For Immediate Release: BloMe Pre-Registration Begins

Don't forget--pre-registration begins next week for the spring Blogging and Media (BloMe) Conference.

This year's theme is "BloMe: Those Who Can't, Confer." During the popular Case Study track, a dozen middle-age white male bloggers will facilitate a panel discussion at Chuck-E-Cheese entitled: "The Credibility of Child's Play: How Do We Verify Enjoyment?"

Attendees will discuss the panel's growing discomfort with creativity before stealing their tickets and turning them in for tattoos at the prize counter.

When we write it, we can link

Disclaimer: I dont' have time to disclaim. Or edit. On a good day I might get time to spell check. That day's not today. Blogging is not my job. It's just something I do. And carpool starts in 15 minutes.

I hopped off to David's site today hoping to read something usually witty and realized the much anticipated BloJoCred conference is underway. Finally. Now it can be over and people can go back to writing.

I read a little bit of David's coverage. I thought, there everybody is again. Third paragraph: Winer speaks. What else is new. Then I got to Jay saying this at the conference:

Jay: Every reader is a writer. Every reader is connected horizontally to all the other readers. In Web publishing, the editing occurs after publication.

And I bristled. Because that was mine -- my words -- and though a New York Times reporter echoed this thought to Jay on the phone the same day I did, Jay agreed and we did what we do in blogging -- jammed on in the comments using one another's thinking to build the collective braintrust.

I know Jay is smart enough to have thought of all of that on his own, and I respect Jay. My beef isn't that anyone used or didn't use an idea I once had. It's seeing ones idea fly out of a community and into a closed-loop environment -- especially an environment that is exclusive rather than inclusive.

To me, the point is that in blogging, I would have been quite literally "linked" into the conversation. Here, it's Big David at Big Conference typing that Big Jay (all of whom I respect, aside from Big Conference) said X.

How is that different from the business-as-usual these folks proclaim they are helping to turn on its head? They are so right-side-up their feet should be hurting.

I am grateful to Tom Matrullo for noting this when it first happened back in April. Even then I was excluded as a 'thinker,' but the difference is, on the open frontier of the net, connections to ideas are not erasable.

All the above are sensible folks with sharp ideas, and blogging is supposed to be an open realm. The credibility of that depends on our being able to avoid selective deafness. A good idea should be recognized for what it is, not for who offers it. For that we already have academia, the mainstream press, and other white networks. The idea that blogs serve an editorial function has legs. In this case, they happen to look like Jeneane's.

Tom wrote that last April. Seems time stands still in the land of conferences.

Even Peggy says...

"Some things are constant, such as human imperfection, injustice, misery and bad government.

This world is not heaven."

I was sick that week

There's this hoopty-doo going around the land of the blogs and the home of the snobs lately. It's not just lately, actually. It's of late. I mean: it's a lot, and for a while now.

The hoopty doo in question is almost always about blogging itself and is generally intensely interesting for those involved in it. Also intensely inviting for those who'd like to get involved in it.

Then there's me. I'd like to get involved in it, but lately I've been so busy that all I catch is the backwash. By the time I get there, the lava lamp's unplugged and everyone's gone back to writing about whether or not blogging is journalism. Well that's unfortunate.

A good flame war used to last a week, sometimes two, leaving ample time for others to dive in and singe their eyebrows. Now a blogument ignites like a fourth-of-july sparkler, all flashy and dashing for about two minutes, and by the time I get a chance to catch up--get close enough to partake--all that's left is that little charred stick.

It's not fair.

It was like that in high school geometry for me. I was sick for two weeks with incredibly bad bronchitis which, if a doctor had seen me, would likely have been diagnosed as pneumonia.

Nonetheless, I missed a lot of school, and by the time I got back, they'd covered two whole units that are now very evident holes in the mathematics memory chip of my brain.

