Blog Stuff
January 6, 2008
A Blogger’s Work Is Never Done (Unless You Quit Blogging)
So, I have blogging homework. I know it, and I’ve been avoiding it. I still have not finished working out whatever idea I started to write a week ago about friendly interactions with strangers. Hell, so much has happened in the meantime that I’m not even certain what my final point was going to be, though I know it involved the cute bartender who garnished my drinks with extra raspberries and gooseberries (I’d never eaten a gooseberry before that night) as well as this other attractive man who chatted me up in order to ask me what I was talking to myself about (which sort of embarrassed me because although I know I talk to myself a lot, I thought I refrained from making that obvious when I’m someplace like a crowded bar). I might even have planned to mock outright the guy I teased gently when he started complaining to me about how he was emeritus and therefore “obsolete”--at Yale. “Oh, wow, yeah, that’s tough,” I said. “Being ‘obsolete’ at Yale. Though being obsolete there means that you were, at least, once relevant. It’s not like being put out to pasture after four decades at, oh, say, Boise State or Wabash College.”
Anyway, I think whatever I planned to say was either amusing or interesting, and may even have been slightly insightful, so I’ll try to remember.
Then there’s the whole topic of sex and lust that I raised back in mid December.... I actually do remember where I was going with that, and I’ve had more thoughts on the topic. I want to get back to that thread, not that I plan to exhaust it, but I think I have something worthwhile to offer on the subject. Plus it’s a topic most people are willing to read about.
And then there’s always the book about shoes I wanted to write all about, though I never got further than discussing my favorite chapter on military footwear back in August. I still hope to get in another post or two about that....
Plus there was this whole thing I was going to write about how I hate wrapping paper and the efforts I make to avoid it. I took photos in preparation for the entry I was going to write but never got around to posting anything.... Maybe I'll manage to get it done before Christmas 2008.
So yeah. I know I have hanging threads. I’m not going to cut them off or tie all of them up any time soon. But at least I finally took care of one of the most pressing blog-tasks I’d been ignoring, and that was to respond to a slew of comments I’d let accumulate. I know it’s really obnoxious not to reply to comments when people are kind enough to leave them, and my only excuse is that I was either A) traveling or B) still traumatized by the minivan ride with the farting teenager and the bossy pre-pubescent. But comments so increase the rewards of blogging--as I was reminded earlier today when Saviour Onassis brought to my attention an entry he wrote a year ago, and the really great comment I then left (it's under my old blogger name--scroll down far enough and you'll find it)--that it’s really inexcusable for me to wait so long to reply. I didn’t make many New Year’s resolutions, but one is to reply to comments more quickly.
And now I’m going back to ignoring the other blog homework I’m not yet ready to do.
Posted by Holly at 9:06 PM | Comments (2)
November 18, 2007
Wireless and Still Unwired
I haven't posted recently because I've been traveling.... I arrived at Sky Harbor Airport (PHX, in case you care about airport codes) a few days ago so I can hang out in Arizona for the Thanksgiving holiday. What is there to say about air travel except that it sucks in just about every possible way, but is nonetheless quicker than driving or taking a train (which unfortunately is not really an option for certain kinds of travel in the US anyway)?
But I arrived. And the weather is beautiful, in that "it's way too warm for November, but that's what global warming gives us" kind of way. Seriously, when I was a little girl, beginning in November and lasting until February we had something I wasn't embarrassed to call winter: you had to wear a coat, and the temperature would drop below freezing regularly, and sometimes there would be snow. But now if you live in southern Arizona you don't every really have to own a coat.
Anyway, things are going OK on this trip, except that something about the way my wireless whatever is configured on my laptop means that I can't access the wireless service where I'm staying, so if I want to blog or do email, I have to do it on the shared computer, and as there are four children 13 and under who all want to check email and edit anime videos, I have to queue up. Right now everyone but me and one sick niece are at church, so I have the computer to myself.
If I get the wireless thing sussed out, there will be more from me, but if I don't, both entries on my blog on comments on yours might be sparse for the next week.
Posted by Holly at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2007
OK, This One is a Toy
About six weeks ago, I wrote about buying a Dell laptop loaded with Windows Vista, and the way that decision allowed the gaping maw of despair to open up beneath me.... Mercifully I know how to wield a roll of packing tape and a Sharpee marker, and before long the laptop and all the peripherals were in boxes and back on their way from whence they came, and ere a little longer, the nightmare ended.
