2010: The Year of Looking Back at 2009

Here we are, entering the last week of January. And I’m still working at getting together those “end of year” posts I had planned.

Case in point: Holly and I are still going strong with our efforts to put together a compilation of the best Just Posts of 2009. We’re asking readers and other friends to look over lists of 10 posts, and let us know which are the best of each batch. Since we have around 300 posts, and since we’ve decided we’d like to get 2 independent reviews per post, we still need help. So, if you’re willing and able to participate in this project, let us know!

Meanwhile, I haven’t made any further progress with my self-indulgent favorite posts of 2009 from this blog list that I had planned to post. I seem to recall that I had narrowed my list down to about 50. Clearly, my ego is healthy! Or perhaps inflated. (It could be bloating. Is ego edema a documented condition?)

There are also many things I meant to post last year, but still haven’t gotten around to. Loads of pictures, and details on life and travels and such. (For that matter, I’ve also still been thinking about my apparent loss of a decade. I’ve been thinking back, and realizing that there were highlights for me even beyond the decade’s defining feature.)

In keeping with looking back at last year, in any case, I thought I’d share some photos. I’ve grabbed 2 photos of Phoebe and Theo for each month. A calendar of cuteness, as it were. Behold!

January

February

March

Theo started solids (photo by John) and we travelled to Texas and California.

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

(Okay, I cheated. The second photo is from November 1st. I didn’t take all that many photos in October, it seems, and got very few with both Phoebe and Theo in the frame.)

November

December

Today’s forecast

Hour-by-hour forecast for Thursday, January 21

2:00 a.m. 95% chance of baby wakefulness
3:00 a.m. continued baby wakefulness with intermittent parental snoozes
4:00 a.m. continued baby wakefulness with intermittent parental outbursts
5:00 a.m. 85% chance of fitful slumber, punctuated by dreams of wakefulness
6:00 a.m. 99% chance of beeping alarm clock, chance of snooze button 100%
7:00 a.m. Blustery tempers and high-speed chases, chance of toddler eye precipitation 98%
8:00 a.m. Frosty windshield combined with hot tempers lead to isolated storms
9:00 a.m. 80% chance of showers skipped
10:00 a.m. 75% chance of feeling snowed over

Mood likely will continue to be partly cloudy throughout the day, with scattered thoughts and intermittent storms of crankiness.

Image from wpclipart.

blue state blues

I’m feeling blue today.

Massachusetts held its special election yesterday to fill the seat that had been held for decades by Senator Ted Kennedy.

I did not like the results.

Massachusetts is considered by many to be a liberal stronghold. What has come to be known as a blue state. I like it that way. I like it that we allow same sex marriage. I like it that there have been reforms to the health care system in our state, and that measures have been taken here to ensure that everyone has access to health insurance. Legislation and voting in this state often reflects progressive values. In case you hadn’t guessed, those are my values.

Now my state has elected a senator whose values greatly diverge from my own. As Keith Olberman put it:

In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees. In any other time in our history, this man would have been laughed off the stage as an unqualified and a disaster in the making by the most conservative of conservatives.

And you know what? I’m not just blue. I’m angry.

a totally private email to WordPress about “post by email”

Dear WordPress,

I really like your “post by email” feature. It’s so cool, in that it lets me compose emails offline in my favorite mail application. I love the ease of formatting. I’ve found that including images in a post is actually much easier. It’s really great. I use it all the time now.

And I really like that you can send a post to the drafts folder rather than publishing it right away. I often like to do a bit of editing to a post and see a preview of it before I publish. You’ve made this so easy–I just need to include a bit of shortcode. That is teh awesomeness.

But you know what would be even awesomer? Even more full of teh awesomeness? Having the default be to send emailed posts to the drafts folder. Because you know what I discovered? You can accidentally post an email as a blog post. Especially if you are up late at night sending out lots of emails, and not paying quite enough attention to the autofill function of the address bar of your mail application. I’m speaking totally hypothetically, of course.

No, wait. I’m not.

Because even though it’s swell that you can easily type the “status draft” shortcode into any post that you email, people may not consider including that text in every freakin’ email they ever compose on the off chance it might accidentally get published on the freakin’ web.

So, please consider having some sort of “publish immediately” shortcode instead of the “status draft” shortcode, and make the default status for posts by email be “draft.” And save bleary-eyed people like me from the potential embarrassment of accidentally publishing personal emails like this one on the web.

xoxox,

alejna

p.s. You looked totally HAWT the other night in that skimpy thing you were wearing.

p.p.s. Don’t tell my husband I said that, because he’d be sooo jealous.

I’ve said it before…

The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.
The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.
The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.
The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.
The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.
The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.
The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.
The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.
The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.
The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.
The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.
The address field autofill on my email application is not my friend.

Have I mentioned that the autofill on my email application is not my friend?

Oh right. I have.

And remember how I said I was loving the WordPress “post by email” function? Well, I’m not so much loving it now. Because I accidentally cc’d that address on an email.

