporting, not blogging. Methodology, not creativity.

Nothing to see here. Go on home.

THIS is the place that asked us to get biased. To have an opinion. To matter, to count, to speak--To speak in a genuine voice, not like contrived, carved-mouthed ventriloquist dummies. At the same time, of course, there was a familiarity--stronger threads and a smaller web--because the communities were smaller and tighter. As a result, we cared.

A lot.

I don't mind so much that this place has become large enough where we can't target our care and concern like a laser beam anymore. I DO care, as a student of voice, about the dilution of what feels real, the seeping of mainstream expectations and policies into this world.

To bring it back around to the last few days, I will say that I hit upon something today that absolutely floored me. It's about the rush. The rush I feel when I read someone who is writing from the gut, from that raw place that feels so good to scratch, the place we used to scratch a lot more often. In writing, being real doesn't have to mean being nice. Being real can mean writing from the brink, you're walking the beam between here and there between madness and the mayhem, trying to decide the best way to keep your footing, or how to tuck a shoulder in during the free fall.

If I can say nothing else, I can say that Dave Winer was himself in this. In his written voice and audio posts, Through all of it. Through the twisted explanations of what happened and why, through the threats and accusations that came after, to the call for the posse. And there's something about that, God forgive me, that resonated with me beyond what was being said. Even about me. There was something that felt just a tiny bit right.

Maybe it was the raw spontaneous outrage -- his and ours -- emitted with taste and smell and sound surround. Damn the consequences--this is who I am and what I think, and don't get in my way.

I'm not suggesting that what are now called flame wars should become the new or revised golden standard of blogging; I'm CERTAINLY not suggesting that what Dave did or said was right. In fact, I'd argue it was 90-percent wrong, and 5-percent nearly criminal.

But there was something, in the in-between space.

A twinge, an energy. We were lifted right before we fell. From that single point, there was more resonance than echo, and I recognized it just before we were plunged into the valley of the horrible.

It was before the flames. It was the crackle of kindling, when the smoke carves its first impression in the night sky.

And it reminded me.

For the Record Only.

I don't care to discuss these comments, from Jeremy's site any further. Incidently, Jeremy received a death threat at home last night. PEOPLE, WTF?

When one calls for a posse to "get" other people--sorry, Powers, Suitt, and Sessum precisely--it doesn't surprise me that the freakish behavior escalates to that level. I'm sorry, Jeremy, that the insanity entered the threshold of you home. That is unreal -- or at least surreal -- and at the same time, really real. It hasn't been so warm and fuzzy around here, either.

I am glad you closed the comments. But I wish you had left ALL of Dave's wishes for us. Including the one re: Halley. Doesn't seem like you should need you to sweep up after him.

“Maybe this will be a lesson, not to the flamers, because their goal is to punish me for daring to exist, but it may mean something to those who listen to them who have a brain. I think Halley Suitt has the most to learn, this flaming is new behavior for her, and she still has readers who don't get it. I know because I've been hearing from them. I haven't said anything -- yet.”

“Ooops, I said Halley has the most to learn, but I meant most to lose.”

About a year ago I learned that the best way to diffuse threats of this specific kind is to expose them.

Follow dave's other comments here and here.

Lis Riba for another take, with lots of links.

NOW, I'm moving on, and going swimming.

I'm an old school blogger.

There was a time on Weblogs, not so long ago, two years or three, when we wrote with passion and danced like gulls. We swore. A lot. Even at one another. We said what we thought. We spit and we snorted. We called eachother out. By name. We hurled criticism and kisses just the same. We didn't candy coat our thoughts, temper our ideas with pros and cons, and wait and sees, and maybes and therefores, and perhapses and in my opinions, we said what the fuck we thought, read the same from friends and frustrators, responded, and used the dynamics as a catalyst for good writing, real conversation, and the birth of a few good ideas.

I still write like that. I wouldn't be here if I couldn't. I do boring business speak on my off time. But this is where I choose to show myself. And I'm fighting not to go away. Because it's so lame now. It's just so lame.

Gary, I really miss you today.

Air Cover

I'll continue to post threats I find floating around the Internet. Just so there's a record:

"I'm going to have to deal with these people, and I'm choosing now to deal with them when they don't hold the cards. If you want to help, let's get a posse organized so when a response is needed it doesn't just have to come from me? They're going to keep attacking until they feel the heat coming back at them. No more taking it lying down. Are you willing to help with this?"

Found here.

So THAT'S where all those anonymous comments come from. The posse. Huh.

Post-Social Relationships

OOOPS! Had the wrong link in this piece--you must have been as confused as I. It's corrected now.

Well written and interesting piece on post-social relationships and weblogging, which explores the human attributes some of us (I'm guilty) associate with our own, and one another's, weblogs. I agree that this was our initial impulse in the early days of blogging, when we rallied around the description of what we were doing here as "writing ourselves into existence," (heavy on the word "ourselves").

