Are You There, God? It's Me, Blogging

I'm moving here for now with a brand new blog/social experiment/way to keep me off the streets. Hope you'll join me and thanks for reading here.

http://areyoutheregoditsmeblogging.blogspot.com/

Jen

All Is Well in The Forest

I've had a real busy week and am going on vacation to the middle of the woods where there is no cell phone or internet access. I am going to hike, swim, enjoy some smores and watch my dog eat flies.



Well, and outlet shop. I mean, come on.



At any rate I will not be posting for a week and do hope to have a cleared head and not so much work when we get back so I can start posting more regularly.



So don't call the police.

I can't find the thing I wanted to post for you online anywhere -- damn print magazines -- but I'll try to get something up soon.


Be well, take care, so long, farewell.

Last Post About PostSecret. Ever. I Think.

I really really really wasn't going to post about PostSecret again. But I came across this recent interview with Frank Warren online and was glad to see this comment.

(FW): ". . . The last element that’s difficult to copy from PostSecret is that of the mediator. Having a mediary is critical for a couple of reasons. One is that if you don’t have a mediator, you can get a lot of negativity, a lot of negative comments. One thing I’ve tried to do is create a safe, non-judgmental place where people can share their secrets in a way where there’s not going to be any social ramification. They don’t have to worry about people posting a message ridiculing them right after they express something that makes them very vulnerable. "

So that seems to imply the open comments was not his intention.

The whole article is here. It's very good.

http://dudleydavida.wordpress.com/2007/07/04/a-conversation-with-frank-warren/

Have a good weekend, I'm going to go live my life now and stop looking at all these internets.

Friday -- Other People's Media

I'm going to make Fridays easy on myself and post media that actually makes me happy. Here's a big personal favorite that happens to be one great friend interviewing another great friend about how she makes a living as a singing waitress.

Menu of Music

And hear more of Sally's great radio work here: http://www.sohosally.com/sound/listen.html

Duped. Or, I Am The Cosmo Girl

The connection between this story and media is tenuous at best, but it's a good safety lesson. Learn from my mistakes, grasshoppers.

I get a phone call from a guy today saying he's doing a nationwide survey for Cosmo magazine. The first few questions are standard: age, marital status, kids, do I work, what's my job.He then says the next questions are for an annual sex survey and will be explicit, and am I OK with answering them.

If you know me, you know that of course I'm OK with talking about sex. In my mind it's like talking about politics or movies, or in some ways, water or air. I think we all benefit from demystifying it and talking about it matter of factly.

Questions are personal but not lacivious -- how many times, have you done this or that, body image, etc .My husband overhears me saying "16, 1 week, no," and says to get the name of the survey company the guy works for. I wave him off and say "No, it's a national survey, it's fine."

Usually in a national survey the surveyer doesn't ask you if you'll touch your clitoris for him after spending 10 minutes asking you personal questions about your personal history. I said "You're a phone surveyer." He said "That makes it so much better." I said "Goodbye, sir."

Do I feel kind of stupid, yes. Will I ask for the name of the survey company in the future, yes. In fact, by not knowing my rights and doing things blindly, I kind of feel like the quintessential Cosmo Girl.

But here's the cool thing -- I don't really feel embarassed. I'm shocked by that! I talked about my sexual assault, sex after pregnancy, body image. I'm OK with my history. I'm OK with my past. I've done alot to make that happen. I've come a long damn way. It's awesome.

So, I won't go so far as to say Thanks, Phone Perv, even though that would be a funny last line. But instead, No Hard Feelings, Phone Perv.

Anyway, karma comes around. You'll get yours

MySpace, YourSpace, HisSpace

Work is slowing way down because of the holiday so I met a friend for lunch at a great Middle Eastern restaurant and read his tarot cards.

He mentioned that some of his students wanted to know if they could friend him on MySpace. I asked if he felt like that was an invasion of privacy. He said no, it's great, because he can send them homework reminders and test reminders. I thought that was really funny. I said he should just IM them pop quizzes when he sees them online and really torment them.

I couldn't help but feel like I'd jumped the shark in my own life. My kid isn't even in pre-school yet and I'm already obsolete in terms of how people interact through technology, how technology will be used in his education and his social life.

It's been nice to blog again but I'm already pretty sure this is it for awhile. Have a good holiday.

PostSecret -- One more rant

Hi --

As I posted earlier, Frank Warren of PostSecret is fine, he is on vacation, I know this because I called the cops .

As I also mentioned earlier, I can't get on PostSecret anymore because everyone sharing their secrets, and wondering where Frank was, and yelling at eachother, has either caused the server to crash, is just so chock full of delicious word that my computer can no longer download the page .

Now I am the biggest Luddite in the world. I am the last adopter. I work in the technology industry, and my cell phone is so old that it is being held together by a twist tie for an outdoor garbage bag. When I am with colleagues and have to make a call, I literally run and hide. I started this blog the week after the NY Times said blogging was over, then rarely posted to it.

Even I know that 4,000 posts to a website with no advertising on it (meaning no cash behind it) is going to crash its servers, or be so chock full of delicious words that it will crash it's users browsers, rendering it unreadable.

So even I know, that unless Frank Warren's intention was to crash his own site, or my web browser, he probably didn't mean to leave the comments on, as so many people -- many of whom talk about him as if he is Jesus -- have said. Soooo many people went on and on about how Frank meant to bring the site to the next level, meant for everybody to share on the comments board, meant to let the great social experiment get even greater.

If that is the case, then Frank didn't know that 4,000 posts to a website with no advertising on it (meaning no cash behind it) is going to crash its servers, or my damn web browser, or both.

I don't know what it is about the blogsphere that makes so many people feel as if they can assume what other people's intentions are. I have a tremendous admiration for Heather at Dooce, who puts her life out there every day and then deals with it when people make comments about her parenting, her appropriateness, and why she does what she does, when it isn't anyone else's business.

But the reality is bloggers aren't people you know, uh, unless you're reading the blog of someone you know. Der. Readers don't have the right to assume they understand what's going on with bloggers, or project their own feelings onto them.

Do you agree, or is this just part of the deal of belonging to a community, that the person putting their opinion out there has to accept the labels, taunts, attacks and misperceptions of others? Because most healthy people, if presented with that in real life, would walk the hell away.