Blogging & Teh Internetz

I started blogging a ridiculous amount of time ago. For a while I had quite the following, and wrote very clever bits now and then. I liked that. I would see something & think "hey, I can't wait to write about that."

I know some of you know this.

Nowadays, I don't blog as often as I used to, mostly because of Facebook. That site helps me to keep up with folks in a more collaborative way. Sometimes too collaborative-- I don't really want to know some of the quizzes or other info people post.

But FB is changing in the next few days. Things that used to be private by default will now be public. Well, my blog has been public before (and obviously is now). And that's searchable by anyone. I used to get a lot of hits for info I posted, and used to keep up with it to see what brought someone to my site. But I choose what I say here a little more formally than what I put up on a status report. Obviously, that's going to have to change.

But there are so many things that have evolved in the last 10 years related to the Internet (like, for example-- you can figure out who of the people you follow on Twitter also follow you...and vice versa.) It's kind of strange to care about this kind of thing. I don't care that Tor books doesn't follow my tweets, but when it's someone close to me, I wonder why. I just went in and added a bunch of people who were following me & I wasn't return following...but then I also deleted a bunch of Facebook folks who I barely know.

It's kind of schizo. It's all kind of weird etiquette cues & social awkward moments granted by the Internet. Wanna feel alienated & alone just like you did in High School? Go search for the popular kids on FB and see if they'll accept your 20 years later friend request.

And there are so many things I should be doing but instead I'm logging in to this stupid website & reading which movie you can't do without, or that you always take gum & your camera with you when you go out. It's micromanaged info that I don't need that creates a false sense of intimacy with some people and makes me feel weird about others. Talk about feeling a bit out of my generation!!

But I will keep thinking about this stuff, and try to make more time for things other than Facebook, because it's too addictive & too easy to post stupid things that people don't need to know.

If Hemingway had Tweeted, what would he have written about? Or Dorothy Parker? Or Shakespeare? And how many other works would they NOT have written? Go ponder it, and perhaps think up a quiz for it.

Morning Mornings

Summer is kind of great this year. Okay, so I haven't had a minute to myself in weeks. Usually (this is ever since the days became child-laden) I take the kiddos to daycare & work on things. My website for one, which is sadly languishing in a 3/4 published state right now. I am not nearly as frazzled as I would think I would be, though.

But this year, with Sean in the public school system, I am subject to the whims of Caddo parrish. So he's out this week coming up because of some kind of testing they're holding at his campus. That means I am not going to have a second of non-kid time. So I'm keeping the girlchild, Maia, home too. She cried in her sleep about "not wanting to go to school" last night. (She also yelled at her brother for taking her sucker. The girl is a night talker like me.)

So it isn't so much about being fair as it is about just really enjoying being with the kiddos. It's kind of ridiculous because I'm paying for daycare anyway, but at least it's only for one kid nowadays (Sean & public school are paid for by your tax dollars & mine.)

So what are we gonna do today? I know daddy would vote for us to fold the massive baskets of laundry upstairs. I ought to try to squeeze some website publishing in. But probably, I'll just play in the pool with the kiddos.

I'll admit; I'm a little curious

I got an email from the cursed nostalgia site that I'm not sure why I signed up for-- classmates-- about two people having signed my guestbook. There's a photo that I don't quite recognize (dude-- it's been 20 years) and yet, I'm totally curious.

I mostly flew under the radar in High School. I wasn't popular, I wasn't a pariah. I was somewhere in the mass of people you kinda remember. So who took the time to sign my name, or is that just a ruse the classmates people use to get me to pony up five bucks to get a "gold membership" and it turns out it was someone like John Smith who signed? (No John Smiths in my class that I knew.... joke).

And most of my internet presence is under my married name, so it's not like someone who was thinking "wow, I sure would like to contact Kim" would find me here unless they knew to look.

Dammit. I might have to pay these jerks for the info. I am actually just about five bucks worth of curious. That's what twenty years and a teeny photo with a picture of someone I might have known will do for you.

Nostalgia. It costs.

Dreams

When I woke up this morning, I knew I had a dream that was really quite complex & interesting about my career. I can't really remember details anymore (I hate that when it's been a good one) but I know that subconsciously, I've begun to plan things for a future that I hadn't really thought about.

