Pondering changes

I've never kept it a secret that I have a blog. I've never shouted it from the rooftops, either. Thus far, this has worked for me.

But things are a-changing, and unfortunately, I'm a-changing too.

If you read this blog regularly, and would like to continue to do so, please send an e-mail to lucyarinATgmailDOTcom and let me know. Why? Because as of February 1, Well Behaved will be private. I do not intend to stop writing, and I do not intend to delete the blog, but it can no longer be public. I know that there are readers out there who I know personally, and a great many more that I've never met face-to-face. Whether you know me or not is not the criteria for being given access, though. Interest in what I write about is the key. I'll be happy to grant access to just about anyone who is willing to delurk just enough to tell me that they're here.

It saddens me to take this step, because I'd like to believe that some random person out there might read or have read about my struggles with depression and sought help after recognizing themselves in one of my posts.

I'd like to believe that by being open and honest with the world about my mental illness that I've helped to destigmatize it a little.

I'd like to believe that my political rantings inspired someone to get involved with the ongoing and difficult struggle for women's reproductive rights and the right to equal pay.

I'd like to believe that someone was inspired by my writings about exercise and weight loss, inspired enough to get out there and take better care of themselves.

I'd like to believe that by writing about Sweden, I've piqued someone's interest in the world beyond their backyard.

I'd also like to believe in leprechauns, unicorns, dragons, fairies, dryads, psychic powers, happily-ever-after, and that everyone I meet is genuine and honest.

Lest you think that some personal tragedy has befallen me, or that my blog has somehow gotten me "in trouble," allow me to reassure you on that point. Not at all. There are two forces at work here, and they're both vaguely work-related, so I'm not going into extreme detail. My work forces me to be a public person, someone who is recognizable as a representative of the organization. As I meet more and more people, and the things I get involved in become ever more expansive, I'm faced with the growing realization that I don't really want everyone I meet to be able to read about some of the soul-searing stuff I've written here. The second reason is that to date, there's no "official" policy about social networking and web 2.0 applications, but that day is coming. Do I like it? Not really. But I do like being employed, and I love what I do. That makes the way forward absolutely crystal clear.

...and we're back

Blogger, oh, Blogger. You irritate me so. I'd love to be able to take this off of Blogger and use my own domain, but my html skillz are not good enough for that.

I'd been toying with the idea of doing what I have heard called a "flock" a friends lock for a while; I don't know who y'all are out there, reading my missives, rants, recipes...of course, most of y'all don't know who I am, either. I kind of liked that arrangement. If I wanted invisibility, I'd keep a paper journal, after all. I have many faults. Self-centered, diva, control freak...I know them all. Narcissism figures in there pretty large. Someone who really thinks that the world gives a damn about what they think and feel, that's the type of person who keeps a public blog.

Who reads a random blog? Anyone, really. Someone Googles Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's quote that contains the title of this blog, stumbles across something I've written, reads it, likes it, comes back. Or you're one of the people who I have trusted in real life enough to share the url. Or you like that randomocity of that "next blog" button at the top of the screen. Who are you? You are everyone, anyone.

I am a 34 year old married woman who works full time at a job she loves, knits, has a beautiful circle of amazing friends, a family she adores. I'm your sister, your friend, the woman behind you in the check-out line at the grocery store, the woman next door, the person on the mat next to you in your yoga class. Everyone and no one.

I've fretted over some random person figuring out exactly who I am and "outing" me. Why? Really, I don't know. Nothing I've written here is against the law; having an anonymous blog isn't a crime. I was worried when I first started writing that my employers at the time wouldn't really appreciate my point of view on certain subjects. They wrote me a paycheck; I kept quiet in public about my opinions. Being a faceless, nameless person on the web allowed me to say some things that I really wanted to, but couldn't, in the world. Then there was my fascination with an actor and a TV show; forum posts live forever, and some of the things I wrote on fan forums are not things I'd want my grandmother to read, let alone someone I worked with. Having "Lucy" connected to me; well, it'd be a little embarrassing, really. Add to all of that the fact that I have written extensively about my journey with mental illness...and "a little embarrassing" speeds past "a little" and straight to "mortifying".

