Category: metablogging

in no particular order

I have been struggling to decide what to post. It’s not that I have any shortage of things to post. Just the opposite. I have too many photos I want to share, too many stories. But when I find time when I could conceivably put together a post, I spin. I come up with reasons to not post each particular thing, at least right at that particular time. There are two many photos of this set. I have too much to say about that story, and not enough time to write it. These photos are now months out of date. (Who wants to see Christmas photos now? Or Halloween ones, for that matter?) I’m saving those photos for a theme I have in mind. (But I never get around to running with that theme.) I sometimes wish I had some method for deciding what to post when. That’s probably why I have participated in the Friday Foto Finder thingy, and used to love things like the Monday Missions¹ and other group blogging activities. For that matter, this is why I kept up the Themed Things Thursday for so long. Such bits of structure make it feel a bit like there is a reason for my rhyme. (Or a rhyme to my reason?)

I know that it doesn’t have to be that way. This is my personal space, and I can post whatever, whenever. Lately, though, it feels like my posts are more like “never” than “whenever.”

So, would you (whoever you are) like to help out? Leave a question or a request or a suggestion or even just a word in the comments, and I will post something in response. In the order of comments received.²

—
¹ This is a now-defunct blogging activity whereby a host would select a format or style (like a real estate ad, a course description, or campaign coverage) for participants to use for a post. I just looked back through my archive with the Monday Mission tag, and these were some of my funniest posts, if I do say so myself. And I do say so myself. I seriously crack myself up!

² I don’t, however, promise that what I will post will necessarily make any sense to anyone who is not me.

substantially insubstantial

30 days and 30 posts in, this month has flown by. Unlike in years past, I found it quite easy to post daily. The reason for this was likely that, beyond the act of daily posting, I had no particular goals for NaBloPoMo this year. The downside to this comparative ease is that I don’t much feel like I posted much of substance. I was happy to post a number of photo sets that I had been saving in my digital hoard, and I had a few things to say here and there with more words, but I didn’t find myself sharing more of the stories that have been buzzing around in my head that first prompted me to start a blog in the first place. Those stories take time, and time isn’t something I’ve had in abundance this month. In spite of this lightness of post content, though, I still feel fairly satisfied. Having the daily creative outlet, and this commitment to doing something daily that is purely for my own enjoyment, has actually been more satisfying than I might have expected. I am sorely tempted to continue in this commitment to daily blogging–if not actually putting up a post every day, at least spending a bit of time each day working on a post.

This was a photo I took on November 30, 2010, taken during my participation in Project 365, a commitment to taking photographs daily.

seven years in

When I started this blog, 7 years ago today, I had no idea where it would take me. Over a thousand posts later, I find that this blog has served its original purpose well: as a record of my life and as a creative outlet. What I didn’t expect from starting this blog was that blogging would become an important part of my life. I didn’t know that blogging would be the means by which I would learn and grow and forge lasting and important friendships. So, happy birthday to this blog, and thank you to the friends and visitors who have made blogging a more fun and rewarding experience than I ever would have imagined!

photos of exclamation points

I happened to look at the search terms people used to find my blog today, and saw that someone had come seeking “exclamation point photos.” I found this rather surprising. Perplexing, even. For one thing, I haven’t posted (or hadn’t yet posted), to my knowledge, any actual photographs of exclamation points. (I did once compose and post a rather nice graphic of an exclamation point made of punctuation marks, but it’s not a photo.)

For another thing, I was surprised that someone out there would actually be looking for “exclamation point photos.” That is, someone out there who is not me. As it happens, I have found myself noticing exclamation points in the wild for the past several years. They are elusive and rare creatures, but happily, once spotted, they tend not to run away. Many of them will even consent to having their photos taken.

First, my earliest wild exclamation point sighting. This little guy was seen at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in March of 2009.

It seemed to be made out of green tea, which is common for wild punctuation marks in the area. Sadly, shortly after this photo was taken, the little exclamation point was squished and smeared across the table by the fingers of a curious nearby preschooler.

This rather startled looking specimen was seen on the ceiling tiles in a lab at MIT. I think it was trying to run away. (Spotted March, 2011.)

This cute little guy was on some steps of the Great Wall of China, near Mutianyu. It posed for me in May, 2012.

And most recently, this timid creature was seen at a zoo in Massachusetts in August, 2012. It was trying to hide under a few leaves, possibly out of concern that it would be stomped on. (And it may have had some reason for concern, as I believe that the feet in the photo belong to the same individual who smushed the green tea exclamation point of the first 2 photos back in 2009.)

As you can see, my blog will now be THE go-to place for photos of exclamation points. Perhaps one day I will write a guide book on the subject.

the longest shortest month

Even for those of us who love a bit of winter, the season can get a bit old come February. The cold, the gray, the cold, the gray. The snow, the slush, the ice. Gray skies. Bare trees. Cold hands. The bright lights and festivities of the winter holidays seem like ages in the past, and spring remains stubbornly out of reach. February may be the shortest month, but it certainly feels like a long one where I live.

It was a packed month for me, too, and it’s hard to believe how much happened: concert, blizzard, visit from my mother, school vacation. A birthday for one child, and kindergarten registration for the other. I posted every day of the month, and I reached my thousandth post. I posted a lot of photos, and worked through some nervous energy. (But I still didn’t manage to post a bunch of the things I’ve had in mind to post. Will I ever?)

