So I've got evidence that Pinky blog is being mirror accounted in at least one other country, lol. 😂😁 Whatever floats your goat guys. I know curating isn't enough, right. Just slap copies up and go to town with it and stuff. Right now it's more important that some of my words just get spread anyway, so I'm not too bothered. It could all end with dirty nukes and grids going down and who knows, some of my Pinky wisdom might live on somewhere.
Meanwhile, two of us came home with broccoli this week and now I'm working on gastric stack overflow. Today's menu includes a cheesy rice pilaf full of mashed up broccoli, with a slight hint of onion. I use several kinds of cheese so it's super yum. If I had leftover bacon I'd throw that in, too. One time I did that and stirred bits of cream cheese in, that was heavenly.
I just did a thorough research on Edward Lear because The Owl and the Pussycat crossed my mind awhile ago. Of course, that'll never show up on a social media scoring system. Klout keeps insisting that I'm a Stephen King expert for some reason. Confession- I'm well read and I've never opened a single Stephen King book in my life and rarely watch related movies or television show episodes that he's somehow involved with. I've watched Under the Dome, but other than that, I very rarely stop to check out anything his name is on. A few friends of mine are die hard Stephen King fans, so I'm very well aware of his remarkable history. I did see Lawnmower Man but apparently all he gets credit for is the title, lol. And I guess this is odd because anyone who gets to know me eventually compares me to Stephen King for some reason. I'd like to turn that back to Edward Lear, but since I don't often share my prolific penchant for limerick (the majority wind up incredibly yet tastefully naughty for some reason, and I'd rather not become known for that), no one ever says I'm the next Edward Lear. That sort of makes me sad.
From Runcible-Wikipedia- "In Neal Stephenson's 1995 novel The Diamond Age, Runcible is a code name for the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, an educational computer."
From The Diamond Age-Wikipedia- "Society in The Diamond Age is dominated by a number of phyles, also sometimes called tribes. Phyles are groups of people often distinguished by shared values, similar ethnic heritage, a common religion, or other cultural similarities. In the extremely globalized future depicted in the novel, these cultural divisions have largely supplanted the system of nation-states that divides the world today. Cities in The Diamond Age appear divided into sovereign enclaves affiliated or belonging to different phyles within a single metropolis. Most phyles depicted in the novel have a global scope of sovereignty, and maintain segregated enclaves in or near many cities throughout the world."
You might call that prophetic, since that is a bit depictive of what the U.N. has drawn up in their Agenda 21, but perhaps it's merely an idea that has been intended for a much longer amount of time than we think, since Agenda 21 was heavily discussed and officially drafted several years previously. It would appear a work of fiction materialized after an agenda arose, so one could suppose this particular fiction might be a function of intention. I often look up whether an author's idea came before some kind of official documentation of something. It's interesting how often fiction actually comes after fact and barely anyone notices. Another book by the same author titled Cryptonomicon carries in its description "With this extraordinary first volume in what promises to be an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century." Really? He published after Agenda 21 was drawn up. It's not that big a leap to carry that into fiction. Actually, he seems a bit obsessed with the same kind of conspiracy around Nazi code that many still do nowadays, but now we know more and it's not that cryptic once you stick a toe into the weird stuff. It's been all around us this whole time, but as long as our minds are trained onto fictionalized television, we continue to believe our lives and even the world are spectacularly mundane.
Interestingly, diamonds are the top commodity in Minecraft, one of the most popular digital games in the world where players learn to co-op and create sustainable lifestyles against a number of challenges. I hint of the cultural crossing over in my article Atlantis.
Anyway, my point comes back around to Stephen King possibly already writing what was put into his mind by others in the first place. The monarch cinched it for me. Whether King wrote the actual predictive programming or not is irreparably smeared for me now. He may not be a genius so much as just another person fast tracked into success by a group using him as a tool. He is well known for being a self confessed blackout writer, which some blame on trauma or alchohol, but is also explainable with programmed alters, like pop stars today are unabashedly revealing. Basically, he was the Lady Gaga of the book world long before 'dark' became mainstream.
It's also still 'live' at the moment, impressions are still zooming up.
The most interesting thing I'm learning from this is that most of the likes are by people with private accounts, and retweets include a reefer activist tweet accout slugging it out with police accounts and an anticonformist living near the pit of anticonformist conformity.
I've been thinking about doing throwback Thursdays for awhile. It's a little early for deer season, so maybe see what the beginning of September has been like through the years.
2007-
I had Scott listen to xxx's message on my phone today, and he just laughed. He was like "what an idiot..." O_O wow, I forgot about that. And, to be *really* frank about things, I think xxx's motivation for keeping me hooked up with xxx is so she can keep getting insider info on *cough*certainpeople*cough* and what's coming up in the future with the um, 'thing'. I asked myself this morning while I was frying some bacon what her motivation might be to keep me trying so hard... I mean, if she's that worried about her, SHE needs to be the one making the contact and taking on the burden. And she *could* have asked me for xxx's mailing address or phone number... She didn't....
A few thoughts looking back on that- I was not quite yet diagnosed autism spectrum, wildly hurting and misunderstanding something vital, and a frenemy, for lack of a better word, was playing double agent being sweet to me for 3 months. And she could have really been a sweet person, in either case, I'm eternally grateful for that daily contact keeping me from utter self destruction even if the entire thing could have been a golden opportunity for other people to stab me in the back. I'm finding consolation in the hilarious idea that my misinterpretation of emotional events was probably erroneously shared as gospel, and that the reason an entire fandom died down afterward was because our passion ran much deeper than anyone could have possibly imagined, but realistically, it was all probably kept fairly private by a level headed person that actually cared about us.
I've been seeing a psychologist for about 9 years now, way past the infantile fanaticism that tried to swallow us and drag us under. I've also been done for years with speculative gossip in fandoms. I have pages of my side of the pain, and it's still excruciating to read, but when I do glance back through a little, I see a very mixed up aspienado still emotionally incapable of processing through feels. I was as close as it gets to being like a dog that refuses to leave a grave of a passed on master.
This was a CF friend who'd been through a double lung transplant, which seemed to work for a little while. Much of my inspiration to keep going no matter what has come from talking to her. It's hard not to be inspired by someone zooming around doing stuff on 20% lung capacity because she wanted to.
I did find out about three hours ago that my friend did finally pass away at 4:00 yesterday afternoon, probably California time, which would be 2:00 for me. I remember I was laying in bed crying around that time before I fell asleep in a nap. And since I got the phone call there have been more emails to send, more phone calls. I've gotta go lay down. This week feels like it's already been 3 days longer than it should be.
Apparently I had a lot on my plate that weekend, plus that was also the same summer that I slowly lost being able to walk, starting nearly 3 months before, and which I was still hiding from the world at large.
2008-
I generally filter the really personal stuff, but this was one of my better attempts at trying to create a more readable whinefest. Remember, this is an autism spectrum + ADHD marriage. The communication dance is so familiar now that none of this bothers me any more. By this time I was back on my feet but still living in a remarkable amount of pain and mobility challenge. I should also note that my own mother was in a nursing home and I was her dpoa, and this was about a year before she died, which adds a little needed context. Also, we've been married 23 years now and we're still best friends. Also, these are my words, I don't represent anyone else's actual thoughts.