A nebulous future potential employer may choose not to hire me based on my mental illness if they read what I've written here; sure, that's completely illegal, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't happen. Mental illness is still so poorly understood that many people think mental illness = dangerous. Most people who have a mental illness are normal, functioning members of society. They are your neighbors, your sister, your friends, the woman behind you in the grocery line. Look around. At one time a few years ago, it was estimated that one out of every 5 Americans were taking Prozac. That's 20% of the population. Out of 10 of your friends, two of them. We don't talk about it. We don't advertise it. I'm NOT ashamed, but much like the military's Don't Ask/Don't Tell, I feel no need to shout from the rooftops that I have a mental illness.

We are everyone. We are no one. We are out there. We shouldn't need to be silent.

I did the flock partially while trying to change the Blogger template, but also because I was worried that someone in particular had "found" me. I unlocked it for the same reason I started writing about my mental illness; I sought help because of another blogger. Maybe one of you will do the same; recognize yourself in a post and decide to stop suffering in silence. If one person does that, then my potential embarrassment is a small price to pay.

I am anyone. I am everyone. I am no one. I am your sister. Your daughter. Your friend. Your neighbor. Who are you?

Poor, poor baby. Let me organize a pity party for you.

A few years ago, anonymous sex-blogger Girl With A One Track Mind, Abby Lee, was outed by British newspaper The Sunday Times. Backlash from the blogosphere was swift, virulent, vicious, and according to a recent article in the same paper by the same writer, Anna Mikhailova, career ruining.

Mikhailova ruined Abby Lee's film career - she worked in production, not as an actress - and now has the utter brass cajones to whine about Abby's readers ruining her "reputation" and by virtue of that reputation-ruining, her career as a bottom-feeding journalist is just not thriving. Awww. Honey. I'm so sorry.

I have a vested interest in this not just for reasons of anonymity; I believe that Abby would not have been vilified for her sexual escapades had she been male, so there's the feminist angle as well as the fact that I myself write under a pseudonym. My reasons for doing that are my own. Abby's were as well.

When does "the public interest" or "the right to know" trump privacy? When there is something illegal going on, certainly. But if I'm writing about my own private Idaho over here, and you read it and like it, why does it matter if I'm the woman in the office next to you or if I live three time zones away?

Of course, the automatic comeback to my argument is that if I wanted to remain anonymous, I wouldn't be writing on teh interweb, I'd have a journal that I kept under lock and key. Guess what. I do. Writing is part of who I am, not just something I do for fun. Publishing my struggles with depression has been both about my own recovery and about the hope that someone, somewhere, reads what I've written and decides to seek help for their own issues. De-stigmatizing mental illness is a goal of my blog.

Writing here about politics, the abortion debate, my silly little inconsequential life, is something that I enjoy doing. I believe that I have the right to do that under a pen name. And so I do not feel sorry for Anna Mikhailova. The line for the pity party forms to the left, please. Right there, that sign that says "Exit"!!

Grammar point: What is the plural of hiatus?

Hiatia?  

Point being that I am going to Florida for some much needed rest and time with my family for the remainder of 2008.  And then for the early part of 2009, too.  Hiatus 1 & Hiatus 2.  

Going from my home, where there are at least 4 operational computers at any time, to the parents house, where there is but one laptop, means I'll be feeling some withdrawal.  At least, I think I will.  Even with the diversions of BEACH. POOL. BOAT RIDES. DAIQUIRIS.  SIBLING SILLINESS.  I'm sure there will be a moment or two where I am wondering what is missing.  

But then again, I do have a blackberry, with teh interweb available 24/7, so I'm not particularly worried.

Semi-regular posting to resume after January 5th.  Have a happy or a merry, whichever suits your inclination, and I'll be thinking of you in the Sunshine State.  Today's forcast high is 84, just in case you were wondering.

She scribbles.

Writing about writing is a little like listening to someone describe their every dream from last night.  It can be interesting, deadly dull, or horrific, by turns.  Yet I do both, from time to time, and today I plan to write about my writing.

