Category: Weblogging

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Just Shelley Weblogging

Special, special friends

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I arrived in St. Louis during rush hour tonight, pretty tired. As I was waiting for 1400+ emails to download (most junk, natch), I tripped out to my favorite weblogs. That’s when I discovered Jonathon’s Keep the Bird Burning campaign.

I am too tired tonight to do this justice, but Jonathon, and my other friends who have helped with this — I don’t think any act including winning a lottery would have made me feel as warm and cared for as this act of generosity. Not just the help with hosting, for which I am incredibly grateful. But the kind words, the offers of help, the posting of nice comments — I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to put into words how much this means to me.

This trip was an important time for me to get away and think without the distraction of the phone, the television, and especially the computer. At the end of it I discovered I didn’t lose my interest in technology (not gone, just dormant, wanting a nice vacation), my deep love and need of writing, and especially, writing to this weblog. It’s become an odyssey for me, and one I didn’t want to give up. This was something that’s occupied my mind considerably today, and now I won’t have to give it up, thanks to Jonathon and his lovely effort, and to those who contributed bucks and/or good wishes.

I’ll thank you all individually tomorrow, but wanted to get this note out before going to bed. And yes, I also have photos to post and adventures to detail. What else? As a tease, think blizzard, hail, torrential rains, flooded roads, strong winds, traveling sideways down a ramp, spinning out into a ditch, and you’ll see why this wonderful surprise made a perfect ending for a rather eventful week.

Thank you my friends. Thank you. And every post from this moment on is another thank you.

Categories
Just Shelley Weblogging

Blogging by the Bay

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’m sitting in an Internet café overlooking the Bay trying to clean up an inordinate amount of email, most of it junk. Notice to friends, one an all — when did it become a regular thing to send emails out every time you post a new weblog posting? Believe me babes, if you write something good, we’ll post a link.

I’m also catching up on weblog reading. I can see Truth or Consequences is still a lively topic. Hopefully everyone’s playing nice together, like good little blogger boys and blogger girls.

Trip out was uneventful the first day, anything but the second. Long story and I’ll blog it when it doesn’t cost so much Photos too.

Just finished loading Golden Girl down as much as possible. Luckily I’m only driving the next few days because my back’s shot. Checked the weather this morning and looks like I’ll be going through snow on all the mountain passes for the next two days. Nothing more fun than Donner Pass in bad weather. Num!

(If I don’t make it, I hereby leave all my photos and weblog posts to the public domain. I’d attach a CC license but there isn’t a “If I kick the bucket” license.)

Thanks for all the kind comments in the last post, and the offers of hosting help. They are appreciated. Chris/Stavros from Emptybottle has found a new weblog home so he won’t be going dark at the end of the month. As for me, I might see if a friend’s offer of a host is still open. Bandwidth’s still an issue, though and it’s running late to make a change. Knock on wood.

I thought about passing the hat for donations — I’m not proud. However, I’ve found that unless you’re Doc Searls, passing the hat doesn’t usually work all that well — we’re either all broke, we’re tip jar’d out, or we’re cheap bastards.

Excuse me — that’s cheap but charming and interesting bastards.

‘Nuff, this is costing. Should be back online by end of week, at least for the rest of the month if nothing else.

Categories
Just Shelley Weblogging Writing

Audience Matters

Steve, in an uncanny knack for putting his finger on the real issues, touched on what I think is the key aspect impacting on the type of writing we do within a weblog — the audience. And this includes audience expectations. It’s difficult writing War and Peace and have it fit comfortably within RSS feeds focusing on the War in Iraq and how sexy one’s boobies are.

I’m going to write something longer on this later, and then we’ll see if the conversation about writing continues or falters and trickles off as so many conversations do among the weblogs.

In the meantime, I have to go get a Trip Tik for my trip to San Francisco tomorrow, as I start what I call The Moving Adventure:

 

Trip 1. To San Francisco in Golden Girl to re-organize material in storage unit, deciding what to keep and what to give away. Stuff GG full and come home.

