am off to the cape for some respite and restoration. My summer school class has ended and before I tackle the imaging of the lab, I need to do some serious chilling. and if there was/were anyone out there who was/is reading along, than this might be a useful piece of information. Since I don't know if I have internet access there. However, since I have been too chicken shit to send out an e-nouncement to friends far and near, I am mostly reminding myself that I will return. and that the chapter in O'Reilly's Essential Blogging book on advanced Movable Type awaits.
After Susan checked out Maiden Voyage, she wanted to know why this blog, was different than any other regular old web site. Although I felt instinctively that blogs in general are a subset of web sites, with specific differences, I couldn't articulate to her why that was or what was specifically different about them. After all, we all know what a web site is, yeah? Code, words, and pictures, is what I always tell my students. That simple explanation, I owe to Jeff Veen and his wonderful book, The Art and Science of Web Design. Yet when I just went back to check on his web site, lo and behold!, it looks like a blog! http://www.veen.com/jeff/ So what is this all about? Rather than try to reinvent the wheel, I'll direct you to Dave Winer's thorough answer to the question
What Makes a Weblog a Weblog? Yet none of these helpful explanations get to the heart of why do I blog?
The simplest answer is because it's there. I hate being left out. I have always aspired to being a journal-er, deluded by the notion, that someday, someone might care about the mundane details of life in general in the early twenty-first centruy, of my life in particular. I always imaginged my life as an artist elucidated by my writings. However my hard bound journal sits on my desk and gathers dust. I loved the notion that someone else has done all the work of setting this up and linking my entries to an interactive calendar and sorting them in categories and allowing my friends to comment on my meanderings. Thank you Movable Type!
I naturally like to share.Contrary to what many of those closest to me seem to experience, I do like to share the boring, silly, unbelievable, absurd and frightenly common things that occur on a regular basis. This impulse conflicts, however, with a strong urge to retreat, and a tendency towards the reclusive. Blogging mediates between the two impulses, allowing me to lick my wounds in private and complain about how much they hurt to the world. In my fantasy life, this blog will allow me to create that proverbial "circle of friends" drawing those of you from far away and long ago into the humdrum of my daily dailies. Kinda like dropping by for tea! No need to call and book a date weeks in advance cause your Palm and my Visor are both maxed out. Just come on over and set a spell!
Blog for the Brain. Lastly, as I embark on my doctoral study of Visual Culture, I would love to use this as an opportunity to articulate my understandings of my readings, to test out my ideas, to ask questions, to post drafts of my work. I am hoping that my more knowledgeable friends and long time academicians can help to spark deeper understandings in this bon-bon eating, dilettante's pea-sized brain.
So, I come home from work yesterday, beat. The bus was late, and then I got snagged at the Bread and Circus by a homeless woman I used to take Tai Chi classes with. She starts ranting about A., my friend and Tai Chi teacher. Tells me he's got a brain tumor and she can heal him but his friends don't want her to and so they took his voice away, and he can't express himself, can only say what they want him to say. I am trying to be polite and listen to her madness, but have to run. I make it home with barely three minutes before I need to leave for my acupuncture appointment. And I've got to pee really bad. I dash up the stairs, unlock the door and leap into the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, I breathe a sigh of relief -sigh- until I turn my head to look at the wall to my right. Where there used to be a sweet little yellow ocher panelled wall and just the perfect sized shelf for my toiletries, is now a gaping hole. I can see pipes that were put in before the revolution. And some brand new copper piping---obviously the reason behind the demolition.
So what I want to know is how come it is okay for the plumber to saunter into my apartment when I am not there, not even alert me and do away with my wall. Isn't that against the law or something? Or is it because I don't have a lease and pay hardly any rent, that I have no rights as a tenant?
But more importantly, how come, when I got home today, the cavernous hole was still there?
Endless, relentless rain. But is there anything quite as lovely as drifing off to sleep to the tune of rain? Windows open, cool sweet air, and the soothing white noise of water. Nothing quite like it-short of the lap lap lapping of the surf in North Truro, a long time ago. We all squeezed into Frank's little condo, Alex in the back bedroom and us in the front, the sliding glass door open to the night. Lap. Lap. Lap. That this season has been so grey and dreary seems appropriate. I don't think I could have withstood a brilliant explosion of fragrant spring. It would have been too too cruel. No. The rain is just right.
we've got categories!
we've got archives!
we've got a working link to Flying Puppets for hours of interacitve entertainment!
we've got a blog!
I don't even want to count the hours I have spent hacking away at this process. My meager understanding of all things tag related, especially MT tags, which I am just beginning to begin to decipher, has contributed to many more moments spent setting this thing up than I could have imagined. On the flip side, however, even tho I haven't figured out how to get it to display my agonized-over categories, it is working. thankful for small things...
Well I have a blog. At first it sure was an ugly ass blog. But I spent so much time just trying to get this thing configured that my eyes are bleary and my brain numb. So as much as I had visions of stecci headers, I am just going to borrow a style sheet from MT and begin blogging. Next week, maybe I'll think about design.
After spending the past two weeks configuring Movable Type, I am high as kite and ready to see what an actual entry will look like. Can't wait to customize the page and make it my own, but first I need to understand a little bit better, what, exactly it is that I am doing...and we're off!
It is the 38th anniversary of my father’s death. Walking home from the brunch, I leave Alex, my son, at Inman Street. He is heading to his home, which is no longer mine. My (ex) partner has just been honored at the brunch for tireless work as ED of our award winning Public Access Center, for championing free speech, for work as a documentary photographer. Alex and I plan to hook up later to see the Italian Job, and I take a left towards my new place–where he visits me, but does not keep his “stuff.” I bend to see a peony. The outer leaves hold its perfectly rounded inners: the soon to be blossom. A shiver of pleasure shoots through me. What is it about round things, blooming, enfolded, round things, that thrills me so? Is it just perception? Does it trigger some early association with roundness? Why should simply looking at a budding peony give me such joy? You, oh peony, have changed the flavor of the day. From bitter to bittersweet.