I'm glad that I clicked the link from Mrs. G's blog to NaBloPoMo, because it has forced me to move my writing higher on my priority list.  This is good.  It hasn't helped me to begin fiction writing again, but I'm hoping in time that it will.

I have an addiction to an application on Facebook, called Pieces Of Flair.  Flair looks just like the buttons that we used to pin on our jean jackets in the 80s.  There is flair for everything imaginable, from your pet political causes to your pets, period.  There is a finite limit to the amount of flair that you are allowed to display, which is too bad, because as a result of being addicted to the application I have somewhere around 300 pieces of flair.  A friend sent me one about writing, which sent me on a hunt for more flair about writing.  My favorite one says, "We do not write because we want to; we write because we HAVE to."  That sums up, in one sentence, how I feel about writing.  I was driven to write when I started working on my book, like there was a tow line attached to my keyboard, pulling me back to it constantly.  I'd get lost in my writing for hours at a time.

When I talk about writing, I identify myself as a writer, but I'm not eager to point people in the direction of this blog, because I like the fact that I'm mostly anonymous.  Sure, there are a handful of people that I know in real life who are aware that I blog, and there is a small subset of that group that reads my blog.  Most of them are people that I'd feel free to say out loud anything that I've written about here.  But were my anonymity removed, I doubt that I'd feel as comfortable writing extensively about my mental illness, or some of the more gory details of that disease.  I'm "out" when it comes to my depression, comfortable with looking someone in the eye and telling them that I have a mental illness, but I don't go about proclaiming it from the rooftops.

Part of the appeal of blogging is its therapeutic benefits, allowing me to work out issues by writing about them.  Admittedly, though, a larger part of it is simple vanity; I'm tickled to death that there are people I will never meet who read what I write.

We are all writers; we all write grocery lists, notes to ourselves as reminders, memos, letters.  What then, pushes someone beyond that to writing paragraph after paragraph about imaginary people, or non-fiction?  (Vad skiljer då den tokige frän den vi kallar klok? ~ song lyrics, Mauro Socco, "Det Finns"...translation:  What separates the lunatic from those we call sane?) 

Where was I going with this?  Mostly that I'm just glad that I'm writing more, writing again.  Not exactly the writing that I wish I was doing, but getting closer.

Reinvention

I have a bunch of posts sitting in my queue. Things that I've written a few paragraphs about, and then either ran out of time to finish, or got hung up on a spot, and moved off from it thinking that inspiration would come along and I'd finish it at some future point.

But a few of those queued posts have been hanging out for more than a year.

Part of my OCD is that I don't like unfinished projects hanging about. They bother me.

When I wake up in the middle of the night, often I can't go back to sleep because I lie there and think about what's gone wrong, what's undone, what I've screwed up, what I can fix, what I can't change, what I should do tomorrow....shit that I can't turn off. It was worse, lots worse, when I was more of a mess. Now it is more of a mild annoyance than a debilitating, paralyzing problem, but it IS an annoyance.

It makes me want to reach for the sleeping pills. They don't turn off the inner monologue, exactly. They do make it harder to hear, though, because they force your brain to kind of shut off. The problem with that is twofold. First, I've weaned myself off of the Ambien, a process that was by no means fun, and I've no desire to repeat it.

Secondly, well....there isn't really a secondly. This is kind of like the real estate axiom, that location, location, location are the three most important things when it comes to purchasing real estate. I've weaned myself from the Ambien, and I've weaned myself from the Ambien. Granted, without it this past winter, I'd have slipped farther and further, because I couldn't sleep. I could NOT sleep. Without the prescription, I'd get about an hour, maybe three at the most, and the pills gave me about five at a stretch.

Depression makes sleeping hard. Lack of sleep makes the depression worse. It is a miserable cycle, one that feeds on itself. Hearing that internal "you didn't do XYZ" nagging at me didn't help, either. Inte alls, as we'd say in Swedish. (Betcha can figure that one out without me translating.)