So the email became a post.

And even though I put the post in the “trash” within a minute or so of actually posting it, and cleared it off my front page, I discovered that feedburner apparently still pulls such posts from the the “trash” unless you have also “emptied” the trash. WTF, WordPress? “Trash” means pull from the front page, but still make accessible to feedburner?

So, if you find a rather cryptic post (or another cryptic post) in your feed from me, please ignore it.

You know, I really hate making mistakes. And I really really hate making mistakes that get broadcast.

I guess I should be relieved that the email I posted wasn’t personally damning.

The December Just Posts

December 2009 Just Posts button

Welcome to the December 2009 edition of the Just Posts. Holly (of Cold Spaghetti) and I are pleased to be hosting our 12 roundtable.

It’s hard to know what to say in response to some world events. The world is reeling from news of the devastating earthquake in Haiti yesterday. Living far away as we are, it is hard to know how to help.

Many organizations around the world are gearing up to join relief efforts, and many people are ready and willing to go to Haiti. (I was very moved reading the comments on this post from Mercy Corps, as dozens of people offered up their qualifications to serve as relief workers in Haiti, and offered to fly there immediately to help.)

For most of us, though, the best way to help is to donate to organizations that are active in relief efforts.

I made a donation this morning to UNICEF, and will probably make one to IRC as well. Both are international relief organizations of which I am a regular supporter, and both are actively sending relief to Haiti.

Holly has suggested donations to Hôpital Albert Schweitzer as a smaller, Haiti-based organization where funds will have more of an immediate impact.

You can also find a fairly extensive list assembled on the NPR blog of ways to help.

And now, for this month’s list. As ever, I am inspired and heartened by the range of voices speaking out on topics of social justice.

The December 2009 Just Posts:

Thank you for your support in our efforts this past year. Your comments and contributions are what keep us going!

The 00s: The Decade of the Butt Crack

After my last post, in which I declare that I barely noticed an entire decade, I’ve spent some time reflecting on the decade. Because I’m pretty sure I was there.

One thing that stands out in my memory is that I had to change my underwear.

And by that, I mean that I found that styles of underwear that I had been wearing previously no longer worked with new styles of pants.

You know what I’m talking about.

Low rise.

In the early years of the last decade, more and more people were dropping their pants. As the decade progressed, waistlines kept moving lower and lower, such that many feared what depths might be exposed before the trend reached its bottom. Hanging low on the waist, the jeans of this brave new world exposed a large swath of midriff in the front.

And from behind, they showed a lot more behind.

Before you knew it, you couldn’t walk down a city street without seeing hip young things showing off their coin slots.

This was a new dawn rising in the fashion world. Or perhaps a new moon. This was the dawning of the age of butt cleavage.

(Who knew that plumbers would start a fashion trend?)

We may not have seen much progress in many social trends in the last decade. We may not have seen great strides in the arts. What we did see was a lot more ass.

The 50s presented the poodle skirt. The 80s offered legwarmers.

The 00s had the butt crack.

Holy crap. I totally missed a decade.

It’s 2010, the start of a new year. What’s more, as you may have heard, it’s the start of a new decade. The 10s. This has lead to plenty of people reflecting on what’s happened in the last 10 years. How things have changed, how far we’ve come. What we’ve seen and done as individuals.

Let’s think back 10 years…

In the year 2000, way back then, I was in grad school.

Oh, wait. I’m still in grad school. Fuck.

In the year 2000, I was living here. The couch was less dented, the carpet less stained. But it is the same couch, the same carpet. It’s funny to think that there are probably things in this house that have not been touched in 10 years. There have certainly been projects on the to do list that have not been touched in 10 years.

Living in the same place has lifted the landmarks from my memory. The years have almost totally blurred together.

I can hardly remember movies of the decade. When I think back on movies I love, the more “recent” ones, I’m shocked to see that they are often years old. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Was from freakin’ 2000. I’ve hardly read any books in the past decade. Most of my music is from the 80s and 90s. (Hell, I probably still wear clothes from the 90s. I’m just getting the jump on retro chic.)

Anyhow, I find myself having trouble being nostalgic for the past decade. Because apparently I barely noticed it.

Oh, fine. I guess I did have some changes. I mean, 2000 was when I started grad school, so that was a change. And I did get a master’s degree. And I had 2 children. And I guess there were some other events and accomplishments along the way. I mean, hell, in 2000 I didn’t even have an iPod, let alone a blog!

—-

In other news of nostalgia, I’ve been working on putting together a list of my favorite posts of the year. I may well put together more retrospective lists.

Speaking of which, Holly and I are going to be putting together a list of the best Just Posts of 2009. And we need your help! We’ll be taking nominations for the best posts of the year, orchestrating some voting, and even awarding prizes! We can’t do it without help, though, so let us know if you can help look back at a few of the posts of months past. To see the lists, you can check out the Just Posts category. To learn more about the Just Posts, check out the info page.