And here is one last photo for the month. For Annette, who finds herself taking too many photos of bare trees. (Though they are lovely bare tree photos.) Look! I got you another photo of bare trees. And for Sarah, whose words about the many grays of February brought a bit of light into the end of my month. (You see? This photo only looks slightly different in black and white.)

There are subtle hints of muddy brown and the barest hint of bluishness in the sky and snow. But mostly we have black and white and gray. No need for the box of 64 crayons to color this scene.


And here we are with the that last bit of color drained out.

a post in a thousand

Here is a list of a thousand things:

I know, I know. This list is not 1000 things long. But they are thousand things. Because this is my one thousandth post on this blog. (Also, the word “thousandth” is really hard to say.)




image credits: millefiori bead from Fire Mountain Gems, mille-feuille by okki, paper cranes by James..g, the M in stone photo is my own, taken in Barcelona. The thousand dollar bill is not mine, nor did I take it.

barely balanced


I liked the way that these tall piles of snow managed to stay upright, nestled in the branches of this tree in our front yard. In the afternoon light, it even had a bit of a glow.

This photo was from Sunday. Now, remarkably, much of the snow is gone. We had a warm stretch, and lots of rain, melting and compacting the 2 feet of snow from Saturday down to maybe 4 inches. I thought that much snow would stick around for weeks! 2 years ago, we had a winter where the snow just kept coming, without the melting in between. There were a number of roof cave-ins around the area from the weight of all that snow. I like the quick melting snow much better!

Speaking of balance, I’m having a bit of trouble getting all the things done I need to do. It’s been another crazy stretch, with all kinds of commitments left and right. Valentine’s Day stuff for the kids. Work stuff. Home stuff. I have an early meeting in Boston tomorrow, and then I will collect my mother at the airport. The house is a mess, and I still haven’t found the guest bed. And I really, really want to share a story about a Big Thing I did last week. But I need to go to bed!

I also feel compelled to say that now that I’ve publicly announced my intentions to post every day this month, it suddenly feels like more of a burden to post every day this month. I know that’s sort of silly, especially given that I don’t actually *have* to post every day this month. And I certainly don’t need to do anything spectacular when I post every day this month. But now I have this strange compulsion to repeat the phrase “post every day this month.”

Did I mention that I need to get to bed?

digging in


Our array of snow shovels.

Some of you may have noticed that I have been posting rather frequently of late. I decided, you see, that I would post every day this month. I have so many photos and stories to share, I decided to just dig in. I don’t really have a plan, beyond that. I’m just picking from among the photos in my digital hoard, or posting as things come up. I hope to share some more of my travel stories, and other posts I’ve started to draft. Maybe, when I’ve laid it all out, some sort of pattern will emerge. Or maybe it will be just a big pile. But it will be my pile.


There are some bushes hiding under these piles.


Our front path.

And now I should try to dig back into my work, which has been entirely neglected for the past few days. Not only have I spent a lot of time shovelling snow, but I have also not had any time without at least one young child since Thursday.

Dude, where’s my doodle?

Back in September, my blog rolled over the 1 million pageviews mark. In anticipation of this event, I had given people the opportunity to guess the date of the upcoming rollover, and offered these fabulous non-cash prizes:¹

Guess the day (and a time, too, if you like) that my blog will hit 1,000,000 pageviews. Whoever gets closest will win a choice of one of the following:

• An original crayon doodle in the style of my blog header created by me
• An original haiku created by me
• An original dust bunny created by my extraordinarily subpar housekeeping skills
• A walk-in appearance in my next novel. (I’ve never written a novel. But I might some day, and you’d totally get to be in it.)
• A walk-in appearance in my dissertation, should I ever actually write one. (Expect delayed gratification. Very delayed.²)
• A post here on the topic of your choosing
• A surprise, chosen by me³

Maria, aka Madame Meow of A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm!, picked the actual date of the rollover, and I therefore declared her to be the winner. She chose the doodle prize, which felt like as much of a prize for me. A reason to doodle! I immediately put “doodle for Maria” on my to-do list.

Here it is, over 4 months later, and I have yet to mail Maria her doodle. I had a little bit of a sense of déjà vu. I had a little bit of a sense of déjà vu. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) You see, I had a drawing back in 2008 for some chocolate I’d brought back from Brazil, and Maria was by chance the winner that time, and I was “slow” to follow through.⁴ It’s funny how back in June of 2008, I felt like I was being slow by waiting a week or 2.⁵ Here we are over 4 years later, and I am barely embarrassed to be running 4+ months late.

In any case, I did doodle for Maria. Over a month ago, even. I used some of the difficult-to-work-due-to-no-childcare time down at my in-laws’ for Thanksgiving. (I also used only the crayons that were available there, which were a bit of a mixed bag. The black that I used for my outline was a little stub of a thing, and a few were really waxy, poor-quality ones. But mostly it was fun to work within the constraints. Plus it was fun to draw with the kids, both of whom were inspired by my doodles. (Maybe later I will share their versions.))

So, here is your doodle, Maria. I photographed it in stages (against the background my mother-in-law’s tablecloth), which can be viewed in the slideshow below. At some point, I will mail you the paper version. But first I will have to find it.

Because I don’t remember what I did with it after I packed it up to bring home after Thanksgiving.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

¹ Note that the footnotes in the quote below are from the quoted post.
² See footnote 1.
³ Hi.
⁴ Note that my post title for that post was, “Dude, where’s my chocolate?”
⁵ Note that back in June of 2008, I as yet had only one child (not counting the bun that was in the oven).