So what to do with all those dangling posts? I see them every time I log in to Blogger. Maybe I should delete them. That feels like giving up to me, though, so they'll probably hang out until I finish them, or until I decide that they are indeed worthless, and delete them.

I have a novel from the library where the author talks about the book having been re-purposed from its original incarnation. Id' be nice if I could reinvent some of those posts. My current focus, though, is outside of the computer and away from my writing. Which is OK for now.

On Friend Requests

I'm a participant in a completely ridiculous number of social networking websites, fan forums, and various other places that *ahem* need my commentary. Obviously.

MySpace and Facebook are the tips of the iceberg. MySpace is where I geek out over fandom; Facebook I joined because my Swedish family all belongs, and thus I can much more easily keep tabs on them by being a member myself. Here's an unintended consequence of that; I have friend requests on both sites from people that a) I don't know b) I don't remember or c) I never liked. What to do about this? Thus far, I've simply ignored the requests, and that will remain my course of action for the foreseeable future.

It seems both odd and incongruous, to me, anyway, to request a friending by someone you were never friends with in the real world, or that you come across their name and say, "Dude. I oughta friend them." Maybe that's because I remember a world before teh interweb; maybe it is because I am more sane and normal than I think I am.

Online friends is one thing; I've got a passel of 'em from fandom that I've never met in real life, but we share a common ground. (Mainly a rabid fascination with a television show, but hey, we're normal. What? We are!) The people that I know in the world inside the computer obviously were strangers at one point, so my argument here is mostly self-defeating, but....

I'm not doing a great job of explaining the problem.

In clear, simple language, then, here it is. I have a friend request on one site from someone that I know attended the same high school as I did. We were not in the same graduating class. We never once, in the 10 years I attended that school system, had a class together. We weren't friends. That's harsh, but it is true. We aren't friends. I vaguely recognized the name, but know nothing else about this person, and truthfully, I don't care to. High school was two years of absolute hell for me, and mostly, I don't look back on my time in high school with fond memories. Times when we weren't actually IN the school building are another story, I have great memories of huge amounts of silly teen-aged things we did. Phrases that mean nothing to anyone else ("It was a six-foot chicken, officer!') reduce me to laughing so hard I'm gasping for breath. School itself, however, is an experience that you could not pay me to repeat. Ever. So why the living hell would I want to re-hash any of that with someone who went to the same school district, and that I was never friends with? Answer: I would rather not, if it is all the same to you, thanks.

One of the other odd friend requests is from someone who shares DH's last name, but when I showed him the profile and the picture, this wasn't someone he is related to, even in the very distant second-cousin-twice-removed kind of way. This person lives in a state roughly a thousand miles from my own, and we have no friends in common. Sorry, but I sure as hell ain't gonna click the "friend me" button when I don't know who in the world you are.

A third one is from someone that I exchanged e-mails with, two years ago, when I was running the non-profit. We're talking about maybe 4 e-mails. And then I never heard from them again. So we should be friends....why, exactly? I can't come up with anything.


All of this really makes me sound as if I'm quite the self-centered bitch. I can live with that label, if that's the appellation I'm stuck with for this attitude. But I really don't think I am. If these were friend requests from people that I was friends with once upon a time, awesome. If they're folks that I've lost touch with over the years and always wondered where they ended up, cool. Old pen pals? That would be really neat, I had one pen pal who was from Scotland and another from the Midlands in England. I'd love to hear from either of them. Someone that I run into at the store who I've known my whole life who mentions that they blog? Sweet! Random people who recognize my real name, or just like Lucy's profile picture? Not so much. That sorta weirds me out, quite truthfully.

My attitude about all of this changes 180 degrees when we're talking about bands, authors, or other celebrities who have chosen to put themselves on these sites and grant admirers access to their private lives. But that's a story for another day.

Clicking the buttons on any of the sites that say 'decline' seem unduly rude, and thus I've chosen the do-nothing course of action.