Starting over. I'm crabby. If you don't like it, wimp out now while you have the chance.
I had been asking Scott since last Friday to get with his mom about grilling and food and which day and what time and whatnot.
So yesterday I'd already had meat thawed for 24 hours, I was on edge, ready, no information.
At 10 a.m. yesterday morning he was watching a Hallmark movie (?!?) with his cutie Catherine Bell in it, when during a commercial he casually waves a hand and says "Oh, Mom said to call her about the food". Since Scott hadn't seen or talked to her since the day *before*, that was pretty suspicious... I said, "How long have you been supposed to pass this message along to me?" You ladies can appreciate the teetering edge of death Scott was on.
Apparently he and his mom had already discussed a full menu and the day and time and I wasn't important enough to be included in the loop, even though this cookout is, once again, at OUR house, and we're the ones with the meat, and I'm doing the major prep and clean up. I nearly panicked. I ~thought~ we had decided that the cookout was on Sunday, and that I had two hours to pull it off from scratch with barely any final notice. And here he was watching a Hallmark movie, of all things. He *never* sits around in the house watching tv on a sunny day.
The morning deteriorated down from there. I'm not the sort that yells, and I don't throw or slam things because I don't have enough control to not hurt myself doing it (good deterrent), but after the movie was over I sat the boy down and we had a little talk. Every weekend everyone else gets his full attention. The ONLY time I get Scott is when I ride in the car with him to get groceries. This has been so consistent that I made a bet with him a couple of months ago that we will not have a single weekend to ourselves the rest of the year without someone panicking and demanding his presence or his advice and support on the phone. Every weekend I remind him it's happening again. I've tried making a cute game of it, but this last Saturday he went to breakfast with his daughter and an ex-sister in law from 20 years ago who was in town and didn't bother telling me until an hour before he left, but he has yet to make a date with me where he actually plans a nice time out and turns off his phone. Every single week someone else gets him and I sit at home and wait for him to come back. Yes, sometimes we eat breakfast out when we go grocery shopping, but we never get through it without the inevitable phone call.
So he interrupts and asks me what I'd like to 'go do'... A movie, perhaps?
Um, I can't even sit on my own couch for two hours straight without having to be on ice, I can't walk very far without having to collapse from all the pain in my joints and back, especially since the fall, I really don't think I can go 'do' anything without being fully medicated. Unless he's willing to push me around in a wheelchair. I reminded him he said he'd take me to Bass Pro and use a wheelchair, but that was two weeks ago and we never went because another family emergency came up and he didn't have the time. So suggesting a movie was not only ludicrous, it was almost insulting because it means he's not paying attention to what I'm going through and what I'm needing. I'd be stuck sitting in the dark with staples in my knee and people crawling over me, having to stumble down steps if I needed to get up, and basically risking more injury. Really makes sense.
Anyway, that wasn't the point. The point was I was prepared once again to do something morally supportive for HIS parents (I never get to see my own), and no one bothered even talking to me while my stress level was slowly building while I kept asking for more information, on top of everything else I have to live with every day. Normally this really isn't a big deal for me (check my Christmaspost for some really good context on how well I can handle this kind of stuff under extreme duress), but I felt easily waved off and unimportant. I know it's not true, but I'm the easiest person in the world to take for granted if I don't stand my ground and stick a fork in Scott's gut once in awhile.
Anyway, the cookout is TODAY, and Gram is going all out over it. She's making pasta salad and pie and something else, because she wants lots of leftovers so she won't have to cook all week. I found a bag of veggies in the freezer that will be really good in the fried spaghetti. I already boiled the spaghetti yesterday and have it in a big bag in the fridge. I'm going to have to make another batch of lemon bars.
So all the prep I did yesterday getting ready for company will be repeated again today. I'm starting all over again. Lunch is at noon, Gram is turning it into an Event, and Scott is busily being unavailable, crawling around the attic and setting the ladder up for later roof walking, when yesterday he watched a chick flick. I told him this is the last time I do this.
I've also told Scott that if he ever incurs a wound that needs a new dressing twice a day and has to be cleaned and watched for infection and he's having a hard time seeing it or reaching it, I'll be sure and do everything he's doing for moral support. Gag and walk off, check. Blurt that the sterile pads were made in China in the middle of him saying something, check. Make a big deal about how ugly the wound is, check. Take the opportunity to brush my teeth, check. Ask after 5 days if THAT is the tape he's using when it's been sitting out the whole time, check. Forget that he's in the shower and leave him standing there when he can't get out alone, check. Run off with other people and leave him to sit alone, check.
His ADD has been way off the wall lately. He's usually not this bad, but lately it's like we're not even in the same day or something. And breakfast with a sister-in-law from 20 years ago??? He loathes his ex-wife, he never stayed in contact with the family, but because Twinkles wants him to go, he goes and plays nicey nicey. Do we go visit MY family? No. Not in months. I haven't seen either of my parents since Christmas, and they are only 60 miles away. Scott is aware I can no longer handle the long drive myself, visit for an hour or two, and then do the long drive home.
Wo. Scott must have seen waves of pissiness over here in the corner. He just offered to make me some french toast... He NEVER makes breakfast for me. No matter what I'm going through, he never makes breakfast even for himself, even if he's up ahead of me. He *once* made his own breakfast after I hinted that he didn't have to wait for me to feed him, but it never occurred to him to make some for me, too. I'll tell ya, he is pure man. He's awesome for many things and takes great care of me in many ways, but when it comes down to the little personal details, I would get more attention if I were a dog walking around the house. I have a feeling the only reason I'm getting french toast is because he fears what would happen if he ate breakfast and didn't pay attention to me. I'm obviously not up bothering to worry about *his* stomach this morning. My knee swelled back up last night, it's all tight against the staples and feels awful, and I really don't care if he starves to death right now. Yep, I'd call this a pissy mood.
I'm sure this is all coming from this being PMS week and I'm just blowing it out before I need to get on top of stuff and be pleasant. But the fun feeling I had at the beginning of all this a few days ago has certainly deflated out of me, and now it feels like a big chore I have to get through.
Concentrate on how good the food will be....
And I know you all can appreciate this one-- now Scott is in my kitchen, asking me how to make french toast, adding to my new pile of dishes, and taking up time and space while I have to sit here and pretend to wait patiently and enjoy that he's being so sweet. We have four hours to company and all the big food needing to be ready, and I need a shower. But I'm waiting patiently while Rachael Ray in there turns french toast into a 30 minute meal.
I will try to be nice now.
2009-
The beginning of the chronic allergy problems after CMV took me down half the year. I was blowing it off in post that year, joke's on me, right? That was also the year I was awarded full disability, and the paperwork rolled in all around me into an almost 3 inch pile of medical history. This is what an asperger's diagnosis looks like to aspienado. I'm understanding all this a lot better now, but back then, most of this was a big blow to my world view and crumbled it completely apart, and I had to rebuild with awareness playing a major role in understanding my interaction problems. I'm not kidding when I say this has taken years.
