The Beginning of the End

At the moment I just don't have the heart to blog, to do any creative writing at all. The nature that used to be all around the space surrounding our house is slowly being destroyed to make way for brick-lined patios and backyard play space for screaming children. My mom is permanently ensconced in a nursing home. And the country... well, goodness only knows what will happen to the once-lofty ideals of the USA in the next four years. If Robin and I are very careful we might be able to tough this out, but he's not a citizen and neither of us are Christians. So Canada is looking good for retirement, maybe even England, but it's a matter of financial stability. So right now I feel like I'm in a holding pattern, and all I can do to take my mind off things is work and leisure activities. And half of those are gone, as I wiped all the back-posts off my blog reader and don't really feel Facebook-y right now. I might start my drawing lessons again, just as AI looms to replace all meaningful creative endeavor. I might actually begin reading full-length books once more. But writing, blogging, stuff like that? Well, tune in tomorrow, I suppose.

Rust Never Sleeps

Early this afternoon, having done all our morning errands in three different places, we headed out in the car again and over the GW Bridge to see Mom in her rehab place. We got no further than a mile or two past the bridge when we were beset by a flat tire. I learnt a few things: (1) the NJ Turnpike is considered a private road, so AAA had to put me in touch with their service folks (and I could have just called them directly by dialing #95); (2) we do indeed have a spare tire, which you think I'd have known/remembered after 20 years of owning this car; (3) NJT sends out different folks for towing and for changing tires, which I will bear in mind should this ever happen again, heaven forbid; (4) one should not eat a pluot right before venturing out on an hour-long drive as it will wake up one's intestines at the most inconvenient time; (5) it is almost exactly five miles as the crow flies from where we were stranded to the Mavis Discount Tire place, and of course we are not crows. Anyway, Mavis informed us that the culprit was a rusty wheel rim, which had gotten a hole in it that was letting air out from the tire they'd just put on like three weeks ago. They gave me a discount on a new tire (hence the name!), I paid for new windshield wipers as well as I needed them, and I'll be scheduling yet another trip to replace the rims (I have to call them in advance so they can order the parts) so this doesn't recur.

And it got me thinking, as this blog turns 22 years old today, about how everything accumulates rust after awhile. My joints and tendons are far creakier than my vehicle and, as with the car, maintenance is the watchword. I can't do what I did 22 years ago, few of us can so, rather than wallowing in FOMO of my friends leading very different lives, I'm grateful I can still get around locally and navigate two flights of stairs and do my paying job well and take day trips by either public or private transportation. I will probably never make a living from writing, but as long as it's something I still enjoy I will continue to pursue it, time and inclination permitting. If that means creaking by with only Silly Sites here and pithy comments on Facebook, so be it, but it's something. And it's still a pleasure. Thanks for still being here.

Silly Site o' the Day

By the way, sometime over the weekend this blog seems to have passed ten thousand posts. Sounds about right for something that's been around since 2002, but it should be way more. I should be writing tons more stuff... wait a minute, I did say I was not going to beat myself up this week, didn't I? My gums are still cooperating, so my brain should be as well. Here are some auto mechanics recreating Renaissance paintings.

Going All the Way to Eleven

On 7 September 2012 I started this here blog. I was hoping to post more in the past year than I had in previous years, but for the most part this has become a holding pattern for Silly Sites (not that there's anything wrong with that) and a pointer to Facebook photo albums, rather than the writing outlet it had been for me when I started. I still love writing, but have come to believe more and more that it's something I'll do full-time after retiring from my paying job, which I also love. Some people, like Robin, were born to follow their creative muses and enter the freelance world, and some people, like me, were born with less courage but perhaps more organizational ability and desire for financial security. Still, it's nice to have a place to which I can retreat when I do want to write about things, and even as the world moves on to social networks and insta-tumblr-vining, I'm going to hang on to this relic of the early 21st century as long as Google retains Blogger as a platform. Who knows how long that'll be; none of us were prepared for the demise of Google Reader, although I can at least keep up with Feedly on my phone and my home desktop (alas, it still doesn't work with Internet Explorer, the only browser I have at the office). Time and tech marches on, and more than ever it's evolve or die. While we were in the UK we witnessed the last gasps of dial-up and had our American credit card refused because it didn't have a chip. Who knows what's around the bend tomorrow. So I'm going to enjoy this bloggy ride while it lasts, and thank you all again for continuing to read.

