Frankly, I think the word weblog is ugly. Blog is even worse. These are not combinations of letters and vowel that should ever have been perpetrated on the English language.
However, it's spitting into the wind at this point to protest them. I think they're here to stay ~ at least as long as the blog phenomenon itself is around.
With those disclaimers out of the way, I'm happy to adopt the description coined by Russell Beattie: multi-blog. It's still not particularly euphonious, but it does describe those of us who don't stick to any one topic. Sometimes we talk about our personal lives, sometimes we point to other interesting items elsewhere on the web, sometimes we indulge in deep geekage. If one wished to be grandiose, one would call it the Renaissance approach; if one wanted to be cruel, one could say it was dilletantism. Given those choices, multi-blog suits me just fine.
11:21:22 PM
Tactile Memory
Funny how you tend to remember the tactile things that you do remember, alot longer than anything else visual or audible. For me it was a great pleasure to be borne down by strong arms and encircled by rope and to escape. But I like to be held strongly, something I could fight against if I want.
In general, my memory for events in my life is appalling. But I do remember wrestling with JG (although I had forgotten the Houdini rope act), the smell of sweat and the feeling of playful struggle with a strong man. I was fascinated by his machismo ~ a quality whose appeal become less signally compelling over time ~ and in retrospect it's clear to me that he had something going on too and needed only a clear sign from me. But I was 15 and inexperienced, and he intimidated me. Thankfully, it seems clear that JG was basically a decent guy.
It's a strange and uncomfortable thing to read these last few days' entries from the Wayback Journal. Even with all my talk about fame and publishing, I don't think I ever really imagined what it would feel like to have thoughts I barely admitted to myself available for others to read. In some ways I'm a completely different person from that fifteen-year-old, and yet I know there is a continuum that brings me from there to here.
When you're fifteen, you can't imagine how the mere passage of time could really matter, and the arrogance of adults and their purported wisdom is infuriating. As adults, we feel a fond irritation for the innocence and ignorance of the young, and a certain compassion for their limited context, but we forget that experience can degenerate into ossified expectations and complacency.
9:43:21 PM
Death and the Maiden
I couldn't talk to my own father, but I wanted a father to talk to:
I'd like to talk to Mr. M. I don't really know what I'd say, but I'd just like the feeling of talking to him and him giving me warm, sane advice.
At fifteen, I tell my journal, my eye is twitching. My parents have forbidden me to moan. I'm frustrated and angry, I feel a thousand miles away. And I start talking about death. This is the kind of unfettered speculation that I allowed myself in no other part of my life.
But with clinical emotionlessness I can say I find the idea of killing, of watching someone die, or plead with you for their life, interesting, almost amusing. Could I be a murderer?
12:30:49 AM
It's the little things that count
The spell-checker now looks at two- and three-letter words.
The modem icon in the menubar now shows connection progress and then time elapsed online.
The buttons are now more matte than shiny, and the dock doesn't have a stripy background anymore.
Write to me!