Got my psyche assessment copy. The funny thing about Asperger's is the inability to self-evaluate in terms of normal standards, so a lot of this was a real surprise to me, and still cracks me up every time I think about it. I am "markedly limited" in my ability to perform within a scheduled time period and retain customary tolerances. I am "moderately limited" in my ability to understand detailed instructions and carry them out, sustain an ordinary routine without supervision, or work in proximity to others, and especially in my ability to ~accept~ instruction. (Memories of kindergarten coming back- does not play well with others, can't keep hands to herself, won't follow instructions, etc.) I also don't respond appropriately to supervision. Yep, yep, explains a LOT. But not really...
What that assessment doesn't show is that the stuff I don't tolerate well is something like one boss not being able to construct a sentence well enough in a log book to notice she's leaving out all the verbs and no one can understand what she's talking about, or another boss sending bottles of alcohol home with me as some kind of weird reward for some of my ideas inspiring new system-wide policy, or being pissed that another boss got a hefty bonus for Christmas after *I* discovered a $7 million mistake in the inventory. See, I see myself as actually getting things RIGHT, and I don't tolerate CRAP. Being honest about all that enough to express my irritability with a flawed system is anomalous behavior, though, it's not ~normal~. So I have a long history of moving from job to job to job because I couldn't tolerate the work atmosphere, but that shows up in my assessment as me being the one who has the psychological problem. Never been fired, but bosses are generally glad to see me go, no matter how much they've said I was the best whatever they ever had, because eventually I call them on inconsistencies that would cost them their jobs.
Also, besides being "narcissistic" (my aspie way of coping against the world, I guess, beats being clinically depressed), psyche guy expressed concern in the assessment that I am the sort who is easily taken advantage of. Took me 40 years to figure that out on my own, he can see it in just a few minutes.
Which kind of leads into one more thought on this last woman I'm getting away from online. After that big public retort, she has now sent out bulk emails with the contents of her latest blog post (the only way she can poke people into responding, perhaps), which is basically that she's not feeling well and has a picture of a cat laying on its back looking wiped out, yet still cute. See, I don't know how to respond to this stuff. First of all, her going out of her way to get attention like that kind of makes everyone else the bad guy if they don't hope she feels better, or at least say 'cute kitty'. But when I directly ask how she's doing, which I've tried to do a number of times through the years, I get no direct response. When I don't post for a long time, she'll email me and ask ~me~ how I'm doing, and I respond and apologize for not logging in and saying hi.
I sit in a logic loop with that kind of stuff and just puzzle over it, and it takes me forever to realize it's just a bunch of crap and attention-getting. Every 'friend' I've ever had online has done this, gone WAAAAY out of their way to get my attention and poke me for responses, but leave me hanging high and dry when it's time to reciprocate. I would *like* to have a friend. I have tried to have friends. For years I couldn't figure out what the problem was, then I figured out it was me with my Asperger's, and now I'm deciding it's really THEM with all their 'normal' baggage. I don't play the head games right, so I'm not a good friend. I still don't get it, but the psyche assessment is helping. Seeing all my stuff spelled out in one place makes it much easier.
2010-
My mom had died the year before, the disability mess had been replaced by an insurance mess, my doctor had bailed and abandoned her practice for hospital work on very little notice, and I was on daily steroid just to breathe. It was a very tired year, so I didn't write much sometimes, plus I was trying very hard to turn my attitude around.
Made a double batch of cornbread yesterday and got it all crumbed up and drying out overnight. Got my bowls of frozen stock and chicken livers out of the freezer this morning. Shooting for getting the stuffing made and in the freezer this afternoon.
Thunder rumbling around, little dark this morning. It really did dry out like I hoped for, lawn not only got crunchy but got so thin you can see the dust and dirt all over. A few trees are drying out. But along with that, all that intense amount of bugs just faded right out. Still have ants, but nearly everything else is also thinned way out. I was really tired of wasps at every door and mosquitos following me around. It was an excellent bat year, I hadn't seen so many bats around here in years. Even the spiders are slowing down, was killing one in the house every single day all summer (most ever since we moved here), now we're down to 2 or 3 a week.
Despite the lack of stuff to pick on when I let them out, chickens seem to be doing really well. Spencer is working on new feathers, finally lost her whole tail.
2011-
What a difference a year makes! I was off the daily steroid, changed my diet, lost 50 pounds, and had started physical therapy. Still wasn't quite ready to come out and play in public.
Toey wants you to know that if you have to go back months after ingrown toenail surgery to have more surgery digging way deeper to clean out old crusty callous past your nail bed that won't stop oozing more callous gunk that hardens like cement and you can feel the whole thing even with 3 numby shots, it's all right-- you *don't die*.
And then when you have to wait 20 extra minutes at the pharmacy for your antibiotic that was called in ahead of time because of a stupid insurance mixup (my life is cursed) and your toe starts throbbing as the numby stuff wears off, it's all right-- you *don't die*.
And then when you're driving home and get stuck behind a gravel truck and a school bus and have to put on the brake going downhill (yes, right-side Toey) and it's all you can do to keep your foot pushing on the pedal because your whole foot is starting to throb, it's all right-- you *don't die*.
And when you're still about 3 miles out your poor Toey feels like it's about to give birth to a baby hippo and you're screaming because no one will frickin' drive 90, it's all right-- you *don't die*.
And then you arrive home an hour after you leave the doctor and the numb stuff (for what it was worth) is all gone and you have to walk up the steps into the house and take your shoe off and hobble around getting an ice pack and a drink for your new pills and stuff, it's all right-- you *don't die*.
Toey and I agree this must be about what it feels like to get shot in the toe with a nail gun.
I am so proud of the fact that I haven't had so much as a tylenol since I stopped my years long friendship with vicodin that I'm being a real jerk and experimenting with Toey, saying I'm not going to take anything until I get dizzy with the pain and nearly faint. Toey swears she's gonna go stub on something to pay me back. At which point I'm pretty sure I will go ahead and black out.
2012-
Back out public and posting surveys like 50 Summer is Ending Survey and Real Things You Might Not Know About Me, which was a huge step considering I'd been in fandoms for years and barely anyone knew me at all because I'd been so reclusive about myself. Honestly, I think that's why Pinky blog is doing so well, although I never expected it. Having a real face show up after more than a decade of lurking and rippling through fandoms has become a big deal nowadays, especially in the more culty underground groups. I know fans who will never cross the streams between fandom and real life, and others who do it freely now. I published a pancake recipe for blueberry buttermilk applejacks (might hafta turn that sideways on mobile, they had a server migration and some of the awesome site coding got mangled). I had also accidentally stumbled into a traffic surge when I mentioned Lexx, and several days later started with a new Lexx Index, this time with a real photo of me on the blog as it gradually morphed back into a fan page. I wrote very little in private around that time.