I don't want our own arguments to end so swiftly around here. What's wrong with carrying a good old fashioned grudge for a couple of months. For crying out loud, what's with all the "This is the last word on the subject" posts. Shut up. It's never the last word.

Didn't you hear? No one gets the last word on the Net.

Least you could do is give a girl a chance to catch up.

Throw a punch or two.

Not that I condone that kind of behavior.

Not me.

Unrelated Thoughts

January is never so busy for me usually. This is a good sign. Perhaps a sign of business picking up for everyone. It certainly has been good around these parts--especially for the month of the year during which I traditionally beg for a new-hire press release or two to write. That's akin to begging for scraps off the master's table. In case you were wondering.

Speaking of the master, props to the president's speech writer, professionally speaking. I could tell by the tone and messaging where he was headed, tuned an ear into how he was weaving pieces of a brilliant positioning that moved the emphasis from "fear" to "opportunity" (we do that a lot in the marketing biz), from "terror" to "freedom."

I'm driving, mind you, and I'm thinking, holy roller, he's setting the prez up as the "Global Abe Lincoln," and then I hear the radio guy who's reading the speech say something about "slavery" and "just as Abraham Lincoln," and I had to 1) pull into a Chick-Fil-A, 2) Not tell them what I was thinking 3) Get a #1 combo 4) cross the street and get gas 5) use the restroom in the gas station which gave me the rare treat of examining a made-for-men urinal in the unisex lav, and 6) collect my thoughts.

America: Freeing Coloreds 'Round the Globe.

It's a good thing I like Chick-Fil-A.

Epiphany notwithstanding, it was a typical drive home, complete with tractor trailer accident or three, me glad I stopped for gas and urinal.

So here I am.

The day was puzzling.

Tuesday's Song

You say Alprazolam
I say Lorazepam
You say Oxazepam
I say Diazepam

Alprazolam
Lorazepam
Oxazepam
Diazepam

Let's call the whole... thing...

Estimated Tax Day Illness

Hello! What's a blog? Where am I?

We've been sick overhere in our parts. I'm just coming to. To what, don't ask me. To the realization that estimated taxes are due today, and by due I hope they mean postmarked, and if that's not what they mean, please don't tell me, because I don't have time machine. Curses.

I'm sending the $. Period.

Jenna and I have been battling the upper respiratory infection from hell. Where's the shot for this? Shit. I finally gave in and popped to steroid pills today. That ought to be good for another Xanax prescription down the road...

Speaking of which, I had the pleasure of being in the company of an orthopedic specialist this weekend who mentioned that there's a NEW flavor of Xanax out--not cherry or berry, but Long Acting. He said the initials are LAX. And we both laughed about panic and air travel.

Do I know how to have fun or what?

As I mentioned recently, it's an odd thing, but I'm getting more referrers coming through various google search results each day. Looking through them today, seeing terms that take me back in time -- like my father's name, recovery room moaning, digiorno pizza, Rochester garbage plate, family dollar paper towels, and redneck neighbor -- it was very much like watching my life flash before my eyes. And I wondered, when it's my time, down the road a piece I hope, God willing, and all of that, if I won't skip the haunting visuals and simply sit back and let site meter do the work. 

Knockin' Robin

Something about this particular bird is worth sharing with you. She knocks. This particular bird first came to our house six weeks ago on a Saturday. I know, because that was a day I was trying to sleep in when Jenna ran upstairs proclaiming that something "Amazing!" was taking place.

"Mmmmm?"

Almost always my first words upon waking.

She told me that there was a bird knocking at our door. No I said, there is no bird knocking at our door, probably a woodpecker knocking on our house, go back to sleep--look it's early.

She kept at me. I begged her not to. I scored a rare win. I got to sleep.

A couple of days later after I'd dropped her at school at the ungodly hour of 7:30, I was home tapping a vein in my arm for some coffee, when I heard the knocking. Tap tap tap. TAP TAP TAP! I looked at the front door, and I saw her in the long window that runs along side our door. Knock knock knocking away on the glass, for what must have been a good reason, though I couldn't imagine what it was.

