There's a moth trapped in the lampshade and I can't believe he won't die. Flap flutter flap. You know the joke about the moth who goes to the doctor I am sure or if not I will tell you sometime, or I guess you could let your fingers do the walking. Remember when looking things up in the phonebook was a snap. Now I can't even fill out a nice voter ballot without wondering if my poor, tender hand is going to get all cramped up from the writing. Oh computer you have spoiled me beautifully, oh internet you must really really love me to give me so much.
What else? After having spent a very long time with pocket tissues I bought a box of tissues for my desk and it is like, wow, that is luxury. I splurged another 25 Kc today on a box for the living room. I want so much to be a tortoise and take everything with me everywhere but it is some kind of wonderful to not have to pat all the pockets to find simple things, but instead to reach out one's hand and it is there, the thing you wanted. I don't think it's a metaphor for anything in particular.
You want to know why blogging died? It is because the people who were talking the most forgot to do much listening, and the people who were talking a little stopped being interested in listening so hard. Who is the politician who said to people "I see you, I see you"? That guy gets it. Everybody wants to think somebody sees them, and if you're seen by a bunch of people I expect it can get hard to perform but I think just as importantly if you're not seen by anybody it's sometimes hard to keep watching. So you should say "I see you" even if all you really mean is "I see you seeing me". I actually have no fixed theory on this, but I know it hurts to feel invisible, even though it is one of my top five desired superpowers. I also want to be able to teleport, both to get to places and to get away from them.
My heated dislike of sports and competition in general is so directly counter to my love of games that I have had to give it some serious thinking lo these recent weeks. Because I love games. And I like winning them, I guess, though I like playing them most of all, and if I am with someone who plays well I am happy to lose to them. I do not think this applies to sports because sports seems more focused on playing as a means of winning than a pleasure in itself, but maybe most normal people play games to win as well and it's just that I haven't had my name never called when choosing sides at Carcassonne.
Also to be able to tell when people are lying, which is a variation on reading minds that seems less invasive than reading all of someone's private thoughts but would make me feel safer, because more than broken bones I am scared of being lied to without recognizing the lie. He never said he loved me by the way so he neither lied then nor told the truth and later changed his mind so that was a survivable pain.
After several attempts to let youtube teach me, I've decided to pay for ukulele lessons although now I have to decide if I want it tuned to C, which is US style, or D, which is European style, or whether I want to know the difference. The issue being, I suppose, whether I'm going to want to jam with Americans or Czechs. My main goal now is to learn like 3 songs and play them to myself all the time. I had not featured "jamming" as any kind of goal even down the road. But Czech or American is the first question and not which three songs. I wish I could learn languages instantly is also one; I wish I could play a musical instrument is not but get back to me next year, because if it's worse than learning Czech I will be stabby. Meanwhile I have honestly no idea what to tell you, meaning I know neither what you want to hear nor what I would say if I knew.
You know, I'm wondering if blogging died or if it just went on vacation. I had thought it died, because I stopped reading most other blogs, and people stopped reading mine, so I stopped writing so much; but then I started reading a few again, and now I don't know what to think. You're still here, anyhow, which is good. Social media really cut into blogging, because if one needs attention you can just write a tweet or post something to facebook and 17 people like it or whatever.
Also, I used to want to be a tortoise until it occurred to me that they hibernate and so if they have a nightmare it could last 6 months!!
Also, there is a great ukulele website in case you have not seen it already, ukulelehunt.com
The fellow who runs it recommends gCEA tuning. In fact, he recommended it to me on my blog here: http://www.metamorphosism.com/?p=2871
Posted by: mig | October 04, 2012 at 03:19 PM
This is what I'm saying, though: you (a person with an active blog with a sizable number of followers) stopped reading blogs, and then people stopped reading yours, or at least stopped commenting. The listening part of the dialogue died, and then a lot of the response part of the dialogue also died.
Thanks for the ukulele link; I'll check it.
Posted by: anne | October 04, 2012 at 05:21 PM
To you games are a sport because you yourself say that you play to win most of the time :-) Yes, people play sport to win, but it's so much more than that, there is the feeling of being part of a team dynamic, of achieving something collectively, whether you win or lose, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Posted by: Trevor | October 04, 2012 at 05:36 PM
Trevor - Thanks for stopping by! I actually wrote that "I like winning them, I guess" and that I am happy to lose to someone who plays well, which is different from playing to win. I don't have a problem with people who enjoy sports, and I didn't say there was anything wrong with it, just that I personally do not enjoy the competition aspect at all,and find it personally avoidable in games but not in sports.
Posted by: anne | October 04, 2012 at 05:46 PM
Absolutely, I was thinking all day about what you said. Talking is listening, writing is reading. (Peace is war...)
Posted by: mig | October 04, 2012 at 08:54 PM
You are right about why blogging died on the personal individual level but we probably need a bigger social explanation for why the individuals did the thing they did.
What's funny is that I was making sure to read every word and take it all in (it was surprisingly easy) and not skim but be a good listener. Then I got to the middle and was very proud of myself for being a good listener. At least this once!
Posted by: Snozma | October 09, 2012 at 06:34 AM
Oz, Don't you think a lot of them monetized their hobby, one way or another, and then lost their followers partly due to the separation into "them" and "us"? One may have fancied oneself a Dooce when she was getting "just" a few hundred comments, but after her whole family started being supported by the blog and you had to sit through a bunch of pop up ads and book promos, AND (this was the kicker, for me) she stopped reading as many other people (unless they were her friends or someone she was promoting) - it became her, performing, and everybody else, audience. Commenting then became less like feedback and more like signing a guest book, which I imagine does not make blogging as much fun if you were used to getting these thoughtful, witty comments.
On a wider social scale, I guess it's like when any budding artist or artistic movement makes it big, but I can only write about what I saw with blogging.
Posted by: anne | October 09, 2012 at 04:50 PM