Ten Years On

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the day I started this blog. I began with a sort of "is this microphone on?" post, detailing my meager writer's bona fides as well as a bit of bitching about my job and the noise level of my living conditions at the time. It was far less disjointed than I suspect this post will be.

Things have changed, as they must. I'm pleased to say that, while Robin and I never did buy a house (about which I'm not saddened at all), we did wind up renting the upper floor of a nice house a few miles north of where we'd previously lived, with a very kind and reasonable landlord and fairly quiet neighbors. I'm also in a much better place of employment, the sort of company where I want to stay for the rest of my administrative career, where I feel I'm valued and where I've made lots of friends. In a lot of ways this is the ideal situation for me, stimulating at work and placid at home. Robin is still an amazing artist who teaches me something new every day, although he's not as frequently employed as we'd like. And we still have so many wonderful relatives and in-laws and friends, and our adorable Amy-cat, and a roof over our heads and food in the fridge and enough income to stay out of debt. So all in all, we're doing okay, all things considered.

But there has been heartbreak as well. When I began this blog, my dad was still alive. My best friend Leah was still with us. My closest college friend Bill-Dale was still around. My beloved kitty Datsa was 9½ at the time and about to go through a nasty bit of business that would result in us giving him medicine for the next decade, and he lived until last month. So many losses, as happens when we get older. And I had my share of medical adventures as well, including a bout with atrial fibrillation, kidney stone infections and a diagnosis of diabetes, but I'm still here too.

Ten years ago we were mired in jingoistic faux-patriotism in the aftermath of 9/11, with the Bush administration fabricating excuses for needless war in countries that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. I and others watched in horror as our civil liberties were being chipped away bit by bit - Texas water torture. Which wasn't as bad as the actual water torture our country inflicted upon designated "enemies" of convenience, and the way mercenaries crept into and took over so much of what formerly-accountable armed forces had done, and war profiteers enriched themselves and their oil baron friends, and bankers happily fleeced the few who still had jobs before those were outsourced and homes were overvalued and underwater (literally in the case of New Orleans)...

And where are we now? Still hoping for change, seeing some but certainly not as fast as we'd like. Many of us are still blogging away, when most have migrated to Facebook or Tumblr or the like, the way so many Usenetters migrated to message boards back before Web 2.0. Last week I posted an infographic of how things have changed on the internet in the past decade. Back then I never thought I'd need a feature phone, much less the smartphone on which so much of my vital information is now organized. Back then a woman blogger was such a new idea in some liberal political circles that folks like Amanda and others had a running bittersweet joke that every 90 days or so some guy would ask us where all the women bloggers were. Now in the days of Rachel Maddow that's taken for granted, and male feminists are currently standing in droves with their sisters who are fighting back against what we hope are the death throes of sexist harassment, as men are being called on their online behavior! Back then Facebook was pretty nonexistent, and now I spend the majority of my home screen time playing games there (darn you to hell, Playdom, you now have three??)

I can't predict if this blog will be around another ten years. I like to think it will, because despite aging and exhaustion and energy spent elsewhere I know I'm always going to want to have a place to write, and this is the best place I've found so far because it's pretty much only me (although thank goodness for Laura when it comes to blog tech!), I'm pleased to say Pen-Elayne has had almost daily content so far, even though for the last couple of years, as I've honed my writing skills more in service to my day job than my hobby, the most I seem to be able to manage is a Silly Site (had my company's servers not blocked blogging software that might have been a different story). I still like coming here, and I'm so grateful that I've never had to spend a single cent to blog - free software, free hosting services, and my time given as purely a labor of love. I think it's wonderful that anyone and everyone can blog for free, and hope that access remains with us for awhile. I hope my readers do too. I'm not going to make any grandiose promises that I'll do more blogarounds, or just more posting in general, but I'm pretty confident at this point you'll always have Silly Sites to come to. I'm grateful for your readership, and I love you all.