Well, isn't this fun. Lost my header, background is eating up the text no matter how I soften it depending on the text color, links generally seem to work HUZZAH, etc. Really not crazy about this text editor. I have so much more freedom on AOL email. That's a joke. But sadly, true.
The rest of that is bumbly stuff, because from there it kept going downhill for awhile. Salvaging several blogs at high personal expense was about as stressful as anything else I'd ever been through, and since I've been through some hellaciously stressful stuff, that's saying something. I had just come back out public from a long haitus, and *boom*, there it all went again. Thankfully, Myke caught me in a safety net, and around the beginning of September that year I was blurbing about bacon and being in a podcast and the new blue convo lines on twitter, plus I veered into side posts about Superhero Undies and Bacon Coffee in desperate attempts to stay distracted from the sheer volume of depression watching my entire fleet go down. I also attempted to pull myself together on wordpress that week with So, Lexx..., trying to make up my mind if it was worth the salvage again.
This was one of my last private posts that year before I went all public.
Well, this sux. My archives are all saved, but my manually built theme html doesn't appear to have any support here at Xanga 2.0. I'm at a loss how to build a header into this. I'll dink around here for a few months but if I don't get this figured out, I'll be moving my stuff to something I can handle playing with better. I may have to go over to Wil Wheaton's word press and rip off his source code and figure out what the crap he did.
LIKE BLOGGER.
I mean, for now I'm not sure I can even change my font style within this draft page. And the whole password protected thing, honestly, they couldn't migrate their protected lists? My special lists are gone. ALL my stuff immediately went full view public, so I had to go into pinkfeldspar and yablovh here and find advanced settings and set the whole blogs to follow lock and TURN OFF the approve automatic followers. I don't want just the sign in block because anybody with a xanga could still see it then. There is no telling who might have seen my stuff if they were truly stalking this move. Anyway, I'm guessing that all my previous posts here are NOT password protected... They are all public except I have this set to follower lock, and you are my only follower.
I got into sploit and turned off your automatic approval for new followers, but I left it on sign in lock. It's up to you if you want follower lock. I don't know who follows you.
Funky week. Got my Microsoft Office purchased, XLibris contracted a premium package with me at 50% off, and I'm going to hope that maybe it's a good thing this is all sucking right now so I'll bury my head in getting my manuscript ready. Really pissed about my blogs though. But when have I ever not been? haha
Aaaaand I still don't have that book written... Moving on.
2014-
In Sept 2014 I announced on mobile viewing that my Bluejacky surveys would be moving to Surveypalooza, had just previously announced that the Lexx fan blogging would continue at Lexxperience, wrote a blurb on SyfyDesigns about diverting into salvage instead of continuing writing on my book, and through the year kept myself occupied on the side with scifi reviews at SyfyDesigns. I decided the only way to make sense of that entire scattered mess was to come out as a real person living real life on a new Pinky blog, and in 2014 around this time I was buying a new dresser and had a Bunny in my life, as shared on conquering resolutions, so it was like my whole life tipped over all at once. I also spent the year salvaging some of my content over to my new aspienado and ducklordsofthesith blogs.
2015-
On this day last year I wrote SyfyDesigns. I was back on my feet and feeling thankful that I had come through to the other side of all that world crash. I think it's funny that I never remember the 2nd is Myke's birthday, but I always wind up feeling nostalgic and rediscovering it.
I'm otherwise actually kind of tired of 2015. What a long year! I see absolutely no reason to recap any of it, except to say Lexxperience really started rocking and Pinky blog kind of exploded. It was all wonderful and hard and sweet and sad and I was so depressed and ecstatic and my whole world turned into Sherlock, and I've been winding back down from it with minecraft through 2016. I also didn't go back through my spaz blog over the years. I'm really tired of being a chronic super spoonie, and it still consumes so much of my time that I don't care to look back at it right now.
I've always loved this song. You guys can look at Benny if you want, I'm going to get up again and go do stuff. This song goes with the whole Pinky blog love letter. From the very start, everything I've ever done is about getting back to where it all went off track, embracing all my flaws and learning how to get past them for better relationships, and now I'm back on track, and I will never let go of her again.
One of those conflicting weeks where people miss points and all I can think about is THIS AWESOME ABANDONED CASTLE COMPLETE WITH ARENAS, TURRETS, BATTLEMENTS, VILLAGE, COURTYARD, AND MORE!
I'm in discussion to lay claim, to prevent griefing if nothing else. I'll try to wait as patiently as possible for the sploit to join the fun and automatically up the claims value and capability on our town.
Oh, nothing, just PLAYING IN MY NEW CASTLE.
I should make a 'Benedict Room' like at Cowes Castle. Except 'my' *ahem* (hopefully soon) castle is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay bigger.
I'll always be a village reclamations specialist at heart, but MY ENTIRE VILLAGE AND DESERT TEMPLE COULD FIT INSIDE ONE COURTYARD IN THIS CASTLE.
Ok, I'm fine. It's cool. Just a little excited.
You wouldn't believe all the stuff I find left behind on multiplayer, scattered junk all over the place, years of hard work like monuments to time, pets left to wander or live alone all locked up in empty places- it's like archeaological minecraft heaven. I normally go through leaving everything untouched, like I'm mapping lost civilizations on another planet, but I WANT THIS CASTLE. Both mini and super mod have confirmed it's unclaimed.
This happened yesterday. I don't post a lot of Lexx over there, but 3 of my original posts come up to 72 reblogs, likes, and comments. (I'm an "acolyte", lol.) (That would be more true if I didn't go a whole year or more between review posts.) Btw, ppl who unfllw bcuz social-political-religious issues, if I wanna reblog highly suggestive gifs of Kai kissing a baby cluster lizard and you don't like what you see, you can suck it, bcuz LEXX.
I don't do gifs, but I do words. When my words get passed on, I know people actually read them and liked them enough to share. Not retweeted, not relinked, not reshared, but actually reblogged and sometimes even translated into other languages. Anyone can retweet, relink, and reshare, doesn't mean followers cared enough to click. I have a hard time forgiving people who use my platform to get attention for themselves and ignore what I'm doing or fail to talk to me about something real that is important to me as both content contributor and self curator. Several hosts have asked if I'd write for them (not just Lexx), most I've politely turned down, and a few I've come to detest because I've seen the leeching that happens on other people's content and the head games that have to be played getting a little credit. When real people freely share my content behind the scenes without making a big fuss over it, I feel like I did something right. I love finding out months later that something I wrote was valuable enough to pass around the world. I may be really slow getting more content out, but I'm still here.
You know how someone who's not your type fakes being your type so you'll hang out? And then the sad part is later the whole fake thing kind of collapses and then there is sadness and a bit of regret, and that gets a little tangled with pouting and getting even feels, even though it's all really about being sad. I have nothing to say to that except I noticed it's not really over yet.
I've been having some thoughts about a disclaimer I've linked Pinky blog to. We're living in an odd age where reader and viewer demand kind of weirdly backfires in entertainment and public journalism, and it even spills over into personal social media and other creative sites now.