That's right: I've been to Dell and back.
The good thing about that experience was that it gave me a better sense of what I really wanted and what I really didn't want. I waited until the charges were removed from my credit card, and then I bought a Lenovo, aka an IBM ThinkPad.
And I love it! I just love it!
Not only is it a better computer, but it also cost $250 less than the previous monstrosity, because it didn't come loaded with a bunch of software I didn't need. Of course, it also didn't come with some software I did need, but one nice thing about working for a university is that they have licenses out the wazoo for just about every type of software you might use, plus a computer store where you can buy discounted versions of the few things they don't license already.
Oh yeah: universities also employ people whose job it is to help you get what you need computer-wise, even home computing, because after all most academics do at least some work from home. My friendly and courteously IT guy took my laptop to his office for an afternoon last week and "made my computer happy," as he put it, and last night he came to my house and set up a router, the result being that at this precise moment I am blogging on my laptop via a wireless connection, something I have never done before. In other words, my work station no longer looks like this
but like this
That's right: I'm outside, on my porch, on my couch, hanging out with my cat (and optical mouse! har! har!) and it's cool and quiet and lovely and I have a mug of tea AND THIS IS HOW I WORK, and life is really freakin' good.
I even have an electrical outlet behind the couch, so I can work out here all day.
Yeah. Life is really good.
(Thanks, M. You rock.)
Posted by Holly at 9:02 AM | Comments (6)
July 3, 2007
The Existential Dread of Date Rape and Fish in the Philippines
I don't always check my blog stats--I'll go weeks without even looking at them, and one reason is because the searches that lead people to my blog often distress me, as in the current batch:
was i date raped?
filipina women put fish in their vaginas
sorry for date raping you
existential dread
what is existential dread
frigid mormon women
The filipina women one really freaks me out.... but whatever. I don't want details.
Posted by Holly at 8:19 AM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2007
My Blog Roll and the Supreme Court
First off, something is wrong with my blog roll and I don't know how to fix it.... I used to have all these links to all these great blogs, and they're still there, somewhere in the html.... but they don't show up on my actual blog. This is what I get for neglecting the place for the better part of six months, isn't it.
The same can be said for the Supreme Court. I remember a conversation I had at a barbeque in Iowa City back in the summer of 2000, in which the members of the Green Party I was talking to argued that it really wouldn't make any difference for anyone in the long or short term if a Republican instead of a Democrat was elected president. And then, we read something like this in today's NY Times, all about the recent ruling limiting the time an employee has to file a lawsuit regarding pay discrimination:
As with an abortion ruling last month, this decision showed the impact of Justice Alito’s presence on the court. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, whom he succeeded, would almost certainly have voted the other way, bringing the opposite outcome.
What can I say but "I told you so."
Posted by Holly at 9:37 AM | Comments (4)
May 29, 2007
What Happened
Here's why I've hardly blogged at all this year: a few people, working both individually and together, set out to make my life as miserable as possible. While they didn't succeed as well as they would have liked, they succeeded far better than I would have liked. Eventually the harassment became so bad that something official had to be done, at which point there was all kinds of trouble and I was offered some sort of restitution. It's actually kind of a nice deal but I would have simply preferred not to have had to deal with so much shittiness.
I stopped blogging not only because I was often busy and distracted dealing with all that nastiness, but because one of the ways these people tried to hurt me was through my blog. I'm not sure exactly what their goals with regards to that were, but at one point I considered deleting the whole thing and doing my best to erase my presence in the blogosphere. But I didn't, and I'm glad, both because I like my blog and because I don't want to succumb to that kind of intimidation.
Blogging, as we all know, involves not only writing your own blog, but reading and commenting on blogs you admire and enjoy. I'm sorry that as part of my withdrawal from blogging I also stopped reading blogs, but frankly, it hurt to read everyone else's blogs when my own felt so vulnerable and unsafe.
Before all this happened I was doing pretty well, both in terms of maintaining my own blog and keeping up with the blogs I enjoy most, and I'm confident that I can manage it again. I can only hope now that having failed in some of their primary objectives and faced some unpleasant consequences themselves, the assholes who were after me will leave me--or at least my blog--alone. In any event, it's summertime, and the living is easy. In addition to pleasure reading on my back porch, sewing, quilting and gardening, I plan to blog, because like sewing, quilting and gardening, blogging is a kind of "work" that is rewarding in multiple ways: the activity itself is fun, and then you get this great product as a result.