Friday Cat Blogging*

Are we back yet? Ah well, it's all so ephemeral, this Cloud universe, I can't get all worked up when one cloud produces a little rain, particularly right around Friday the 13th. Nothing stays static. I'm even reconsidering alternatives to Flickr now that they've announced that their free version will only include the most recent 200 photos you've taken (and I'm almost at that limit), kind of like the text-message version of an actual photo album. So pretty soon lots of photos accompanying older Pen-Elayne posts might go bye-byes, and I'm investigating other ways to publish photos, such as my MobileMe gallery, where I put today's FCB photos. And of course, speaking of Friday the 13th, I needed some photos of my black cat:







Of course, heaven forfend Amy not have her photo taken as well:



*(Friday Cat Blogging is ™ Kevin Drum)

Testing

Wow, I can't believe I've finally taken another step into the 21st century - blogging via smartphone! At least most of the keys are more or less where I expect them to be. But it takes forever, and is certainly less user-friendly than texting (yes, I sent my first-ever text today) or Facebooking or Tweeting. Let's see if it works...Update from computer: Yep, it came out fine, but I don't know how to format it yet, and it's a real pain. Not sure how much blogging I'm going to do that way, I still prefer my desktop keyboard.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

An Era Passes

Well, I just heard the announcement that my RSS aggregator of choice, Bloglines, is shutting down for good on October 1. I can't say I haven't had problems with it, it hasn't aggregated LiveJournal feeds properly since it was outsourced to China a few years ago, but it's the only reader that works on my office's servers. This means, essentially, no more blog reading at work (since I can't go to blogs directly, those are all blocked). Which means I'm liable to fall more and more behind on things like doing blogarounds, but hey, it can't be helped.

I've imported all my feeds to Google Reader (which doesn't work right at the office, it loads but it doesn't show me any content), offloaded saved Silly Sites and will try to do a blogaround before the weekend is out. If I can't, then all my saved bookmarks are going bye-byes. If anyone out there can recommend a nice, basic online-based RSS aggregator, I'm all ears.

AFK

Offline until tomorrow afternoon, as I venture into the Land of Dial-Up (Mom's house).

Cleanup Time

I took the day off work to do some housekeeping, both online and off. Inspired in part by Skippy's 8th blogiversary and his tireless support of Blogroll Amnesty Day and the concept of mutual linkage, I decided to clean my sidebar of all the News + Views Guys, Duos and Groups whose blogs are inactive or who don't have me on their blogrolls. (Having already swept through the Liberal Coalition and News+Views Gals sections a few months back, this now leaves the Kultcha section, Op-Ed and Roundups, the last of which will probably go bye-byes.) If Bill Wolfrum, Dave Johnson, Mark Kleiman, PZ Myers, Tom and Dori at Backup Brain, David and Sara at Ornicus, the folks at After School Snack, Corrente, Crooked Timber, Feministe, Feministing, First Draft, the Group News Blog, Lawyers Guns and Money, Left Coaster, Pandagon (wow Amanda, no blogroll?), Preemptive Karma or anyone else actively blogging who's now been removed from my sidebar can point me to where on their blogs a link to me appears, they will of course be immediately reinstated. (I continue to read a number of blogs which ignore my existence entirely because I enjoy them - as evidenced by my Bloglines subscriptions - but I no longer feel a need to give them free sidebar PR if there's no reciprocity.)

This housecleaning has freed up my sidebar considerably, so it might be a good time to mention to any "new" bloggers I read (like Amanda Hess at The Sexist, the gals at Tiger Beatdown, etc.) who would like a mutual link exchange, I'd be more than delighted. And,to remind other folks who seek a link exchange for the primary purpose of selling something that Pen-Elayne is a NO-ADS blog.

Oh, and also? I've moved my friend Jill, who does Brilliant at Breakfast, up to my Top Seven. Given that I conceived that section to honor friends and bloggers who've had a profound influence on my writing and my life and my decision to blog in the first place, she totally belongs there. (Now if only Anni Ackner would return to blogging, I could expand that section to a Top Eight...)