One of things I wrestle with as a public blogger opening up about a lot of private stuff is how I affect readers with similar experiences either themselves or through family and friends. Working out how to share my content is not a trivial thing. Sometimes I splat freely, but most of the time I'm more overly cautious to a variety of sensitivities and triggers. I want to be me, but I understand that I can be abrasive, and I'd rather retain a smaller steady readership than catapult to controversial heights of glory.
Today is Writer's Rights Day. "This day was created by several different groups that represent writers. According to them, the average writer earns less than $9,000 a year and is not treated well by their publishers. The goal is to get writers to band together and protest this treatment, but the various groups all have different ideas on how to go about doing this." It's kind of like the Hollywood writer's strike, only this isn't a strike. There's so much in media right now about rights, it would be easy to assume this is about writers having the rights to publish content, like this very famous case last summer. It sounds like the rights to state the truth or something, which, as you can see in that article, is still hotly debated even now.
Anyway, I'm not actually writing about Writer's Rights Day, but it got me to thinking about my disclaimer link. One of the points made in the disclaimer is that I have the right, as a blogger, to not share my life on demand, to not have to answer to being pushed for more personal information, or to be told how to behave. Since people have actually surprised me showing up on my doorstep and then publishing pictures on the internet without my permission, you can imagine (especially growing up with a Mennonite heritage on my dad's side) how violated I felt, not to mention my trust in 'friends' plummeting like a rock.
This also extends to private conversations. I've had loads of convos on PMs, DMs, emails, and texts that have been not only copied and shared, but used to set me up for public disaster. I've been run roughshod by people who have carefully built trust up with me and then used things I've shared to turn other people against me. This goes so far back in my internet history across all fandoms that it doesn't even matter who, what, and when. It just happens. It's human nature to use other people as entertainment.
Part of becoming public again was me creating a 'brain gaming' plan that results in driving traffic. Part of the overall content is sharing personal stuff. If I were doing this naively, I'd be in a world of anguish, but this is part of my 'job' now, which is currently voluntary because I don't get paid yet.
So back to the fake and sad thing. This is the kind of stuff that drives traffic. I could feed into it and use it, I could play someone's game, but then Pinky blog is no longer my stuff. It becomes someone else's stuff. And worse case scenario, it becomes a big beautiful web war with lots of casualties and me winding up even more famous, if you will.
We're all famous now, aren't we? I've been thinking about how many people I've 'shut down' over the last couple of years trying to contact me privately (I'm not counting spammers and porn links sliding into my DMs), and the only diplomacy fails that have blown up on me have been actual friends.
Defining what 'friends' means is hard. I've not had a single problem since the comments I wrote on bravery not included. I'll paste the part here that I think pretty much spells out my rights as a blogger. There's more because I lost my temper, but I didn't lose any readers over it, even though you pretty much rarely ever see another comment again. "Go along for a couple of years and everything's cool, suddenly comments about every little move I make start happening and the next thing you know it's all about not playing fair someone else's way and it doesn't matter whether something was inappropriate or how it affected me personally, I don't have the right to be who I've spelled out I am in triplicate on a blog I spent years putting together that doesn't seem to be bothering anyone else. This is my blog. You choose to come here. You choose to make yourself visible following me around. You choose to risk being snapped at when you mow over noticing what other people don't seem to have a problem noticing. My content is not about you, your feelings, or trying to please you. My content is about helping other people find their ways out of the dark, and trying to be honest enough to set a good example for that in a world where many of us feel lost. If you can't help me do that, get out of my way." Just a reminder, since it's Writer's Rights Day and I hope to make some money one day myself, I have been very clear about not hiding who I am. I have chosen to present this way, and sometimes I have to make decisions about hangers on and people who insist they are friends who change the tone and perspective of my agenda by over-interacting with me. I shut down private interaction simply because it got so overwhelming (remember, aspienado with a GAF at 60), but I shut down comments to pending because I'm too mean for people to pretend to be nice to me. You can't call yourself my friend if you don't understand what you are triggering in me even after I spell it out both publicly and privately, and you really don't want me airing private laundry to prove anything.
Writer's rights are about working. Pinky blog is part of my LinkedIn resume. My klout score continually hovers above 60 because I've studied stats and analytics, hubbing my networks, producing content, and driving traffic. I host a large part of my content on my own dime and don't receive compensation for anything at all yet. I've built my web presence from scratch during stress and illness, and I'm not going to corrupt it with misleading directions that 'supporters' push me in.
I do a lot of favors on social media, and there are stacks of favors I've been doing all along. I don't expect recompense or even thanks. It's a natural part of networking to do favors. One of my rights as a writer is not having to do favors because of social media pressure, and that includes friendships. Why is this coming up? Because along the way I finally figured out that's why some people become friends with aspienado. I'm a great catalyst and easily used. Well, I'm running into a lot of stuff about this being a common problem with writers. We enjoy producing content and we are easily exploited. Hence the disclaimer.
A friend found this, and it's perfect. This is what happens when someone goes out of the way to become friends with aspienado in an attempt to put me into a metaphorical box. This has happened several times over a number of years. Yes, it's amusing.
Note- This was a writing prompt to help me get through a hard day by focusing on doing something constructive while I'm home alone. Writing has helped me get through many hard days. If you're having a hard day, I recommend trying out a blog. You can always make it private if you don't want people reading it.
What is Content Curation? (Click that link to learn really good stuff.) "Unlike content marketing, content curation does not include generating content, but instead, amassing content from a variety of sources, and delivering it in an organized fashion... Many of us have been participating in content curation for years without even knowing it. Anyone with a Facebook feed or Twitter stream has seen content curation first hand."
I've been experimenting with my own style of curating my own created content for a long time in combination with personally vetting other content I find all over the internet to share with my readers in my own shared feeds. I've played with everything from simple tagging systems to manually overseeing content gathering in my own paper.li. I'm getting pretty good at link sharing, connecting, and driving traffic, more or less crossing the streams. I turn off all my pingback responses because they are so overwhelming that I swim in them, one of my worst weeks a couple of years ago netting nearly 10,000 pingbacks overall. I used to play with pingbacks, it's a good way to discover if a weird underground Chinese porn site has linked or ripped your stuff for whatever odd reason, but it's also a real headache when you link a site that is swarming with spambot problems.
Here's a sample of a content curation discussion I jumped in on, from a comment I left last May at The Dark Side of Having a Blog Post Freshly Pressed by Paula Reed Nancarrow. She did a good write-up with some excellent points and has over 70 responses containing lots more info and tips, because this is something important to think about when you update or post anything public, so check her post out if you're needing more info. Here's my comment.