And that's really sort of all I can or want to say about that, so on to other topics.
Posted by Holly at 3:59 PM | Comments (4)
December 21, 2006
Two Milestones, One Invitation and Six Weird Things
Way, way back in early December, Janet tagged me for a "six weird things about me" meme. I am finally getting to it.
But first, I want to announce two milestones.
1: This is currently my 301st post. I say "currently" because occasionally, I review old posts and if there's a news item I've summarized and it's either no longer news or the links don't work anymore, I delete it. Anyway, I'm sure there are people who've managed to rack up more than 301 posts in the 17 months they have been blogging, but still, I find my efforts respectable.
2: I finished all my grading and submitted my last set of grades yesterday at 3 p.m., so I'm DONE for the semester.
And I also want to mention that I'll soon by flying to Arizona, where I'll spend time in both Tucson and the Phoenix metropolitan area. I know I have readers in both places.... If you are one such reader and you have any desire to meet me, leave me a comment saying "Hey, I'd like to hang out while you're in the state." And I'll email you and we'll set something up.
OK. On to the six weird things.
1. I don't actually think there's anything "weird" about me. OK, I recognize that I have certain habits and ideas other people consider "eccentric." But the logic behind them is too clear and reasonable in my mind for me to consider them "weird," because I am not capricious--I am logical and methodical and that is not weird. Nonetheless, I can admit that other people find the following things about me strange:
2. I am bothered by the fact that if you enter "100" on a microwave touch pad, you get 60 seconds' worth of cooking, same as if you enter "60," whereas if you enter "99" on a microwave touch pad, you get 99 seconds' worth of cooking--39 seconds more than if you entered "100". So I never microwave anything for one minute, but I often microwave things for 60 seconds or 99 seconds.
3. I really do sort of like ironing.
4. I am a touch obsessive-compulsive and I have to check my locks a number of times to make sure that they are, in fact, locked.
5. I sort of like doing my taxes. I am not really a numbers person, but in small doses I find adding up sums and figuring totals very rewarding, and I like working out, on my own, how to get as much money back from the federal government as possible.
6. I am a stickler for the use of proper terminology when discussing female genitalia. It makes me nuts when people refer to all of female genitalia as "a vagina," because, as I have noted before, the vagina is only one part of the female genitals. And I am always astonished that people who are quite willing to discuss body parts like the taint, and balls, and scrotums, and so forth, balk and recoil at hearing the word "vulva," as if it's a hex as powerful as "ni" seems to be in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
I tag anyone who shares any of my six weird traits.
Posted by Holly at 9:17 AM | Comments (4)
December 4, 2006
Blogging as Habit, Blogging as Confession
OK, I admit it: my dismal blogging lately is due only partly to the fact that I've been really busy; there's also the more troubling fact that I've gotten out of the habit.
There was a message my mother communicated to me early on: it's important to develop good habits, because good habits support your ability to do everything else you want or need or like to do, and generally make your life easier. She didn't phrase it that way; she just made me do things every single day, like make my bed very shortly after getting out of it so that it looked neat and tidy all day and the sheets felt "rested" and smooth when I got it in at night, or brush my teeth before I go to bed so that I didn't have to spend lots of time in a dentist's chair having cavities filled (unfortunately I ate too much candy as a child for that to work as well as desired), or hang my clothes up neatly so that they looked good when I took them out of the clothes, or do my homework as soon as I got home so that I could enjoy a leisurely evening. I learned this lesson so well as a small child that when it came time to go to college I already had impeccable study habits, and my money-managing habits are pretty irreproachable as well.
For over a year I blogged three to five times a week, and it was a habit that helped me feel like I was keeping my writing skills honed, staying in touch with friends, reserving a few hours every week for something that entertained and informed me.
And then my life got really hectic and something had to give, and blogging was what I decided to let go.
For a little while I felt kind of triumphant. I have a couple of friends who gave up blogging, "released themselves from the tyranny," as one of them put it. "I can give it up, too!" I crowed to myself. "I'm not an addict."
But now I feel empty and sad when I think about how I used to blog, and overwhelmed and hesitant when I think about blogging again, because I've let it go for so long, neglecting not only my own blog, but the blogs of my favorite fellow bloggers, and it seems like I'll have to work very hard to reestablish my habit, and get caught up on all that has transpired in my absence.
Still, I'm going to try.