Trip 2. To San Francisco in Blue Beast (roommate’s blue van) to haul home as much stuff as I can. Also having person come out and haul bed to dump and rest of stuff to shelters in area for use. Donate books.

Trip 3. To San Francisco in Blue Beast, haul other stuff.

Possible Trip 4. To San Francisco in GG, grab rest of stuff, close unit, head out into sunset, drive to parts unknown.

 

I can make it to San Fran in 2 days going out, 3 days coming back. Most of the trips will be either 6 or 7 days, and I’ll be on the road, a lot, in the next few weeks. Won’t be blogging as much, but will try and do some quality blogging between trips.

Speaking of weblog: My lease with my web host ends the end of April. I’ve had a couple of very kind and generous friends offer to help me out with a new host because I can’t afford hosting my sites any more. But at 12+GB of bandwidth used a month, hosting me isn’t trivial. With other things in my life demanding attention now, and while I work through hosting issues, my site(s) might go dark for a time. Possibly longish time.

But you can’t keep a bird down too long. Especially one that rises from the ashes.

Categories
Weblogging

Dusty tears

There is much to discuss on weblogging and truth and weblogging and literature, particularly in light of new essays and responses. More than any other discussion I’ve seen on weblogging, this topic gets to the heart of how far we can stretch these new medium. First, though, I am off to see if the Virginia Bluebells have flowered, and whether I can see them among the clouds of pollen, and the dusty tears in my eyes. More on weblogging and literature and truth later today.

Before taking off, I did want to provide a link to a devastatingly comprehensive survey and summary of the archaelogical tragedy of the battle in Iraq. Once you read this page, I need say no more on this event. What could I possibly say, after reading all this other than to repeat my own personal sorrow, and that’s a given.

(Link thanks to wood s lot)

Categories
Weblogging Writing

Shadow Talk

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I have a shadow, created by no form of mine. It follows me everywhere, but always arrives first, and lingers long after I’m gone.

The more light I shine on it, the stronger it gets. So I hide it among my other shadows, in hopes that one day, it will fade away.

 

I was tickled, tickled I say, to see that Jonathon is continuing the discussion Steve started about weblogging and (l)iterature. Not only is he continuing it, he ups the ante in bold, relieved defiance of weblogging protocol:

That’s it: where my own interests lie. In other words, hardly anything to do with telling the literal truth; and everything to do with fashioning an authentic persona from bits of alibis and consistent lies.

…bits of alibis and consistent lies. Jonathon is truly a rebel in our midst – threatening to bring a story teller’s narrative into this land of raw id and Venerated Truth. A year ago, I would have been appalled. In fact, a year ago I was appalled – it was one year ago when the infamous Oblivio Duck Sign incident happened, and Jonathon first brought up the concept that not all of this is as it seems:

Yet, even though I don’t regard Oblivio as a weblog, others might. I suppose it could be mistaken for a weblog, just as Michael Barrish could be mistaken for a real person. He probably is a real person since he also uses the website to solicit web development work (though he maintains separate sites for each purpose, for reasons he explains in the story Motherfucker ). But Barrish is also a character who appears in his own stories. As does Rachel, his girlfriend. Whether she really exists and whether she’s his girlfriend is impossible to determine, without knowing Michael Barrish. Even then, the real-life Rachel may bear only a fleeting resemblance to the Rachel in the stories. (Just like the women in some of my stories.)

At the time my response was:

Of all possible outcomes of yesterday’s writing, what I didn’t expect is that the story that originated my passion might be allegorical rather than experience. I am left wondering whether I am a sophisticated patron of the arts or an incredibly gullible fool. And that’s the inherent danger of mixing the art of creation within the context of experiential recounting.

In this day of weblogger meetups and get-togethers, and discussions of digital identity and authentication, the thought that a weblogger would write as a narrator, crafting stories and putting him or herself into them must seem almost blasphemy. But whoever said that authentic and true were one and the same?

I rejoice in Jonathon and Steve and their defiance and most of all their literature. The writer has been too long superceded by the journalist, the gossip, and the community node.