"I reblogged one of my own posts once to see what would happen and was immediately disgusted with the way it didn’t track the reader back to original source. I think my own writing is so bizarre no one would ever want to reblog it, lol, although I do find my stuff translated into other languages once in awhile. The whole point to reblog is driving traffic. The more people (and bots) click, the more monetized sites make in kickback. Blogs that aren’t monetized still make money for the host in general since ads show up on free blogs. Basically, anything you write anywhere on the internet that isn’t on your own paid for domain is a free buffet service. If you weren’t intending to make money on what you write and want to keep it strictly on site, you can turn off RSS and web crawlers and several other things, but since WordPress auto-sends out to email readers, anyone out there can copy/paste content and never source it. One solution I’ve seen some bloggers do, and do myself, is source your material over several of your own medias like pinterest and facebook that point back to original source. This helps web crawlers more firmly establish source, too. There will always be uncontrollable content sharing in some form or another, have even seen authors complain of their entire books being available free online after they’ve contracted sales. The game, I think, is to create a solid web presence that autotracks everything you create back to you. Sorry so wordy. If in doubt, tighten the spam filter and block rebloggers that are probably really pingback bots."
I've played around so much with my own stuff that I can plug nearly any word combo into a 'janika pinky' search and find nearly every sentence I've ever written that is public. And if that's not enough I add on a little, like 'janika banks pinky' or 'janika bluejacky' or whatever. Mine aren't common word combos, so I kind of own my search fields. (I've noticed other readers coming in using the same keyword structuring and going straight to particular content, so I think a few of you have really caught on to this method.) I accidentally, if you will, created my own curated content on a free service, and google search is the biggest curator in the world. (My filing cabinet, lol.) One way to maximize visibility is to drag everyone you like into your own reader service, so all the links, graphics, and vids I've shared (surely 10,000 by now) either boost me closer to front pages in search engines or sprinkle my presence across numerous pages for lurkers to bump into . I'm still playing around with this, but I've been very pleasantly surprised to see how much of my content readily pops up and multiplies behind my back. I have excellent ratings on several curator sites just because I share so much myself, so it's like Pinky blog is an algebraic expression of an algorithmic dance. Once you get the hang of sourcing yourself, the rest falls into place.
This post is probably a carry over from self consumed egomaniac, and as I'm setting up testing Klout scheduling again on confidence for #archiveday tomorrow, out of the blue I started noticing none of these things have the same tags to follow a thought. Major doi time. I got a kick out of running into this because I wasn't tagged.
It's weird to explain or describe this to people who don't experience it, but I'm actually in the middle of one of my destroy all the things and hide phase, and out of sheer stubborn masochism I'm shoving my face in the monitor and making myself type stuff. My mind keeps wandering off. Found another cool wallpaper site. Click these to go.
Anyway, the dichotomy of depression and narcissism is a kind of hilarious existential horror, one which I no longer blunt with alcohol, as I'm musing after scheduling another #archiveday post with Klout, hugging is weird and that's really too bad when people need it the most. I was a really fun alcoholic. Everybody loved me. And I was devious. And wound up in really bad places. With bad people. Who do bad things. But I digress.
super cool site, go see it
I think the point I'm wandering toward is that depression and narcissism are opposite ends of the same thing- lies. Both tell lies in the existential mirror. Both are like funhouse mirrors in the mind.
When I can't believe in myself, I can BELIEVE IN MYSELF. I have an edge. I can be so utterly blind to feeling stupid that I wind up charging up the hill and leading miscreants on my crazy quests. This goes way back to my aspienado childhood and is probably how I survived excessive abuses fairly intact and, oddly, emotionally healthy. I was able to balance the depression with the narcissism. The more I pull together for print, the more I realize how thin the line I walked really was. I crossed a chasm on a high wire without a safety net. I made it to the other side.
I'm looking back now and wondering if I can help other people do the same thing. This blog is me practicing.
Fandoms are both brutal and loving. They are heart wrenching and uplifting. Even though they feel extremely personal, they come to life through sharing.
I remember the days when I used to freak out. I remember the year I pulled nearly all my stuff into private and brazenly deleted great chunks of it, even after I'd talked other people out of doing that exact same thing. I remember what it was like having anxiety attacks or dark feelings about other people having access to my stuff. To this day and far beyond, 1- I will always regret disappearing, and 2- I will always be grateful to the fans who salvaged some of my stuff, saved it, and even translated it before I made it disappear, never to come back.
You'd think being a world class fansite webmaster wouldn't be that big a deal, but I know people who are so huge in fandoms and still so deep behind avatars that no one knows who they are. I've met people who never cross the streams between their public and private lives and trusted me enough to whisper their real names to me, or show me pictures of themselves. Sometimes the only thing keeping some of us out there is a huge commitment to our love for a fandom.
Then there are fans who plunge headlong into fandoms, happily creating without a thought to consequences and then found lying slashed and bleeding on their emotional floors when a gang beats up on them in public. Sometimes the fan pulls back their cool stuff out of hurt and anger, sometimes the gang pulls strings and has it removed, mocking the victim they cruelly threw into shock.
So I understand when fans pull vids into private. It's bad enough that youtube capitulates to license and whatevs (two of my fave to rant about fan raids involve the song The Final Countdown in any shape or form and a clip from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's 'Vacation' by the Go-Gos, the most consistently hunted down and deleted uploads I've ever seen), but when fans yank their creations, weeping and gnashing of teeth go on in little rooms all over the world. Loss of cool stuff is mourned.
I never used to salvage youtubes because I didn't know anyone could. The only reason I didn't delete my youtube account the year I was deleting everything else was because I had two videos uploaded that my niece created, and her original disc AND hard drive had both crashed. I had the only copies. So I just pulled them into private and let them sit.
Just before I came back out public three years ago, I ran into such a cool little seen video in the Merlin fandom that I feared immediately the owner would trash it at any moment. I think it had 112 views on it and was so buried in the youtube search engine that I found it way off somewhere on something like page 23. I had seen loads of videos, but THAT one, to me, was like finding a gold nugget in piles and piles of fan overload. I immediately set about researching how to get that video so that if it ever disappeared, it wouldn't be truly lost. (Wish I'd done that with my own stuff before I deleted it, BAD ME!)
This is that video. I love the detail that went into the technique. Since it has never disappeared, I've never had to replace it.
After I successfully captured that one, I thought Hey, I wonder if I can fix another one of my fave fan videos from years earlier that was super messed up and wouldn't play at all any more on youtube without a horrible screechy noise all through it. And it must have been abandoned, because comments mention it going back years. I downloaded it and whadayaknow, that screech was gone, so it had to be a youtube code glitch. For awhile I was the only person on youtube that had a copy which actually worked. Over the last year or so, youtube must've fixed maintenance on whatever glitched it, because it's playing again now just fine without having to be reloaded. This is the original.
In the old days, videos would sometimes disappear almost as soon as I'd embed them on a blog post, the most irritating disappearance being an Alien Nation fanvid (from the series, not the movie) set to the BeeGees 'Staying Alive'. It was super cute and completely irreplaceable. I've never seen it since. What's really stupid is that Alien Nation was so out of print when I wanted it that I got it from a company that records old shows off reruns in other countries. I have no idea if that's legal or not, but I'm pretty sure the fanvid on youtube was far less innocuous, legally speaking. Alien Nation eps can now be watched for free on youtube, apparently, so whoever had claims on the content, that seems to be over now because it has become public access material or something. The original fanvid was yanked so hard it completely disappeared, as if it had never existed. Usually a vid search will show that something has been made private or the content has been blocked, but there was just no record that vid ever even existed very shortly after one of the actors saw my blog post and started talking to me. I seriously doubt he had anything to do with the video disappearing, but maybe someone else he knew did. Or someone else who knew me who got jealous and pulled the right strings about legal issues, who knows. I've seen that stuff happen before. On an afterthought, it might've had something to do with that actor announcing he's a Republican. Silly reason to poof something cool.