Posted by Holly at 10:54 AM | Comments (7)
October 6, 2006
My Least Favorite Kind of Mormon Man: The Dirty Old One
So far I've been pretty lucky when it comes to trolls: I haven't attracted too many. I think it helps that my blog isn't devoted to a single issue: OK, I write about feminism, and sex, and Mormonism, and teaching, but it's not like you can show up here and now that you'll find some polemic on gender or religion every single day.
Unfortunately, as of early this week, some filthy old coot has taken to showing up and leaving long, rambling, poorly edited comments here, full of questions about, speculation on and advice regarding my sex life. He is, of course, Mormon, at least in the cultural sense.
That's important, because Mormon men often hold positions of power where it is their duty to ask explicit questions about other people's sex lives, and to hear "confessions" about what the church considers sexual impropriety. I don't know if this guy was once a bishop and so got to hear all about people losing their virginity or visiting prostitutes or sleeping with the babysitter or hooking up with a truck diver etc etc or if he resents that he was never a bishop and so could only fantasize about how great it would be to hear such confessions, but he seems anxious to use my blog as an opportunity to play the role of enlightened priesthood holder passing judgment on someone else's sex life.
But that ain't gonna happen. So I'm telling you, asshole: go the fuck away.
Oh, yeah--that's something he has a problem with: my profanity. I really shouldn't swear so much! It offends him! Somehow, it hasn't occurred to him that he is precisely the kind of head-up-ass fuckface-dickwad I hope to offend, alienate and avoid.
I admit I hardly paid any attention to his first comment. It was LONG, poorly organized, condescending, boring as all hell. He invoked Mormonism and referred to me as "sister"--sister!-- early on, and at that point I knew I would never post the damn thing. I tried to skim the rest. He chided me for writing such long posts (how dare I use a personal forum as I see fit! Apparently prolificacy is the exclusive domain of self-important, emotionally and intellectually clueless middle-aged men) and trotted out that old Mormon attitude about how, since I still care about religion even though I no longer attend the Mormon church, I must be stuck in the past--of course there's no way I simply care about my spiritual development. He seemed pretty sure that since I owned a pair of mannish green shoes, I had to be gay. He really wanted me to talk about being gay.
As I say, I didn't read it too closely; it went in the trash bin and I assumed that was that. But yesterday he showed up again, seemingly unaware that I hadn't bothered to post or even read his first comment. This time, I read the comment, because this time it's starting to be harassment. He offers observations about my "strident feminism" (!), my vulgar mouth (!) and the "divine slut" within all women, as well as this utterly asinine and insulting assessment:
Women are: more than other creations of the universe, meant to feel. They are uniquely situated to feel sexual pleasure in a way a man cannot imagine, tolerate or last long enough to experience. And you are celibate? I hope that was then and not now.
He suggests that I become a lesbian since all the good men (like him, maybe?) are taken. In particular, he recommends that I begin sleeping with former female students.
Never mind that I'm not gay, would rather not sleep with former students and wouldn't trust this fuckhead to offer advice on how to open a can of cat food, turn on a light or take out the trash. No, what really matters here is that this scumbag seems to be turned on by lesbian sex.
He thinks I should do this because "People without sexual partners tend to become bitter, acerbic, outspokenly critical, judgmental and generally unpleasant." I wonder if never getting laid is his excuse for being bitter, acerbic, outspokenly critical, judgmental, generally unpleasant, as well as officious, remarkably lacking in self-reflection, disrespectful, sexist, offensive, intrusive, gross, foolish (because he used his real name, and thanks to google, I was able to find an address and professional affiliation for him) and downright creepy and vile.
I banned him from commenting and hope I've seen the last of him. If not, well, I'm not afraid to contact the society that oversees his profession and seek their help in getting him to stop harassing me.
Posted by Holly at 7:23 AM | Comments (6)
September 11, 2006
An Enthusiastic Passenger of the Latest Bandwagon I'm Aboard
Find a mechanically sophisticated technological bandwagon (the computer and all the gadgets and programs that go with it, as opposed to, say, the pencil) and chances are good I was late getting on it. Moreover, when I did get on it, it was probably because someone else bought me a ticket, and I probably delayed using that ticket until it was about to expire.