Women are socialized to "be nice." We're told, "Nice girls don't do that. Nice girls share. Nice girls blah, blah, blah, blah." When I first entered the professional workforce, at the ripe old age of.....um, I think I was 21 when I went to work for Ye Olde Evile Bank...I came across a book called Hardball for Women: Winning at the Game of Business. It completely changed the way I thought about acting in the workplace, and how to get noticed and get advanced in the business world. Unfortunately, you have to be 'one of the guys' to get along. I didn't say that I made up the rules, or that I liked them. I just understand that you need to follow them. The author, Pat Heim, talked about how no one tells the boys growing up to "be nice" nor does anyone tell the boys that they need to go along to get along.

So I wonder: if I was male, would I have clicked the "decline" button long since and forgotten about this?

*ahem*

It has come to my attention recently that more and more people that I really and truly do know in the world outside the computer read this blog.

I'm a little startled by that. I suppose that I shouldn't be, because I do talk about the blog in day-to-day conversations, but only with a trusted few. I don't pass out the URL, and I think that I can count on one hand the number of people that know who Lucy really is. OK, maybe two.

There are some folks out there in the real world that I wouldn't want to read the blog, no matter how proud I am of my writing ability and how amused I am at the daily hit counter...on average, about 50 people a day visit this blog, and while 80% of those are people searching for Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's quote (hint: that's the blog's title) a few of those 80% stick around, read some, and then even come back from time to time.

Yes, if you spend more than 5 seconds on this page, my IP tracker "catches" you and I can see where you are, or at least where the IP tracker thinks you are. Not always the same thing, not always 100% accurate, but it does at least show me a few rudimentary statistics.

I write what's true, what's in my heart and my head, things that I don't always feel that I can say out loud, or that I don't do so well in saying out loud. When you have the time to put thoughts and feelings into the written word, I at least, find that I can better express myself.

Teh interweb gives us this false sense of security, that we're anonymous behind the computer screen as we sit at our keyboards and surf. When I'm doing stream-of-consciousness writing, like in the Tuesday posts, I never stop to think about my audience, about who exactly, might read what I've got to say. I imagine the posts disappearing into cyberspace, and not that people that I know well will be sitting in front of their computers and reading them.

If I wanted true anonymity, though, I'd keep a diary instead of a blog.


And I'm glad to know too, that the posts don't just disappear out into the world. Hi Everyone!

I declare this de-lurking day. If you read, but don't comment, or don't comment often, leave a note to say hi. Comments are always welcome. ^_^

Working full time?

Is going to cut seriously into my available blog time.

Just wanted to let you know.

Ripples in a pond

When you toss a stone into a body of water, ripples of water spread out, touching things that your small stone never did. The big evil bank that I used to work for talked about "spheres of influence" when pushing us to sell bank services to clients. A program that one of my sisters has worked for has a slogan about everything being connected.

Likewise, in the blogosphere, there are many bloggers who have encouraged me, motivated me, whose writing has touched my own even though I've never met them.

One of those bloggers is Abby Lee, Girl With a One Track Mind. An anonymous blogger like me, although her subject matter is a far more interesting than mine will ever be. More entertaining, too. Or at least she was anonymous until a year ago, August 6, 2006, when Abby was outed by the British newspaper, The Sunday Times. What happened next is the stuff of an anon-blogger's nightmares. She lost her job, and suddenly every single person in the UK knew her real name and where she lived.

Since she blogs about her sexual exploits, and is a woman and unashamed of herself, she has spent a lot of the past year dealing with the male establishment verbally beating her up for her liberal views. Abby's brand of feminism is fearless and inspiring. A man writing the same blog would have been venerated, the subject of much "attaboy" back-slapping encouragement. That makes me incredibly sad.

Her writing, combined with one or two others, (notably Dooce and Abbypants) has encouraged me to be more open in my own blogging, given me the courage to write frankly about my battle with major depressive disorder.

When I started Well Behaved Women, it was a cry in the wilderness of the reddest of the red states, a way to protest the Idiot (Bush) Administration, a place where I could freely worry about the state of women's rights in America and talk about the tenuous thread that a woman's right to choose hangs by. It was rare in the beginning that I would talk about my own personal life. Politics, more politics, with a dose of politics tossed in was what I was writing about.