We've become accustomed, as fans with favorite shows going way way back, to being able to access the things we want to watch when we want to watch, for the most part. Well, as long as we've got the money. Once in awhile an old series will get picked up by Netflix for awhile and everyone marathons before it's gone again, like Lexx, or an old series that went out of print for awhile will be rescued by a distributor and reprinted, like Sliders. Once in a great while, fans will come forth and share that they've got something so out of print that other fans go crazy on youtube when videos start showing up, like the old Hanna-Barbera and Sid and Marty Krofft shows. Collecting videos has become as big a deal as collecting songs off the radio with tape decks used to be. Fans grab the videos as fast as they come out and hoard them for when they disappear again. No, I didn't download this one, I'm not that big of a hoarder, but you get the picture.
I've already had to replace a few Sherlock fanvids. I don't know if I'm spooking someone or if they're being rooted out, since once in awhile there really is a content issue, but the last one I replaced went poof. Usually if it goes private a person can at least see the title and an announcement that the vid is private, but when an embed goes completely blank without any title or explanation, it's been deleted. Who knows why. And when this stuff is happening almost as fast as I'm happily jumping on them, it makes a person wonder what's going on. The really good fanvid creators know how to dance around the limitations and do their own salvage moves, but the fans who don't know the ropes just simply lose their accounts and everything in them. Or they get mad at someone because something was said in a forum or elsewhere and delete their stuff in an emotional power play so no one can have it.
I actually grab as I go and write down when I used what in a notebook. I've learned to do that because I've had to replace so many videos during blog salvages over the years. Fans who worry about others taking credit or ripping them off or whatever usually don't realize they actually cause the situation that looks like theft. It's a compliment when other fans salvage content. When stuff disappears too quickly, I'm not able to give credit during salvage. I see this happen all the time. A great example is the original Adult Wednesday Addams web series, which has been lovingly snuck back onto youtube by various fans after the creator had to withdraw over a legal question regarding character usage.
Before anyone gets all gung ho about ownership, I should remind you that pictures you put on facebook are legally usable by facebook for ads in other places, and there has been debate for a long time whether blogger/google actually 'owns' your blog content since they are hosting it. Facebook has an opt out now (not easy to find), but there are plenty of stories out there about people finding their baby's picture somewhere online, and I'm sure we've all seen the wild variety of weird and old faces that show up in pop up ads. I've found my own content spread across several countries, oftentimes translated into other languages, sometimes used as bait to get people clicking on over to some kind of sales or sex site. Anything uploaded onto the internet is as easy to swipe as recording TV shows used to be on VHS. That's why I'm not that adamant about stamping my ownership all over my own material that I let everyone see for free. I truthfully get more traffic from curious bystanders running into my hacked stuff and looking for more than I do from direct linking on twitter or listing with fan listings. This blog is an exception, although it still pulls in loads of indirect traffic.
I don't steal. I back up content, like thousands do and have for a long time, and we owe our thanks for many memories existing on the internet to diligent fans. I don't take. I give credit every chance I can during the rare times I replace content. My sig shows up on salvage vids now, yeah. because I decided that since I'm uploading grandkid videos now, it's smart to put a sig somewhere on my videos so the content can be identified, although anyone could chop it back off if they wanted. It doesn't mean I claim someone else's work, but it does mean that I rescued it.
This idea of creator ownership is fine, but we've got to be sensible and admit that using two different kinds of copyright material in the forms of both original film and original audio owned by different sources really doesn't give anyone the right to claim ownership of anything except assembly of precreated content into a unique idea, but even that is on a borrowed format (the host) and an idea using other people's ideas. Some of the cleverest fan creations I've seen involve hacking and splicing several sources together into a new commentary or story, if you will, sometimes in such a brilliant way that even the owners of the original content are pleased at this new form of flattery. One gauge of true success in entertainment nowadays is how avidly fans will grab, hack up, and rearrange content. Any original content owner/creator fighting against their own fandoms without recognizing the free promo value in the creativity is foolish, I think.
Case in point- I not only started watching Sherlock because of fandoms on youtube, but bought two complete sets, one on DVR and one on blu-ray. Seeing the first episode on BBCA didn't prompt that, the fans did. I was sold on Sherlock because so many other fans were having such a good time smashing it around into new fan art.
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Why did I write all that, good question. Discipline. I've been at a pretty high pain level last few days and I needed to focus away from it. Running into a very recently placed and quite suddenly deleted vid set those little wheels in motion, and I started writing to fill up the time while the copy uploaded.
One more thought. The word 'slash' doesn't automatically made a fanvid actual slash. Once in awhile fans will insert graphics or actual footage they create themselves, but it's pretty rare. Just mashing two or more characters together doesn't automatically mean the content is rated any worse than the original content was in the first place. All slash is, for the most part in fanvids, is a signal to other fanfic shippers that here is a new 'ship' to check out. And honestly, I really like this song. I think it's well matched to the scenes in this fanvid.
I could probably write a thesis about getting brain high on violent scenes and how that can lead to (but not always) sexual fantasizing for some people just because the brain is syncing along throwing chemicals around, and that's just how bodies respond to an onslaught of new exciting stuff happening, but I won't. What I will say in closing is that THIS is how I have pulled through so much pain for so many years in my life, THIS is how I've been handling depression without meds or alcohol, THIS is what pushes me back out there to KEEP WORKING. Fans. Save. Me.
Don't be afraid of cool fanvids that make you feel like conquering.
While I'm in my grim little mood, I feel like tackling an idea that's come up a few times on blogging hashtag days on twitter (good lord, nearly every day of the week has a special hashtag for bloggers now).
Quick reminder that I've been blogging since 2004 and have been in and out of fandoms as both lurker and moderator since 1994. I've seen it all. All the blow ups, all the hurt, all the stats. I'm obsessed with search engines, distraction, and headphones. I have special lurkers that go way way back and we play little games like 'find me now', but since I won't risk my lappy's crippled life in the dark underground, I have to be satisfied with knowing only that one of my very favorites is a gamer overlord living in a posh neighborhood.
There's this thing going around social media articles now questioning 'over-sharing'.
Urban dictionary- oversharing I have seen a LOT of that. I've been privately contacted so many times by people genuinely worried about their sex lives and mental illnesses that I finally just turned comments off, stopped checking my email for a week or more at a time, stopped hanging out in forums. Everyone wants to spill. It's NORMAL. Sadly, I'm aspie with a strict time limit on social sharing tolerance, and I should be making at the very minimum $80 a pop just talking to you guys. Ok, I'm not certified, but I've been trained to professionally assess. My professional assessment to the world is I love you and we're all going to be ok, just keep finding people to talk to. Sooner or later we click somewhere, so keep trying.