Comments Changing

I found out via another blog that Haloscan, the commenting service I've used since like forever, is "upgrading" to a pay-only format and the free service will go away in a week. As I've never spent a single cent to blog and don't intend to start now, I've just enabled Blogger's own comment feature. It breaks my heart that I may no longer have access to old comments from folks who are no longer with us like Leah and my Dad, but that's the 'net for you, we knew it was ephemeral when we signed on. So excuse me whilst I test things out... Okay, it seems that Blogger comments don't work as long as Haloscan is still around, so we'll see what happens a week from today. Update: Thanks to Laura we're ported over now from Haloscan to Blogger's own comment mechanism, and even, though you'll no longer see any old Haloscan-based comments on the blog, I have them saved into a personal archive so I don't lose the memories.

As Six Becomes Seven

Throughout my life I've had several "friend crushes," periods of intense admiration for people with whom I was lucky enough to hang around and who had a tremendous influence on me. I got to see one of these people, Leah Adezio, enter the blog world briefly before her untimely depature from this plane of existence. Another, my college buddy Bill-Dale Marcinko, faded away before he could ever go online, and now he's gone as well.

And between Billy and Leah, there was Anna Deborah Ackner. Anni, her nom de plume during the days we hung out, was not only the maid of honour at my wedding to Steve, but the star staff writer for my zine INSIDE JOKE. I adored her writing, and still do. For whatever reason, after Steve and I divorced I lost touch with Anna, but the internet sometimes has a way of bringing things full circle. It was never to be with Bill-Dale, it was way too short with Leah, but I'm very thrilled to say that I have just learned that Anna Ackner now has a blog, The Incredible Doctor Postage, chronicling her current project: "over the course of the next year, I will write 1,000 letters. 1,000 personal, chatty, comfortable letters in longhand, with a signature. I will mail each one and I will see what happens."

Anna has been put into the Top Six on my sidebar, making it a Top Seven, of the writers I most admire who have had the greatest personal influence in my life and my decision to blog. As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to writing influence, Anna is my alpha and omega, and I feel blessed that I can now read her regularly again.

Whom Are You Sponsoring?

Looks like most of the participants in Blogathon 2009 are women. That was probably the case when I did it back in 2003 (wow, I can't believe that, six whole years ago!). This year I'm sponsoring the two bloggers on my blogroll, Natalie Davis and Cara Kulwicki. Good luck, everyone!

Wiki Editor Wanted

So I was looking at the Wikipedia page for the Marvel Try-out Book of 1986, the one for which Robin won the lettering portion, and they mention every other winner of that book except for Robin! I'd try to correct it myself but I never signed up for Wiki-editing privileges. Any comics folk out there have this ability? It seems pretty silly for the page on the Try-out Book to be so incomplete when Robin's own Wiki page (which he didn't do himself, and which could also use updating) mentions that he won the contest (albeit not that he won for lettering, then went on to be known mostly for inking although of course he's pencilled and coloured as well).

Bloglines is Back

...at least for the moment, but in trying to find out what happened I ran across this interesting item and now I'm seriously considering migrating my RSS feeds elsewhere. I have to do some experimenting to see what feed reader works well in both IE and Firefox, updates all the feeds with which I've been having lots of problems lately (Avedon's, most LiveJournal feeds, etc.) and isn't blocked by my company's servers. Until then I'm just hoping someone buys Bloglines from Ask.com and starts to maintain it again...

Deadjournals

Bloglines and Livejournal just don't seem to mix lately. As I've mentioned previously, my company's servers block most direct blog links, so during my lunch hour and such I can only read most blogs via their RSS feeds. Bloglines is my reader of choice, and I'm subscribed to over 700 feeds there so I'm not about to switch. Livejournal's feeds seem to be really wonky, at least on Bloglines. There was a period of a few months when I wasn't getting anything, then it suddenly righted itself. Now I'm having the same problem; most Livejournal feeds haven't updated since March 6. Part of the problem might be that I was subscribed to a lot of Atom feeds, and in some cases when I replace those with "www.livejournal.com/users/[username]/data/rss" I have success, but even so a lot of those feeds haven't updated since March 6 either. So, my apologies to my Livejournal friends; I'm trying to update your feeds as best I can so I can continue to follow your bloggy adventures! (Needless to say, my company's servers block almost all social networking other than LinkedIn, so I can't follow your Tweets and whatnot either during the day...)