Somewhere along the way, that focus changed, and I began mentioning things in my life from time to time. And then in the last six months, it has been my life with a bit of politics on the side. I get more responses/comments, more hits on the blog when I'm writing about my own life, when I'm being deeply personal and baring things that I wouldn't talk about with a roomful of strangers than I do when I'm ranting about something stupid that President Idiot has done or said, or the Supreme Court further restricting civil rights. Writing about the depression, or trying to analyze something that has happened to me generates more interest than the government trying to look at your library records.

I'm going to refrain from commenting much on how that apathy also makes me sad, and how incredibly strange I think it is that random strangers are interested in the goings-on of a lunatic 30-something Ohioan, and get back to my point.

Without ground breakers like Dooce and Abby Lee, I wouldn't be here in the corner detailing my struggle to stay out of a ward. The ripples that spread out from blogs like theirs reach worldwide. Ideas sparked by a post written halfway around the world fill me with wonder at technology and the incredible age that we're living in. Unless I'm incredibly lucky, I will probably never meet Abby Lee. She has changed my life for the better, and while I'm deeply sorry for the pain that she's been through in the past year, her amazing writing has made me aspire to be a better writer. I am supremely grateful for that. So thanks, Abby. I feel privileged to have witnessed your journey, and can't wait to see what you do next.

Back to my (blogging) roots.

I have not been writing massive missives on the Idiot Administration lately. Likewise, I've avoided diatribes filled with dire warnings about the dismal state of women's rights in America. Since I have so much time on my hands, what with being unemployed and all, I've been instead looking inward, and amusing myself with writing about things that are fermenting in my head.

And then today I checked out Twisty, on I Blame The Patriarchy, a woman who I admire greatly. Twisty's a far, far better writer than I will ever be, her style is much more scholarly and I envy what I perceive as the incredible ease with which her posts flow. Maybe she agonizes over every sentence as I do, I'll never know. Today her post is about a woman in India whose case is equal parts tragedy and something else....what word do you use for something that makes you so angry you can't see straight? Infuriating? How about equal parts tragedy and resignation, that the state of women's rights all over the world will never improve enough, enough so that it no longer needs to be a battle?

Twisty's last sentence, particularly, "Violence against women is a fucking global humanitarian crisis, yo." made me sit up, scowl at the computer, and say, "Damn!" And "Wow!" Because I never really thought about it on such a large scale. I frame my feminist ideals mostly around what needs to be changed here, things like equal pay for equal work, access for all women to abortion rights, the things that hit my radar because that's MY backyard. I don't often think about women forced into arranged marriages, girls forced into prostitution in Asia, simply because I don't think about them. There's no excuse, just kind of a benign apathy. That apathy is so dangerous. Because until we all pay attention and do something about it, it won't change.

When will it change? To quote another idol, U2's Bono, "How long? How long must we sing this song?"

I am enough of a geek that I will read all the comments people write on blogs like Twisty's. So one of her commenters left a link to an Amnesty International report that I would like to share. I'm also adding another "sticker" on the right hand side of the blog, where people can link directly to Amnesty's campaign.


ACTION!

Happy Blog-Birthday To Me!

Today marks two years since I started blogging. So much has changed in my own life. And so little has changed with the Idiot Administration.

A woman's right to choose is more tenuous than ever, thanks to the resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor and the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist. The court made a big shift to the conservative side with President Idiot's appointment of John Roberts and Sam Alito.

We still have more than 500 days left in the Idiot Administration. Thank whatever you hold holy that he's not eligible for a third term, I'd have to emigrate. The lasting damage that he's already done to the environment, our civil liberties, the standing of the United States in the rest world and women's rights is quite enough.

How ironic is it that my blog anniversary is also President Idiot's birthday? I'm fairly entertained by that.

TAG!

I'm feeling a bit like I'm 8 years old, playing a frenetic game of tag. The Aunt tagged me with this, (thanks Auntie! I've never been tagged before and I feel all popular! :-) and I'm wondering if I even KNOW 8 bloggers to tag back with it. Anyway.