A case in point: learning to drive. I didn't mind the idea of learning to drive, but I wasn't dying to start asking my parents for the keys, like most of my friends. I was perfectly happy to walk most places--we lived only two blocks from my high school--provided I didn't have to carry a lot of stuff. Plus, although I didn't realize it at the time, I was related to a bunch of bad drivers and had a skewed notion of how much anxiety was necessarily involved in operating a motor vehicle: I didn't realize that if you stayed calm, paid attention, drove the speed limit and weren't aggressive about trying to occupy the same exact area another vehicle was already in, you could often avoid accidents, horn-honking, being shouted at, and getting the finger.
I dutifully got my learner's permit at 15 years and seven months like I was supposed to, and my mother dutifully took me out for lessons. Let's just say that I preferred risking my life as the passenger of my big sister, who had crappy depth perception and no patience for on-coming traffic, to listening to my mother scream "Brake! Brake! Hit the damn brakes!" a full block before I approached an entirely deserted intersection in the nowhere beyond Lizard Bump (which is an actual place name, but not one with many inhabitants).
As a result I was several months past 16 before I finally got my license, not long before school let out. There was something going on in the summer that I would be expected to drive myself to, and it was necessary for me to be legal when doing so.
Then there was email. I loved (still love) actual letters, strokes of ink on real pieces of paper, and I wasn't interested in this ephemeral electronic nothing that other people could spy on. It wasn't until the summer of 1994, when the guy I was dating got annoyed that he couldn't send me email, set me down and taught me how to use the account provided for me by the university, that I realized email might have its virtues.
And that's the other thing about my approach to technological bandwagons: once I decide the time is right to climb up on one, once I find a way to adapt the technology to my specific needs, I often become an enthusiastic passenger, gushing to others on the wagon about how great the ride is, waving cheerfully to those we pass.
Driving wasn't like that, admittedly: distance permitting, I'd still rather walk. I don't have a phobia or anything, but truth be told, I don't really like sitting in a little metal container and then hurtling it down a stretch of asphalt while a bunch of other people in little metal containers are doing exactly the same thing.
But technologies that involve recording and relaying information are different, I am realizing.
I asked for a digital camera for Christmas because all the cool bloggers were using them. My mother gave me what I asked for, and my brother (who lives two doors down from my parents) charged the battery for me and showed me what the various function keys do. ("Mom must really like you," he said, admiring the camera's many spiffy features.) I brought it back home after Christmas, put it in a drawer, and left it there for eight months.
And then I thought, OK, it can't be that hard to use the damn thing, and there must be SOMETHING I really want to take a picture of.
Sure enough.
And now I love it! I plan to post a photo or two every week. In blogging terms at least, it seems that a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, and though my allegiance is still primarily to those thousand (and ten thousand, and one hundred thousand) words, I don't have to renounce it in order to add photos.
Posted by Holly at 11:11 AM | Comments (3)
August 25, 2006
SMP
Every so often, people will post lists of the search queries that brought readers to their blogs. I'm finally following suit. I picked this particular list because it contains a few searches I might conduct myself (I've googled the Salt Lake Tribune a time or two, though I know my chances of finding the paper's home site instead of some reference to the paper are increased if I type in its full name) and the others are only sort of upsetting, instead of really, really gross. I'm offering it without comment because really, what is there to say?
pretty russian girls bikinis panties bra
self portraiture
drunken one night stand forgivable?
behold here is my daughter
self photo vagina
literary devices on keeping a notebook by didion
sl tribune
writing really good letter praise
mormon taboos coke coffee
my tits
tattoo in genital organ
men in britain emasculation
stuffed mormon pussy
when the beard is too painful to remove
Posted by Holly at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
August 9, 2006
Happy Anniversary
As I mentioned yesterday, today is the first anniversary of my blog. Instead of posting some long new entry, I thought I'd suggest you check out my very first entry, which explains why I named my blog Self-Portrait As.
I'm leaving for Sunstone in a few hours, but while I'm gone this time, I'm not turning the comments off, because Jim my host has fixed me up with a nifty new security function to keep spammers at bay. However, a couple of people have had problems posting when they try to preview their comments-- there's a glitch somewhere and once you preview the comment you can't post it. You have to highlight and save your comment, then hit refresh, then paste your comment into the new window, then hit post without hitting preview. Sorry for the problem....
Anyway, you can comment while I'm gone (and I do have some posts lined up to publish with the "scheduled" function) but it might be a while before I approve them. And I won't be around to comment on your blogs for a while, but I'll catch up when I'm back.
Thanks!
