Month: August 2002

Categories
Just Shelley

Rejection

Oh these little rejections how they add up quickly
One small sideways look and I feel so ungood
Somewhere along the way I think I gave you the power to make
Me feel the way I thought only my father could.

Alanis Morissette, “So Unsexy” from Under Rug Swept

 

Rejection. Being last picked for a side in a game of Red Rover. Not being invited to a party all your friends are attending. Calling or writing someone who’s too busy to respond. Running into an old lover who has forgotten your name.

Want to raise the level of pain? Telling someone you love them and they only want to be friends. Up the ante? Someone you love falls out of love, walks away, leaves.

Excuse me, is this your heart I’m stepping on?

 

Oh these little rejections how they seem so real to me
One forgotten birthday I’m all but cooked
How these little abandonments seem to sting so easily
I’m 13 again am I 13 for good?

 

Rejection hurts. It can reduce us to a primal urge to fold ourselves into a fetal ball, locked behind drawn curtains, chained doors. It can silence the eloquent, and strip away any hope or joy. Rejection maims but doesn’t kill cleanly. And the worst part of rejection is wondering what it is about ourselves that failed somehow. The endless question: what’s wrong with me?

 

I can feel so unsexy for someone so beautiful
So unloved for someone so fine
I can feel so boring for someone so interesting
So ignorant for someone of sound mind

 

Rejection.

My best friend in first grade telling me that Betty was now going to be her best friend, but I could be her second best friend.

Divorce and my Mom giving my brother to my Dad, and keeping me. The hurt and pain in my brother’s eyes; the hurt and pain in mine.

At 15, being dumped by my 27 year old lover at a party when he went into a bedroom with a brassy blonde with projectile boobs and ruby lips, leaving me surrounded by looks of pity and humor, all shy, gauche, soft curves, and sad gray/green eyes.

All those assholes who don’t hire us for the jobs we apply for. The unreturned calls, the unanswered emails, the hand left unshaken, the unlinked weblog.

 

Oh these little protections how they fail to serve me
One forgotten phone call and I’m deflated
Oh these little defenses how they fail to comfort me
Your hand pulling away and I’m devastated

 

There are a million stories of rejection in the naked world. Funny thing about rejection, though, is it’s also an act with two performers; we can’t experience rejection without being in a position of being rejected. As Alanis sings, Somewhere along the way I think I gave you the power to make me feel the way I thought only my father could.

Rejection ends when you pull the plug on the power.

You’re too busy to talk? Well, so am I. And sometime we’ll connect, or we won’t, but I won’t waste time worrying about it. Don’t want to hire me? Well, bud, that’s your loss. The party I’m not invited to isn’t a party worth attending, and yes, we can be just friends.

Remove the sense of failure and the rejection fades. Life happens.

But rejection can dig mighty big holes sometimes, and the deepest hole is the loss of love. Life is suddenly crowded with ghosts: the ghost making coffee, the ghost eating dinner, the ghost reading the book, caring for the kids, driving the car, laughing, talking, making love. You could find peace if only you weren’t surrounded by so many damn ghosts. And if only you understood why.

No easy answers. And no easy return when someone you love leaves you, but there is a return. You have to remember that the trip home takes one day at a time, with a little help from your friends. Meeting rejection with acceptance.

 

Oh these little projections how they keep springing from me
I jump my ship as I take it personally
Oh these little rejections how they disappear quickly
The moment I decide not to abandon me

 

To all the rejected in the world.

Categories
Weblogging

Homeless blogs

Mike Golby ended one of his exceptional weblog postings with a rant: seems as if Blogger is misbehaving. Again. And when I clicked the permalink to copy the URL, the page below showed up. As Mike might say (just might, you know), seren-fucking-dipity.

Blogspot is failing, and it seems as if Blogger isn’t much further behind. If these technical problems continue, we’re looking at the potential loss of weblogs, and webloggers. As it is, as Mike points out, we’re losing some lovely writing as post after post after post is lost.

I have my own server and use Movable Type, but I have several friends whose weblogging homes are in Blogspot, and whose blogging tool of choice is Blogger. I don’t want to lose them, or even a letter of their writing. Their problems are my problems, too.