1. Each player must post these rules first.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

eight random facts/habits about me:

1. I gave up caffeine a few months ago but have developed an addiction to iced coffee since the weather has warmed up. Decaf, of course, but I really don't need another addiction to add to my list of SN, various fangirl boards, chocolate and MySpace.
2. My movie collection and my music collection are both alphabetized. Why, yes, I *do* have obsessive-compulsive disorder, why do you ask?
3. I have a big girl-crush on Claire Forlani. She is so graceful and beautiful. Don't believe me? Watch "Meet Joe Black."
4. I am not a fan of most beer. Especially the mass-produced swill that passes for beer in most American bars. Yuck.
5. I speak 3 languages fluently. Swedish, German, and English. Bits and pieces of a few others, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, and ASL. I can understand Norwegian and Danish pretty well because they're so similar to Swedish. I love linguistics.
6. Most reality television disgusts me. Just when I think the lowest common denominator has been reached, something new comes along that is even worse than what I thought was the most awful program. Witness: Survivor, Fear Factor, The Amazing Race. Ugh.
7. I can't watch horror movies because they scare me too much. And yet I will read Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and other stuff that scares the bejesus out of me.
8. I like the cold and snow. I miss it when the weather is 90+ degrees and 100% humidity lingers for weeks.

Wow, that was far more difficult than I thought it would be. Now to find 8 bloggers to tag back.

Erincee, MotherMe, Nikitaku, Amanda Marlena on We Shall Not Be Moved, Teri on WindLost, Mischa on Church Made Me Stupid, Milady de Winter on Chez Milady, and very unfairly because he's out of the country, John on The Shepard's Staff. Friends all, although they might think otherwise after having been tagged.

Delurk, c'mon, you know ya wanna

In the sidebar, I have a little note that tells you that IP tracking is ON and I SEE YOU!, but I've never really written about it before. I added that tracker to the blog more than six months ago out of genuine curiosity; who READS this garbage that I write?

And most of the time, people find the blog when they're searching for the quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, usually on Google. Every now and then someone will check out the site from a comment I've left on another blog. I know who my regular readers are, for the most part. All of the stats are interesting to my geek nature.

But yesterday, my angsty rant about Jensen Ackles really brought people out in droves. I had what I think is the highest count yet for a single day, for me. And no so much from people searching HIM on Google, either, which considering the number of websites devoted soley to him (I've read estimates of somewhere around 20,000, if you're keeping track, but Google gets over a half million hits when you type 'Jensen Ackles') isn't really surprising.

What surprises me most, I suppose, is that when I'm doing what I intended to do when I started the blog, which was write about women's rights and liberal politics, I get very little feedback, which makes me feel like I'm standing on a soapbox on a busy street corner, screaming my lungs out, and no-one is paying any attention. Although in our celebrity-0bsessed culture, it really ought not surprise me at all. Sigh. (Not that I'm immune to that celebrity obsession...see yesterday's post and one titled "Fanatic" in February of 2007, plus my blogroll which lists the Go Fug Yourself girls, The Superficial, and Hot Gossip on MSN....)

But getting back on topic....I don't get too many comments every day, even though I see that on an average day, I get somewhere between 15-30 hits. So DELURK, people. I wanna know who you are, what brought you here. Leave a comment. You know you wanna.

Embark

I'm traveling on business this week, but I haven't posted anything for more than a week, so I needed to post something because I'm feeling blog withdrawl. Is there a medical term for that?

Anyway, I'm on a pay-by-the-minute terminal...so check out these links while I'm away.

TSA

Airlines.org

google

More later this week.

Soundtrack: Leavin' On a Jet Plane

Ah, for the ability to type and drive at the same time.

Would some bright scientist type please invent this? I spent Monday afternoon driving through Ohio (yes, it IS possible to drive from my home for 5 hours and STILL be in Ohio) and I had so many ideas about things to write about. And then yesterday I made the return journey and was listening to various NPR stations (among them WYSO, WCBE, WOSU) and having more ideas. Since I was driving alone, I couldn't have someone else drive so I could type, and I didn't have a computer with me anyway.