No woodpecker. A robin. Out of place in December, lows had hit 20, aren't they supposed to go someplace warm?

I walked to the window and moved the curtain. She was in mid peck/knock. I thought immediately of Shelley. How I wish she could have captured the moment. It looked like a real-life version of a Shelley Powers photograph.

Once the knocking robin saw me, she scurried up into the tree. She seemed to be waiting. But for what? I opened the door. She sat on the branch. I looked at her. She seemed puzzled.

Then she darted off to the house across the street and started knocking on their front window.

And I understood. She was saying this:

"Look people, it's fucking COLD out here--huh?! Could you help a bird out? Can't you see I decided to hang here for the winter? I didn't know the ground would freeze--I can't get to a single solitary worm, so toss some bread my way. How bout it?"

So I did what anyone would do if a robin were knocking. I got some bread, shredded it, and tossed it in the front yard. I didn't wait to see if she'd hop over to our side of the street and eat it. After all, it was fucking COLD out!

The next day, and about every three days ever since, the knocking robin comes by. I forget about her in between, but when I hear the morning window peck, I get some bread and toss it out on the front lawn.

I wonder how many of my neighbors are doing the same.

And I wonder when word will get around to other birds, maybe on your street.

Back in Qumana, I'm trying out the Pro version. One thing that's really cool--I haven't tested it yet because believe it or not, all the blogs I write on are in Blogger -- is that if you participate in, say, an MT blog and a Blogger blog, or whatever blogging tool(s) are your favorite, you can post from a single interface with Qumana. I've avoided joining some blogs because I just don't have the time to learn a new blogging tool. I barely have time to write--and that should be the most important part of blogging. So it's attractive that this Qumana dealeybob will let me get used to one composition pad and publish to various types of blogs.

I also like the MS Word feel of it--some may not. I use Word about 12 hours a day, so flipping over and posting here is familiar, and best of all speedy.

Okay, let's post.

Come, Gag with Me

Yet another attempt by Big-A-Academia to market itself as hip and human by comparing and contrasting its genitalia to blogging's.

Stay tuned for details on the Blogging and Internalism conference, coming soon to a public restroom near you!

Self-Surgery 101

Sitting on the couch next to my grandpa, at five, maybe four years old, I picked the bottoms of my feet until they bled. I didn't understand it then, the picking thing I had. Really, I don't understand it now. Even though I don't pick as often now, there are times when severity makes up for frequency.

Sounds gross I know. But not if you're kin to it.

I think the appealing thing to me about picking at such a young age was having and hiding pain. Of course it hurts to walk on raw flesh. At the same time, I had to keep that pain to myself. I couldn't tell my mother--or wouldn't. Didn't even have a grasp on what I was doing. No this was a martyrish act. It was mine and mine alone.

Pleasure Drive -> Pain Consequence. In a then rigidly Catholic household, one admits affinity to neither. Especially if they're one and the same.

As I got older, my fascination with my own skin focused on my fingers, nail beds and cuticles to be precise, extending often downward from these peninsulas to the mainland of my palm.

Usually I used my fingers. Sometimes safety pins sanitized with a match.

I'm not sure if my picking switched from feet to hands after my father and grandfather died, or if there is any correlation to those traumas and my habit.

I expect there are not only connections, but dependencies. I pause on linking them conclusively though because I'm fairly certain the picking started before my father died.

It could have started when he was sick with cancer, though, which is what I now believe. I have always felt that my passion was more endeavor than dissociation, more a job than a respite. A hyperfocus of sorts.

I've often wondered--in my older and wiser 40s--if I was attempting some sort of surgery, some act of cleansing, perhaps for my mortally damned self, and if not for me then for him. My dad. His necrotic pancreas.