The sad thing is, Blogger is still the easiest approach to bringing new webloggers into the community. It’s a no-cost, no-host solution that allows a person to try weblogging without any investment other than their time. For some people, low or no cost solutions are essential — even 20.00 US a month can mean the difference between paying electricity or not for some members in our community.

(And as for those webloggers who shelled out for Blogger Pro, as I did, the frustration must be doubly painful. These people trusted Pyra to deliver a professional product and, instead, received a lot of new toys built on the same old problems. Not Good Business.)

Regardless of whether the weblogger eventually moves to MT or Radio or some other weblogging tool, we need to have a no-cost, non-technical solution for the newbies, or we’re going to lose potential voices. Not to mention the voices of friends we’ve already made.

Bottom line: We — the global community of webloggers — can’t afford to lose Blogger. However, I’m not sure we can afford to continue with it, either.

Categories
Just Shelley

The dubious distinction of being Shelley

Saturday, Jonathon posted that he’s now the top Jonathon in Google. He’s also the top ranked Delacour. Mark Pilgrim is top score for Mark as well as the top ranked Pilgrim.

I checked my Google rank and found that I’ve dropped a spot and am now the number three Shelley at Google, behind Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and the Keats-Shelley Journal, Shelley in this case being Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, a poet who once wrote:

 

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are bright’ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

 

And then there’s this Mary Shelley who happened to write an early sci-fi book, called Frankenstein, and whose mother was Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women:

 

It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion, that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain, must be obtained by their charms and weakness.

 

On second thought, I find that I am extremely happy and content to be number three at Google. In fact, considering the company I’m keeping, I’m honored.

(But I’m not happy about being the sixth Powers, behind that ridiculous Austin Powers and some trivial math stuff — something about powers of ten or some such nonsense.)

Categories
Connecting

Happy birthday to my fowl partner

Every day in weblogging is made a little brighter, and a little screwier, by the presence of Stavros the Wonder Chicken. And I’m proud to count him as one of my closest friends. In a couple of hours, Stavros will be celebrating his birthday. Happy Birthday, dearest!

(That dearest was purely platonic. Honest. Really. Cross my heart. I have no lustful thoughts for StWC. Well, none that I’ll admit to in public.)

Stop by, write him a birthday comment, give him a link, drop him a little trackback love. Be sure to fluff his feathers while you’re there — he likes that.

Categories
Weblogging

Bubble Bath Time

Take your hands off the keyboard, and back away slowly.

I received this advice years ago in Boston, and it always resonates within me when someone I know makes a conscious decision to spend less time at (pick one) the computer/work/the computer at work, as Jeneane did this week when she went to a part-time work schedule:

I’m worn out. And I’m doing my best to change one part of the equation that’s burned out my passion. By going part time I think I can give the BEST of me to work and the BEST of me to myself and my family. It’s a start anyway. One change at a time, so to speak.

Though I’m disappointed that Jeneane isn’t moving to St. Louis, per a recent suggestion, I’m very glad to see her giving herself more time to spend with her family and, more importantly, herself. Time for a slow walk, a banana split, or a funny movie. Time for a bubble bath.

Everyone needs to have enough time in the day to take a bubble bath if they want. It’s as essential an ingredient to living as water, air, moonlight, the scent of lavendar and sea, the touch of silk, sex, and chocolate.

My roommate received a catalog from the local community college and I decided to use some of my own bubble bath time to take a few classes. For instance, there’s a class on B & W Photography that includes instruction on using the dark room. That one’s a must, as is the day long photography class at one of the local parks.

And then there’s the astronomy class that meets four nights at an observatory, spending hours gazing at the moon, the planets, and the stars. If that’s not a good use of bubble bath time, I don’t know what is.

This week I drove to an isolated park next to the Meramec River, pulling up to the river bank between the trees that overhang the area. I put favorite music into my CD player and opened all the windows of the car, letting in the steamy warmth. Leaning back against the seat, through half closed eyes I watched dragonflies playing catch-me-if-you-can among the bushes as the late afternoon sun painted the area emerald green-gold.

You can almost see the bubbles if you squint at the words hard enough.