I logged into the computer this morning to check my e-mails since I was away from the computer for about 36 hours and I had 17. When I worked for the bastard bank, that wouldn't have been very many, but these days it is quite a few and I was kinda suprised. And since most of them were work related, we're moving on.

In between Columbus and Mansfield, there just aren't that many radio options. Country, some more country, two Christian stations (shudder. shudder some more.), and not much else. 80 miles outside of Cleveland I was able to pick up WCPN, thank goodness.

I've been writing more at Well Fed and having a delightful time doing it. I did some research about Mad Cow Disease, organic labeling standards and fair trade coffee. The fair trade article won't appear until later this week, but check Growers and Grocers for the other articles. I'm learning so much!! I had no idea about food production in this country and am appalled about all kinds of things...

Although I can't talk about my work on this site, I am going to mention this briefly. I was at Camp Joy for a work retreat and had a fantastic time. It was hot, and I think I sweated about 11 pounds off. They do have air-conditioned cabins, thank goodness. What a wonderful place!

Annoyed

Something I like to do when I don't have any particular task ahead of me is to click the Blogger Nav Bar's "Next Blog" button. I've found some interesting (and terrifying) things that way, but mostly it is just entertaining. Tonight, however, I'm reminded of the Dollis Hill loop that Scaryduck had going on in his Mornington Crescent game post recently. I kept getting tossed to a site called "Yadda Yadda News", which somehow doesn't have a Blogger Nav Bar, so I could only get off of it by going back to the last site and clicking Next Blog again. Supposedly, that is completely random, but I got shunted to Yadda Yadda about 4 times, from different blogs. That was annoying. And then I also got tossed to a couple of sites with really bad spelling. Am I the only one who uses spell check? One woman spelled cholesterol colestral. ICK.

Wondering if the world's gone mad

Yes, indeedy. Its been a heck of a week and it isn't over yet. I'm wondering if there's a full moon all week, cause things couldn't be crazier. First, to start the week off, I was called into work at 4 am on Sunday. Yah, if that ain't the best way to start the week, maybe it could only be better by having my annual OB/GYN exam first thing on Monday morning. Which I didn't; I have that on Friday. Remember that 80's song, "Baby I'm the Lucky One"? I think it was maybe by Amy Grant...feels like it must be the sarcastic theme of the week, although strictly speaking I'm not crazy about Amy Grant. Anyway.

I've added some links over on the right, found a funny funny european blogger named Zoe, check her out, she is hilarious. Have you ever followed blog links from one blog to the next and suddenly discovered that you've lost 3 hours? That's how I found Zoe, I'm not even sure of the path that I followed to her front door in Brussels. I also found an American expatriate living my dream life in Stockholm that way. I'm waiting to find out if it is OK with him to link his blog here. I AM senstive to those who might not like my political leanings, really. I know that they're allowed to disagree with me, and I also know that they're just wrong. :-p

I was having a chat with one of the few other pro-choice folks that I know and she was telling me about a South Dakota law that was passed which bans all abortions. Egad, has the world gone totally mad? And how did I miss this? The bill was signed into law on March 6th! And the first time I heard about it was yesterday. Anti-choice folks are hoping that it will be challenged by Roe v. Wade supporters, because that way it will be sure to come before the Supreme Court. We all know how much the court has changed recently and the hope of the anti-choice folks is that it will considerably weaken Roe. May I remind you all to run along to Save Roe and support them in whatever manner you are able?

My first article on Fit Fare will post on Friday (that's tomorrow), do check it out. I wrote a cookbook review and had my sister and my BF read it for me, before I submitted it. BF reminds me yet again that I have problems with run-on sentences....I know. Sigh. I'm working on it, really. But I'm really excited about the new venture, writing a weekly article for FitFare. Up next is an article about low fat party appetizers, which will probably spill all of my party hostess secrets...Most of the things that I make for the parties I have ARE low fat, and I just don't tell anyone. And then they don't know they're eating healthy! I like to fool people that way, and then relish their facial expressions when they find out that the cute little canape that they ate wasn't bad for them. Gotta run...