Off Across The Pond!

In exactly four weeks from today, Robin and I will be taking our first vacation outside of New York since, well, since a pretty long time. We'll be headed out to England again, at last! We're mostly going to see Rob's Dad (a faithful Pen-Elayne reader; hi Dad!), with whom we're staying, and hope to see his sisters as well (hi Carol! I remember you read Pen-Elayne too!). We're also tentatively planning a day in London, since I will go a teensy bit nuts if I have a week of countryside with no city in between to break it up. :) This time we're renting a car, and I'm a bit nervous about driving on the left side of the road, but my brother and sis-in-law (who have experience with same from when they visited the Caymans) have calmed me down a bit there.

Here's the thing, though -- I do expect to try to update Pen-Elayne daily, but I wouldn't mind a guest host during the time we're out. Anyone want the keys to the blog? As y'all know, it's not like I've been posting a great deal of late as is, so your participation can only improve the amount of new content here! Let me know in the comments.

I'm very excited about going back to see my husband's family again, and am also looking quite forward to shopping in Boots and taking in the view of all the Easter sweets sure to be on display at Tesco.

Buy-Nothing Blog

I've just cleaned out my email -- I can't get to either my Yahoo or Gmail accounts from work, and I don't have nor (at least at the moment) do I want a phone plan with email or text capabilities, so it now waits until I remember to do it at home, sometimes for a few days or longer -- and I found at least two genuine people wanting to advertise on or sponsor Pen-Elayne on the Web. I'm not sure how they found me, I don't know of any new places that are suddenly touting this blog (do any of you?), but I thought it a good idea, as we're coming up on Buy-Nothing Day again, to point all such would-be sugar mommies and daddies to the little sentence almost at the top of my sidebar, right there to the left, that says "Please read my policy on link exchanges before asking." 'Cause, you know, Pen-Elayne is a No-ads blog, and all that. Just thought I'd mention it. Now, if you feel like sponsoring me with no strings attached and no ads desired, just because you like my blog and have money to burn, well, there are plenty of actual charities that could use your kind-hearted generosity, and I invite readers to point to some of them in the comments section.

Milestone Notes

A very happy birthday to Robin's Dad, who at 85 is doubtless the oldest Pen-Elayne reader (at least that I know of)! Also a reminder, this coming Sunday will mark Pen-Elayne's sixth blogiversary. Any ideas on how to celebrate besides whining to Melissa to post a cake for me?

Thinking B.A.D. Thoughts

Today is so-called Blogroll Amnesty Day, spearheaded by Jon Swift and skippy, wherein participants are supposed to extol and publicize those bloggers who don't get a lot of attention, aren't on the A-list, have very low hit counts, and in general ought to be better known. So I'm thinking, how many of the people currently on my blogroll, particularly on the political end, get lower hit counts than me? And as I checked my Site Meter and other stats, I realized: probably none. And then I immediately acknowledged, it's my own damn fault.

I've been blogging for over five years, but less and less of late. Sometimes I barely make one post per day. I don't know that I've done much more than Silly Sites, Friday Cat Blogging and blogaround link posts for maybe three months now. And my stats show it. I used to get around 200 daily hits; now it's down to maybe 80 if I'm lucky. And it's directly related to how much effort I put into writing here.

Comic book fans don't read Pen-Elayne regularly, because I don't write about comic books any more; I haven't been able to properly write about them since I used to keep up with my reading back when my job was in Manhattan and I went to the shop each Wednesday like other "early adopter" fans. The biggest comic-related thing I've ever done here was publish Robin's whistleblowing on CrossGen, and I think that day I got maybe 500 hits. Compared with Newsarama and The Beat, that's nothing. Besides, nowadays most of my comics-related stuff gets written for ComicMix.