Wiktionary- overshare I guess we're supposed to click on deeper discussions of 'inappropriate' and 'disclosure' there, kind of a cop out, but you get the picture. This goes beyond describing one's sexual fantasies into places like 'I really like knives, is something wrong with me?'. I've had some very interesting discussions with people who may or may not have done harm to or terminated other people, told a couple of them that they'd probably make excellent forensic scientists. It really is ok to be weird. You guys need to figure that out. (I'm not saying it's ok to harm or terminate other people.)
wiseGEEK- What Is Oversharing? I don't necessarily agree with this. The whole social filter thing is a new concept and until we learn to deal with a spectrum of people with a variety of brain types, you can't just bind everyone down to 'stop talking now'. It's vital that some keep talking, and I'll get into that in a minute.
Social filtering- this is actually a computer term that has to do with user stats being gleaned during search engine analytics and cookies and all that whatnot and is now being used as psychological and educational slang. If you really want to get into this with me, we need to jump to social cognition and discuss this like grown ups, which means I'll expect you to have done your research before you start flapping your lips. This is a ridiculous summary that means very little- Why Some People Have No Boundaries Online
To wit, I just overshared a bunch of junk that probably wasn't necessary. Let's point this specifically to bloggers discussing oversharing as a social media faux pas, because people have been oversharing since time out of mind and it's ridiculous to go there.
My blog is my blog is my blog. I can say anything I want on my blog. If someone doesn't like it they can stop reading my blog.
Bloggers who are using blogging to make money or push sales or create a launch platform for future goals are very different from bloggers who are using blogs as a daily journal or a writing exercise. Professional bloggers are becoming typecast as savvy technoweenies who know how to monetize, and they are mixing freely on twitter with amateur bloggers who just want to wrangle some thoughts out. Both are equally welcome to link their posts on twitter using special hashtags designed to increase exposure and reach more readers.
I can tell that bloggers who are blogging real stuff (by that I mean regular people who post pix of kids and pets and talk about their own families and neighborhoods) are feeling intimidated by bloggers who use and create hashtag feeds to hustle. It's bad enough feeling lost in a crowd, it's even worse realizing that one's content can be turned into a feed generator for someone else. The feeling of competition is getting wildly out of hand. It's not a competition. There are no winners and losers in blogging, I don't care how Forbes ranks mommy bloggers. It's not real.
Blogging is a huge thing right now. When I started, it was to keep in touch with my kid in college. Blogging was a fun way to say This is my day, and then pop over and comment on someone else's day. It's more fun than emailing, takes the pressure off timing phone calls, and has an added bonus of being there for any and all friends and loved ones who have the time to flip through and see how it's been going for someone in particular. Ten years later, blogging has morphed into this huge spectacle, and even professional journalists are jumping over to blogging vs writing articles. Everywhere we turn, there is a sea of blogging.
One of my more popular posts is called Blogging Saves Lives. It was kind of a tongue in cheek joke about using blogging to pull myself away from dumping my reactions all over innocents sharing elsewhere, but it's a real thing, guys. Put "blogging saved my life" into a search engine bar. There are people out there who credit having a way to share being what they hung onto during the hardest stuff they ever had to go through. It's human nature to need to feel connected, all through human history. Very few people enjoy feeling isolated. We live in an age where the most isolated people can now join the gangs online and feel like they're part of the human race.
I've mildly argued with my psychologist about suicide being a social disease, based on Erik Erikson's idea of how our self identity fits into one or more groups we are part of. He died before social media blew up into this huge thing. I'm one of those 'Freud is dead' people. Yes, we all have our anomalies and quirks, but I believe whether we feel rejected by groups is what tips the scales for some of the more drastic actions we take. We can drag Stan Lee into this for another professional opinion. Has there ever been an evil villain that didn't have an outside motive for becoming a dominating force? We can talk psychopaths all day long, but all it takes is one scoffed human determined to show someone they can not only do something, but do it awesomely, and bing, the world changes. How many of the success stories we hear about come from people who overcame odds? What if they had shut up when social media told them to shut up?
There's no such thing as oversharing on one's own personal blog. It's your blog. One of my faves from several years back was a delightful romp through cool and beautiful graphics, like flipping through someone's scrapbook, while the general content was a continual woe is me for this or that, and then politely asking for donations to a paypal account, and even direct links to retail gift lists. While I agree some people need help and this is a cute way to solicit funds, I felt the woe is me part could have been a little brushed up with not confessing how so much limited money is wasted in the first place on pets, clothes, recreational substances and whatnot while electric bills missed getting paid among claims of starvation, but is this any different from vague anonymous contributions to food bins and various big charities that must use part of your money to keep office management going? Not at all. So why judge?
Social media is HERE. It's not going away. We are all being watched, and criminals are actually being caught because they share real stuff on real blogs. Then there's the other side of the coin- that kid (pick one) who blew away part of a school and no one had any idea that was even possible. Wouldn't you rather that kid had overshared on a blog?
Do. Not. Tell. People. To. Shut. Up.
NEVER tell someone in comments that what they write on their own blog is a waste of time, or that they are a waste of space. I believe that the words spoken to someone before a suicide are just as heavy a weapon as a gun. If you're the sort who believes in accountability or karma, you stain your own soul with words.
I believe in freedom of speech. I don't believe in strangling those who don't agree with a reader's viewpoint or belief system.
I'm speaking from experience. Because I've been on the internet so long, and because I've used so many different names, you guys do not know how many threats I've received, how many times I've been attacked, and how afraid I used to be. I know people who are still afraid to be themselves on social media because of the past or the way they've behaved to others.
We live in an age where it's becoming increasingly cool to stand up and be OURSELVES.
One more thing. There is no such thing as confidence. I've never been confident. I'm not blogging because I feel confident. I hit that publish button and cringe every. single. time. I have learned that it doesn't kill me. Yeah, I still have a few panic attacks, once in awhile one will last a couple of hours and you don't see me being cartoony around my house, but I believe this is important. We are all important. I believe that feeling confident is a lack of feeling something else, just like my lack of stage fright due to an extreme lack of self awareness because I'm a little deeper on the Asperger's spectrum cannot be called confidence.
I think oversharing is a cool thing. It's about time we told each other what's really in our heads. If people want to read it, fine. If they don't, they can click to something else. It's your blog. Do what you want on your own blog within reasonable legal limits.
The funny thing about Asperger's is the inability to self-evaluate in terms of normal standards, so a lot of this was a real surprise to me, and still cracks me up every time I think about it. I am "markedly limited" in my ability to perform within a scheduled time period and retain customary tolerances. I am "moderately limited" in my ability to understand detailed instructions and carry them out, sustain an ordinary routine without supervision, or work in proximity to others, and especially in my ability to ~accept~ instruction. (Memories of kindergarten coming back- does not play well with others, can't keep hands to herself, won't follow instructions, etc.) I also don't respond appropriately to supervision. Yep, yep, explains a LOT. But not really...