After all, my goal once any picking event began was simple and consistent: Even things out. Make the edges smooth. Heal the blemishes. No bumps, no growths. How elegantly, if not tragically, that links with my strong, invincible daddy having inoperable cancer. How else can a five year old make a difference, make it all better?

Perhaps, my obsession with my own skin isn't the result of a single event or trauma--rather a combination of them. This seems the most likely genesis to me.

The notion that neurotic excoriation, or skin picking, may be genetic is, to me, bunk. What the mainstream of psychiatry has yet to realize is that we inherit our family's traumatic wounds right along side of their DNA. And genes don't hold a candle to the scars you can touch, and the ones you can't.

Once my own picking moved up from my feet to my fingers, the secret was out. You couldn't not notice my bloody stumps. Especially during adolescence, around puberty, when my finger picking progressed at a frenetic pace. I remember one aunt, trying to be helpful, who told me that she used to pick her fingers like me, but that when she met a boy she liked he didn't want to hold hands with her because of her ugly hands. So she stopped.

Jesus.

Talk about setting my picking back 10 years: boys, ugly, hold hands, stopped. Trigger trigger trigger.

Like I said, she meant well, but it felt like shame. I wore it like robe.

Today, my fingers heal up in the summer. In the summer time, chapness gives way to moist, even skin. No more unsightly cracks that must be tended to, evened out. In the summer, a tan thankfully, though not permanently, replaces reddened, torn skin.

Amazingly, perhaps, in all this time, I've never suffered an infection from my escapades. I don't know why. I guess, despite my odd obsession, my hygiene always remained proper. I've also often thought that, in a leech-like way, what I do is homeopathic. It no doubt triggers the immune system, putting little germ fighting cells on high alert. Then again, I don't think that's so good for those little guys to stay hypervigilant like I make them. Let's not think about that right now.

Let's think about smoothing some lotion on tired hands and feet.

Let's think about you telling me a secret.

from:
Connecting the dots: pediatric patients need dermatologists to unite healing between mind, body. (Special report: new frontiers).
by Hill, Suzette
source: Dermatology Times, March 1, 2003.
via: HighBeam Research
COPYRIGHT 2003 Advanstar Communications, Inc.

See also: The Bright Red Scream: Self-Mutilation and the Launguage of Pain.

Shower Songs

Jenna's in the tub, which means it's song-time at the Apollo! She's now delighting me with a rendition of "I can't help falling in love with you..."

Feelings mutual, baby.

You can try these tips for brightening your mood:

Hot chocolate

Blue skies, funny people and a touch of helium

Counting the days till vacation

A warm glass of melon-aid

Knowing that they'll get theirs*

*allied recommended option

from:
WHAT KEEPS YOUR SPIRITS UP?(General News)

via: HighBeam Research


COPYRIGHT 2004 The Register Guard

He so savvy

Finally! You tie it all up in a nice wrapper that not only titillates (I never get to use that word while writing tech brochures), but also demonstrates once and for all that you remain five years ahead of the e-times.

You and I, Mr. Locke, have discussed this phenomenon during some 6549-odd (and I mean odd) phone conversations, most of which I should have been taping, what with long distance being free and all, but that’s another story. I’ve also blogged Gonzo Marketing some 107 times in my own weblog, never mind having started Gonzo Engaged in 2001 just to talk about the book.

BECAUSE IT MATTERS.

This post on C-BLO is important, for many reasons, not the least of which is that RB has often, in our presence, slapped himself for taking a “two-year vacation.” Faaa, I say! He’s got another three years left to go before the Net catches up with him.

Kick your shoes off and relax, bro.

What have you done for me lately?

I said I would. And I did. I got a better price, and it's on its way.

The Seimens is still hard to get your hands on. So I went HP.

Stay tuned: From Sidekick to HP Ipaq 6315 Pocket PC.