The online representations of the human form, blogs are our are avatars of voice, and more. As in, it's more than the physical (or virtual) weblog aperatus that takes on social importance and human attributes--it's the relationships swen among them, it's a variety of characteristics that vary from and among weblogs: the number of years a weblog/blogger has been writing, the depth of self revealed, the size and nature of the community, the intensity of various interblog relationships, and more.

I can't argue with the idea that weblogs are manifestations of the human form--they are the "us" that we can touch, hold, hug, love, slap, and strangle from a distance.

And they are also nothing at all.

There's the rub.

Granted, here is how you say it if you're not personally pissed off...

Been meaning to point to Law Meme's rundown. Good writing. Measured, concise, compelling. And right.

Because I Don't Feel Like Taking the High Road This Time - Period, Exclamation Point.

That is for the first, third, sixth and eighth person who as asked me why not take the high road in the heretofore mentioned Winer incident.

If your high road means shut up and make the coffee, sorry to have disappointed you. Well, not really.

Hope that answers your questions.

And now, I am departing for the Pool...

Yes, Dave + minions, I'm going now. If you want to come drown me, I'll see you in the deep end.

And with that, I defer to Shelley who says it better than I could.

As Dave Conspires to Bring Me Down Next Time...

This is too good. George, get ready, Dave's calling out his posse....

Dave suggests this the next time I call him on his antics:

4. Find out if they have the required background to draw the conclusions they do. For example, Sessum said I was a psychotic. (Probably other things too, I stopped reading her site when I saw her go off the deep end.) What was her claim based on? Is she a psychologist? An M.D.? Any history of mental illness in her background, in her family? (I did a simple search on one of the flamers and found he had a criminal record, he has been convicted of spreading viruses with his computer. There goes his authority to pass judgement. And all you have to do is search, it's right there to find.)

In other words, next time this happens, let's be prepared to respond to their mud with facts, have it be vetted before-hand, not seat of the pants.

If we could get this to happen, we'd definitely elevate the level of discourse in this community, get it out of Three Stooges mode. In order to get there, they have to be risking *something* if they make untrue allegations. That's what I'd like to see happen.

Sorry Dave, no criminal record. Yes Dave, plenty of therapy, which I have wished for you for the longest time. You have borderline written all over you, and yet, it's not healthy for me to take your inventory. Only to point out you need help. Yes dave, you have written me some VERY NASTY emails in the past. No Dave, I deleted them.

And for the criminal history in my family, you can do some research on the name Dimino. When you get to the story about the Dimino who ran over his business partner with a steam roller, that'd be my bunch.

As for the Sessum part, you can explore that too. Oh yes, please do.

Bring it on, Dave. Bring it on.

"Powers or Suitt or Sessum - I am in good company

...versus Dave and Rogers and The-Silent-Kiss-Up-White-Male-Power-Bloggers.

I'd rather be me than you.

What George W. Winer might say, is you're either with me or against me. You good ole boys know where you stand. Your silence speaks volumes.

"If you didn't have a weblogs.com site, you can't complain."

Bullshit. I READ many of those sites, my friends WRITE many of those sites, and I'll complain like hell. Especially when I received emails from folks saying they can't speak out yet, until their data is safe.

"Next time Powers or Suitt or Sessum try to insert hysterics, we can swarm them with love, ask them to stand back until the problem is clear, to stop meddling and when there's an outage, please please don't get us Slashdotted."

Yah, Dave, maybe next time, when there is an actual outage. And please, don't swarm me with your love until you learn what it is. Oh my God. Oh Please. No, don't swarm me with love.

Women meddle.

Men enable.

And all the sheep are nervous.

Meltdown in Progress -- Big Strong Body with Glass Balls

Dave's latest rant, which leads us further into one disturbed psyche.

Dave asks: "Next time, would the Internet have a memory please?"

Oh, I hope so.

great post by Tom

Believe it or not, I too have been thinking more deeply on the issues AROUND winergate, one of which is who and what defines a "dead" weblog and who has the responsibility for calling the time of death, where should they be buried (archived), or should they be creamated, ashes scattered to the wind.

I began thinking about this because Jenna's blog, which we started when she turned four (she's now almost seven) sat for a year without a post. If that blog had been a weblogs.com blog, Dave would have viewed it as one of the many "dead" blogs he talked about. He said the majority of the 3,000 were dead blogs, and that only maybe only 40 folks (originally) cared enough to plead for their blogs back. His assumption, then, was that the majority of the 3,000 were abandoned or dead.

But that blog isn't dead to me. Even in the year without a post. Soon she'll take over that blog herself, and bring a different voice to an old space. The space doesn't die, really. Or does it?

Some "abandoned" weblogs, where bloggers have gone silent or have mysteriously stopped posting, are more alive for me than the drivel expressed in some currently living, oft-updated weblogs. So whose really "alive" here. And, who says?

I don't have time to post more on this now, but go read Tom Matrullo who, of course because he's Tom Matrullo, is using this latest upheval to explore some deeper issues of this Web we weave.