Posted by Holly at 8:03 AM | Comments (5)
August 8, 2006
Counting Birthdays
When we were little and would say, on our birthdays, "I'm nine years old today!" or whatever age was appropriate, my father would say, "No, you were nine years old yesterday. Yesterday you finished your ninth year. Today you're nine years and one day."
I started blogging on August 9, 2005, which means that today is the 365th day of my blog's existence, which I guess makes it one year old today. But tomorrow is still its birthday--or rather, the anniversary of its birthday. You really only have one birthday. That's something else my father would say.
He wasn't a killjoy, really--well, OK, he was kind of a killjoy. He just likes fussy distinctions.
And it's not like the Western way is the only way of counting birthdays. In Chinese culture, you're age one the day you're born. On the first anniversary of your birth, you're two. Your age is the cycle of year you're in, whereas in our system, your age is one less than the cycle you're in. In 1986, when I was a missionary, I thought of myself as 22, but if a Chinese person asked my age, I said 23.
Anyway, my blog has a birthday anniversary coming up, and this is our 251st entry. If you get a chance, we'd appreciate some congratulations.
Posted by Holly at 3:26 PM | Comments (13)
July 13, 2006
Search Me
Because I occasionally write about sex, and about sexual violence against women, and because I also discussed various terms for female genitalia and announced my preference for a particular term and my impatience with the misuse of another term, my blog can show up when people do searches for sexual images and situations. Thus, when I check the searches that have led people to my blog, a lot of them are deeply disturbing and vile. I won't provide examples because that would lead even more weirdos to my site. But I must say, that as someone who has stayed away from internet porn, it has been very educational to me to see some of what other people go looking for out there.
But this one I found amusing enough to share: a search on "naked women in teddies."
Dude, chick, whoever you are, grasp this obvious fact: If they're wearing teddies, they're not naked!
Posted by Holly at 8:34 AM | Comments (6)
February 11, 2006
Why Hang Up?
People say you know you've found a special friend when you can enjoy a comfortable silence with him--the absence of speech doesn't herald awkwardness and anxiety. My friendship with Wayne must be pretty damn special because we can enjoy a comfortable silence together--on the phone. I called him Saturday afternoon and of course the conversation wandered eventually to blogging, an activity we share. We sat at our respective computers, he in Southern California, I in Northern Pennsylvania, and we blogged. We collaborated on three new entries (see them here, here and here), working in silent contentment, listening to the other breathe and mutter in the background but not speaking unless it became necessary, because we're THAT comfortable with each other, and besides, we both have free cell phone minutes on the weekend, so why hang up just because we don't have something to share right this second? In another 20 minutes or so, one of us will surely think up something to say.
Posted by Holly at 8:36 PM | Comments (4)
January 17, 2006
A Bad Case of the Crankies
You know you've got a bad case of the crankies when you find you'd rather tackle filthy, foul, anti-social tasks like cleaning the cat box and scrubbing your toilets than attend to intellectually stimulating, socially rewarding pursuits like writing a few blog entries, posting some comments on blogs you like reading, and answering your email.
Which is how I felt yesterday.
What can I say. It was a holiday and I didn't have to go anywhere or see anyone, and the litter box was starting to smell up my entire basement and the toilets looked so grubby I could hardly bear to pee in them.
And I was very cranky. One reason was the stuff I posted yesterday about how climate change is going to speed up and render parts of the world uninhabitable--I did the math, and if Lovelock is right, by the end of the century Phoenix will regularly have high temperatures of 135 F--and another was that when I mentioned global warming to my mother the other night, she did that standard, stupid, Pro-Bush anti-planet thing of telling me it was a hoax.
There are other reasons why I'm cranky, at least one of which I plan to tell you about soon.... I've been mulling over this unpleasant occurrence and its implications for a good 24 hours--I even woke up in the middle of the night and spent some time brooding over it.
But the holiday is passed, my toilets are clean and now I've got work to do that requires me to deal with other people, so I'll get busy doing it.
Posted by Holly at 9:29 AM
December 21, 2005
I'm Polyblogamous
I don't know who originally coined this word, though the earliest usage google turns up is here. I got it from John, who invoked it to describe the fact that he maintains more than one blog. I, too, have more than one blog.
This, of course, is my main blog. I completely dig blogging, and I find that I occasionally neglect certain duties in favor of writing up and posting ideas and reflections here.