Let me 'splain/sum up. When we moved here, I figured I'd work at a local university, maybe get myself hired eventually, because Andrew is here at least 5 years. It could be longer if we have ties here... which we don't really have super big ones at this point. But me getting a good job would have been a tie. Kids going to school here (which they will be doing by the time Andrew's committment is up, but only barely) is a smaller tie.

I have applied for three jobs in the region. One at the Uni where I work as an adjunct, one at a Uni about an hour away, and one as an admin at local Uni where I work. I didn't get any of them. The professor position at the school where I work was the most difficult. I really wanted it, figured I had a good shot, and was super crazy disappointed when I didn't get it. But I grew up, got over it, and realized that based on who they did hire, I actually wasn't as qualified as I had thought I was. (I don't do exactly what she does.) The one at the Uni about an hour away was disappointing because a bunch of random things seemed to point to me working there and it seemed like it would be cool. I had no real evidence other than one student who didn't like going there (it's kind of rural). But they didn't even get back with me (wankers) at all, even with rejection letter. The admin job was number three and I don't know if it was cause I was getting used to it or what but I was disappointed but in a far less painful way. Partly because I really do love teaching and wasn't positive admin was the life for me, partly because they were super professional in handling the whole thing and I heard the "no" as soon as was possible without weeks of agonizing waiting.

So anyway-- that's a very long narrative to say this: I am glad I didn't get any of those. Not in a bitter sour grapes way. It turns out, the last week in Texas reminded Andrew & I that we really, really want to go back there. We miss it terribly, and that is where our hearts are. So getting a permanent "real" job here would have tied me to this area far more than we are, and I wouldn't have felt right about being hired on and then leaving in just a couple of years. So now, we are clear for take off, and hopeful for a future where people regularly call each other "miha" and "miho" and know the difference between pico de gallo & chunky salsa.

And my dreams are of there, and they are happy ones.

Summer Fun

Maia & Sean, playing in the downtown fountains yesterday. :)

a couple of new pictures of babies

10 Cool (or not) facts that aren't really 10 facts at all

I looked at a bunch of pictures on Teh Internetz today of various lists of "10 things". Mugshots that went wrong, misspelled tattoos, cool galaxies, odd twin events, etc. I don't particularly recall how I even got on that webpage with all the links. It was kind of cool in a time-killing way but it strikes me now that at least half our time on Teh Internetz is like wandering around a very large bar while really tipsy. You chat with people you would never talk to sober, you look at pictures and go "oooh", you hear stories about terrible things. You can also look at pictures you probably wouldn't have looked at, you can gossip, you can bitch and moan about how terribly the world treats you (the "tear in your beer" moments).

I think blogging & facebook can get you into trouble, too. You think you're kind of alone or with friends and someone stumbles upon you being crabby and/or indiscreet and assumes (for right or for wrong, it doesn't matter) that you were talking about them and takes it badly. You can "stalk" someone a little bit-- looking up what they have been doing lately. It's a little creepy, but then you figure that they only have published something there for you to look at. Do you really care if I know what 80s song best fits your life? I don't, but there's something revealing in the fact that the song you put there is "The Kid is Hot Tonight".

And honestly, I have no real point, no final couplet to round off this post. I'm just thinking "aloud" about all the time we waste on this thing, and then, also, having had a conversation w/ my mother that the LA legislature was trying to pass a bill to charge a tax on us to access the internet and this bill went in under the radar, I think, and to think of wasting all that time looking at tattoo pictures and actually PAYING for the privilege. Maybe it would make people more judicious, maybe not.

RBOC

• I like pinot grigio. I really like the way it smells. Taste is fine, but I could snort it all day. Is that weird?
• Johnny Depp in Willy Wonka is f-in brilliant. The rest of the movie is mediocre. But Maia seems to like it.
• I think too much. But pinot grigio helps with that.
• pancakes w/ maple syrup. Yeah.
• Is it Thursday?
• is this really random?
• Fuses
• peacocks
• Okay, that was totally random. But it's also what's on the TV so I don't get to claim credit.
• Creep: Crash
• Now I gotta.
• My daughter is totally a clone of me.
• Let me restate how brilliant I think Johnny Depp is in this movie. He manages to mix a childlike innocence with a real sinister characteristic that is Emo Plus serious vengeance demon.
• Veruca Salt is a little brat.

Sean + vacuum = love