My political friends, even the locals who used to invite me to NY blogger gatherings, have pretty much deserted me. Some probably kept me at arm's length to begin with, as I never seemed to toe whatever they considered to be the party line from moment to moment. I don't get that much pleasure out of demonizing anyone, for instance, even if their politics are diametrically opposed to my own. I refuse to consider most people as inherently evil for believing differently than I do. I'm used to most of the folks around me having opinions that diverge from my own, whether it's about cooking or comics or Congress. But at one party I distinctly remember, when I didn't agree with some point or other that was raised, the sudden accusation, "You're a Republican!" Coming from a family of lifelong Democrats I was kind of floored by that reaction, but by and by found it indicative of a lot of the echo-chamber mentality so prevalent in political bloggers of all stripes. Which makes it all the more ironic when these same liberal blogs delight in accusing right-wing blogs of being "the mighty Wurlitzer."

Then too, there's my outspoken opposition to the obsession many bloggers have with making money from their hobby. And yes, I'm aware many people don't see blogging as a hobby, or even a public service or civic duty, but I'm afraid that's my personal prejudice that I'm hard-pressed to shake. I know wanting to see a profit from your creative efforts is as legitimate a hope as having a political candidate who shares every single one of your values. It's just as unlikely to happen. There are tons of really good writers out there, and there's little incentive to pay for content in one place that you can get for free elsewhere. But some liberal bloggers can't see beyond their own overinflated sense of entitlement. And so they hold these periodic fundraisers to rake in money to pay for their blogging. I already have a computer with an internet connection, and I've never paid one additional penny to blog; I don't see why anyone should expect a handout for something which nobody's forcing them to do and which they can do for free. Sure enough, the great majority of these fundraisers are for people who already make a perfectly good living and honestly don't need the money as much as want it. And when I point this out, as I have time and again, I'm a killjoy, a traitor, a Republican.

So I'm kind of the rebel. I don't stick to one topic; I'm neither a political nor a comics blogger, neither a photoblogger nor a food blogger, neither a religion blogger nor a cat blogger. I'm just Elayne. And I don't stick to the pre-approved script; when bloggers go on an all-expenses-paid trip to Amsterdam, I'm the one who points out at what price they've been bought. When all-white bloggers brag about lunching with Bill Clinton in largely-black Harlem, I'm one of those wondering what happened to all the non-white bloggers, and making good on a promise to never again link to A-list liberal blogs that attack others who question this status-quo (blogs that also, not coincidentally, used blackface as humor). I don't demand readers pay for my hobby, and I'm not shy about mentioning repeatedly how wrong I think that is. And I don't like to echo what everyone else has already said.

Which is one of my main problems. If I'm not a bandwagon jumper, I'm not as noticed. But in my effort not to make that leap, I tend to wait until I've finished reading other blogs before opining about something, so as not to duplicate effort. And with one thing and another I often find myself with too many unread blogs at any one time to venture forth with my own blather. And that's wrong; I should never have to feel the need to wait until I've read what others have said about something to put in my own two cents. From this day forth, my promise to readers and to myself is to try and write more before reading. It's always better to go back to a post and add an update and link to what others have said about a topic than it is never to have written about it at all.

I'm going to write more this year. And it's not just going to be diary-type posts either. I'm engaged enough with the outside world in my offline life; you'll start to see that reflected more here at Pen-Elayne. Then when I wonder why I'm not on the blogrolls of writers I admire, or why my comments sections are so blank, I'll have more legitimate ground on which to stand. I want to again make Pen-Elayne a more attractive must-read blog for all of you.

Once again, if you still have me on your blogroll and don't see your name on my sidebar, or if you want to reciprocate blogrolling, please let me know ASAP; I would always like to blogroll anyone who blogrolls me (within reason). In the meantime, instead of hyping bloggers who doubtless all get more hits than I do by this point, I'm going to link to the three blogs remaining in the Guys in Waiting section of my Bloglines subs, guys whose blogs I like but who haven't blogrolled me, in the hopes that they someday will: Driftglass, Flawed Plan of Writhe Safely, and R.J. Eskow of Night Light. And I'm going to start working on becoming worthy of being blogrolled again.

Update: Thank you, Susie and Scott!