But I have also maintained--albeit in an extremely abbreviated form--the site on blogger where I first began. I figured, what the hell: it's not hurting anyone, and I might as well keep the name. I post something there about once a month--I duplicate a post I really like from this blog--just so it doesn't look completely abandoned. (Note as of 6/23/06: I've completely abandoned it. But I plan to do something with it soon.)
Then there's a site called Genius to Spare, which I write with Wayne. I convinced Wayne to co-write G2S with me, after I realized that A) OTHER PEOPLE had multiple blogs, and B) there were some things I wanted to write about that didn't seem to belong on SPA--my meditation on the meaning of f*ckwit, for instance. Be sure to check out all the archives, so you can see the picture of Wayne's gorilla in a tiara. (A simian theme has somehow emerged on the site.) My personal favorite posting is our conversation about The Young Ones, though my homage to Morrissey runs a close second.
I also have a site called Dangerous and True. (The title comes from a Poe song entitled "Not a Virgin," which includes the line, "Tell me something dangerous and true." It's a challenge I like.) D&T was going to be where I worked out some ideas about sex and relationships I didn't feel comfortable writing about on SPA. You'll notice that my persona is Bored Dominatrix, and there's a rather funny story behind that, which I plan to post one of these days.... I'm still not sure where I want to go with the site, but I totally LOVE the banner, which Wayne designed for me, and someday I have to do something worthy of the blog's great look.
During the next few weeks, I'm going to be traveling and celebrating a couple of holidays, and I figure plenty of other people will too. So I probably won't post as much. Or I might--hanging out with my family might give me a lot to think about and say, and I might have nothing to do but sit in front of a computer. But if YOU find yourself in front of a computer with nothing to do, please check out my other sites.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (2)
October 9, 2005
All Hail Jim!
Those of you who have visited my blog before will notice some changes: It's no longer utilitarian and spare, but spiffed-up and fancy! Check out the picture in the upper right corner--that's one of my favorite photos of me. Check out the Chinese character in the upper left corner--that's my surname and my tattoo! Check out the soothing green palate and the larger, easier-to-read font!
I owe all of this to my friend Jim, who generously offered to host my blog and custom-design the template.
I couldn't be happier with the results, or more grateful for his work.
Feel free to leave enthusiastic comments praising the beauty of my blog--but remember, Jim is the genius behind it all.
Thanks, Jim!
Posted by Holly at 10:37 AM | Comments (2)
August 9, 2005
Self-Portrait Series
I love self-portraits, partly because in grad school I read this fabulous essay by Philippe Lejeune called "Looking at a Self-Portrait." Lejeune is a literary critic whose primary interest is autobiography, verbal and visual. He asks, "What is it that makes a self-portrait recognizable as such? What special interest can their be in looking at a self-portrait?"
Of course there is nothing in a painting that marks it as a self-portrait for anyone who does not know what the painter looks like, hence the existence of titles like Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, by Parmigianino (which John Ashbery borrowed for the title of one of his books). Painting, Lejeune points out, has no obvious first person, whereas "For the first person, writing is invincible."
Not long after reading that I started writing self-portraits: "Self-Portrait as Hungry Nude." "Self-Portrait as Burnt Offering." "Self-Portrait as Someone Who Looks Exactly Like Me."
I have this really fabulous book given to me by my big sister as a Christmas gift several years ago, called Seeing Ourselves: Women's Self-Portraits. Some of the titles of the works depicted there are so thoroughly cool: "Self-Portrait Painting the Virgin and Child." "Self-Portrait at the Dressing Table." "Self-Portrait, Black Background." "Self-Portrait with Metro." And my favorite, by a painter named Cynthia Mailman: "Self-Portrait as God." (!) Some day I will steal all those titles and turn them into self-portraits in language.
Sometimes people call what I write stories. In the terminology of critics and writers, I don't write stories. I write nonfiction. I tell stories, but they are usually true stories, and the things I write about them are essays, memoirs and poems. I admit I have two ideas for novels I want to write, but they'll have to wait until I'm done figuring out my own life.
So what you'll get on this blog are lots of self-portraits. Self-portrait as Woman Who Can't Find Anything Worth Eating in her House on a Tuesday Morning. Self-Portrait as Insomniac. (I've done so many stinkin' versions of that one.) Self-Portrait as Someone who Simply Enjoys the Act of Typing. Self-Portrait as Someone with Something to Say. Because I want to say something that matters about the things that matter to me.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (1)