This says it all.....

6:52:19 PM    

Blackout. I have a lot of memories associated with power failures, and last night my power went out twice, very briefly, so they all came flooding out. In 1998, I lived with a roommate whom I'd known since age 12. We'd had a complex friendship. We still have it today, pretty much, though she hasn't responded to my latest email. That apartment started out to be a dream come true - huge, huge kitchen, two small bedrooms, nice big living room, one and a half baths, and a parking space for Ariel, my Honda. But things started going wrong - giant flood, septic system backup, sliding glass door in roommate's bedroom coming off its track and shattering. None of it was anyone's fault particularly, but I was nervous. And she threw me out. For about a minute, I believed that she was asking me to leave because she was afraid I would make a big deal out of the problems and we'd be out on our asses and she wouldn't be able to find a new place, because we weren't doing that beautifully as roommates, and it was unlikely I'd want a new place together. A night or two after she informed me I needed to move out basically immediately, the lights went out around 10pm. I can't go to sleep when the lights go out; I'm always afraid I'll sleep in, be late to work, screw everything up. So she and I went out into the living room with candles and played a trivia game. During the game, she confessed that she'd already offered the room to her old roommate from college. She didn't say specifically, but of course that was why I was out. He needed a place to live in Boston with his new wife; he'd gotten a job, they'd both always wanted to live here. The roommate was B. In three years, he and his wife had split, and there we were. Funny how things turn out. [The Redhead Wore Crimson]

The blogging world is full of a zillion personal diaries, only some of which are interesting beyond that person's circle of friends, but The Redhead is an exception.  Maybe its because I lived for 15 years and one marriage near Harvard Square, or maybe its because its well written, but I find myself turning to it more often than not.

5:33:45 PM    

 On A Six Apart's Blog today:

On Scripting News, Dave writes:

We could establish a profile of RSS 2.0 and implement strict compliance with that profile in the major blogging tools.

This has been followed by a discussion of the issues on Sam's weblog, with a lot of discussion over whether the core profile should be based on RSS 1.0, 2.0, or whether it's really necessary at all.

What we need is a profile of RSS specific to weblogs: "RSS for Weblogs".

Check out the discussion on Sam Ruby's blog - its both inspiring and a bit depressing.  Inspiring because a lot of energy is going into thinking though what RSS needs to be in the future, depressing because it underscores how difficult it is to establish a new standard when its in everybody's cross-hairs.  It's so much easier to establish a standard when no one is paying much attention...... 

4:30:13 PM    

Why write?. Whim posted a comment after my last post asking whether I was bored of sex writing. It kind of fitted with the way my mind's been going recently. I haven't been questioning writing about sex. But I have been questioning blogging. I set up my other blog about a year or so ago, after registering the... [Confessions of a porn writer - Blogging Network]  Interesting subscription-based blog, showing how a blog can be monetized if the content is right.

11:58:16 AM