64 MB SDRAM, 64 MB Flash ROM, Integrated GSM/GPRS, WLAN, Bluetooth®, Camera, Phone.

The HP iPAQ Pocket PC h6315 with service from T-Mobile is equipped with integrated 3-way wireless capabilities (GSM/GPRS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth® wireless technology) to give you high-speed wireless voice and data connectivity at work, at home, and on the go. The removable, snap-on thumb keyboard lets you easily compose emails, notes, and MMS/SMS messages.1,2,3,4 The built-in camera allows you to take pictures, view them on the bright 3.5" color screen, and share them instantly via email or MMS.



Features

Improve productivity with Pocket versions of Microsoft® software (Outlook, Word, Excel, and Internet Explorer for Pocket PC)

Wirelessly make and receive phone calls on the go 5

High speed wireless access to the internet, email, and corporate networks 2,3

Send, receive, and reply to corporate and personal email wirelessly 2,3

Removable, snap-on thumb keyboard lets you easily compose email, notes and instant messages

Take and send pictures in an email or MMS message 2,3,4,5

Safeguard data from power loss or device resets with iPAQ File Store

The Absence Of...

It isn't just the fence. More, really, the striking green manicured lawn that has overlayed its traces. A pasture, more a lawn now, unending, that looks as if it has always been there.

Not just the absence of the fence, then, but the power of what erased it, rolling acres of green grass, each blade so even, regimented, evidently striped by a riding mower, not even a mound or hole where the posts once stood.

It's not just that I don't see the fence, it's that I can't even trace its path from memory.

It's not just that the fence is gone, but that it has been replaced by acceptable, planned perfection.

It's the discontinuity in me -- between the shock that ripples through me still and the ordinary outward pattern that begs to take its place.

g'night

That one did it. Have to sleep now. The elusive 30 in 30 goal still taunts me...

The Untelling

There was a lot I didn't tell you about our trip "home" recently, to Rochester and Buffalo. It's taken me a while to digest the trip, the onslaught of memories. Onslaught, like slaughter. Mmm hmm.

I went back to visit our farm house on Atlantic Avenue, blue now. Who would paint the house blue and leave the barn red? Who would let the silo go that long without its top? Who would take down three acres of plank fence that my father and grandfather built, one rail at a time, handkerchiefs and muscle-man undershirts to soak up the sweat, always in the summer, the horses breaking out, time to fix another rail?

How did it come down? In pieces over time? Hired help to knock down the posts? If I looked hard enough, could I find a wedge of whitewashed post an acre or so back?

The fence, that was hard, the absence of, so much loss in the space where it stood. So many trips in tennis shoes with glasses of ice water for Dad and Grandpa, so comfortable sitting cross legged on the hill between the barn and the house watching their muscles work, a team, son and father-in-law.

How could they know as they hefted the rails that inside a year they would both be gone. One. Three weeks later the other. What kind of sense does it make to take them, and now the fence?

No one knows the preciousness
of things touched
before we come upon them.

Inheritance

Inside your fears
are mine
wonder how yours grew
if I fed them
sure I did.

How do I take them
back
Hold them for you
send
you from me
hands empty
heart full
free?

Used to and Fried Green

I used to do this thing where I'd try to post 30 posts in 30 minutes. I never ever made it. Once or twice I think I got 20 posts in. A couple of time I did 30 posts but it took two hours.

Reason I'm saying this is it'd be fun to do it again, and I don't know why I haven't done it in such a long time.

Lately I'm lucky if I even get time to blog.

I went to a friends' house with Jenna tonight and watched Fried Green Tomatoes while Jenna played with a neighbor girl. I never like watching a movie twice. I'm a one-time chick. If I've see it, there are probably 20 other movies that I haven't seen, so why would I want to re-watch a movie? But tonight I did and I was surprised how much I'd forgotten. It was cool to remember that something was about to happen without knowing exactly what. Then once it happens, I'm all like "OH YAH! That was the best part!"

And I think I said that about five times.