Friday Five ...

[tamaranth]

1. Bint magazine. How have I missed this? How have I managed? (Am 75.5% bint. And much amused -- though not at werk -- by the True Confessions.) EDIT: link fixed

2. Internet is social glue.. In other news, Pope is Catholic: but there are certainly people (my sister, for one) who don't believe that online society can be anything more than a pale shadow* of Real Life. It's encouraging to see that more and more people regard it as a supplement to real-life interaction. I don't think I would have been so ready to move out of London, away from my social circle(s), if I hadn't known that I could 'stay in touch' via LJ and so on.

3. I've been thinking about paperweights. An anachronism in modern, draught-proof housing? (Let's assume it's winter and you don't have the windows open.) Not at all. Their primary function -- on my desk, at least -- is no longer to hold paper down: it's to mark top-of-stack.

4. Under half those questioned in a recent survey believed in evolution. USA? No, UK. *emigrates*

5. Good old Google, wishing Wolfgang a happy 250th birthday.

* what a peculiar turn of phrase, now I come to think of it. Shadows are not usually noted for their pallor.

Comments

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

happy tales of what a wild time everyone else is having

... or unhappy tales of what a rotten time everyone else is having ...

Re a life worth blogging, I was arguing this very point recently. A lot of what I write primarily is for me: a lot of it (overlapping but not identical set) isn't really about me, but about books, or cool links, or whatever. The life that matters is not what I do.

Online society is no substitute, but I think my experience is more positive than yours. There have been some very bleak moments over the past year, and online friends have bolstered me against many of 'em.

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

Re a life worth blogging, I was arguing this very point recently. A lot of what I write primarily is for me: a lot of it (overlapping but not identical set) isn't really about me, but about books, or cool links, or whatever. The life that matters is not what I do.


I've never been entirely clear in my own mind what my LJ is about; I'm not sure whether I am writing for me or whether it is, not a performance precisely, but an attempt to get in touch, keep in touch with the world, a world, something, and therefore something about me.

But how much about me? Clearly not that much as at times my feelings and thoughts come as a bolt from the blue ... see this week, for example. I am aware I seem to write in a WYSIWYG style, but equally, I know, other people gradually find out, it's not all I am by any means. But I wonder what people make of my life as I report it (and was equally struck by the fact that someone commented that surely, if anything had been wrong, PK would have said, failing to notice that PK rarely if ever writes anything even vaguely personal, and certainly nothing about his home life).

Online society is no substitute, but I think my experience is more positive than yours.

I think so too. I often feel my online presence is useful for people who know me in real life to keep a tab on the fact that I still exist, as fans so often like to do, but many fewer people see it as a means of actively keeping in touch with me. There is no online life behind the posts, no discussions taken to email or anything like that ... for example, in the past five days, I've had about eight personal emails; the rest was work arrangements, and so on. I rarely have much sense that I'm participating in something; when I feel very low, I feel my online writing is akin to writing letters and throwing them out the skylight.

And of course, I am sure that people assume because PK is here, he takes care of everything from providing company to mopping up when I'm upset. Which is true to an extent, but mostly, he isn't actually here. We see each other for a brief period each day, like most couples, and there's a lot to be done in that time.

And then I stop and start all over again, trying to figure it out. Am definitely lacking a sense of community at present but will doubtless rise above it, as always, so pardon the moaning.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I certainly don't feel that I get very much feedback. Oh, lots of comments on trivial posts, or posts asking questions: but no one reads my book and film reviews, and no one comments on the simple feel-good posts (which, as you at least will probably understand, are there in part as notes-to-self for when I'm not feeling good).

I thought long and hard about bothering with book reviews this year, but concluded that at some point I might want to be able to point to the fact I've done them -- heaven knows why, a kind of portfolio or something -- and that I do actually enjoy that level of analysis of what I read. Moving them out of LiveJournal rather emphasises that separation from my everyday rambling, and probably makes them less accessible to others.

And of course the moaning -- or general lowness, quite different -- is pardoned: if you can't write about depression and bad times in your own journal, where can you?

I hope things are getting a little better. Don't push yourself harder than you must: time enough for that when the year's turned a little more springy.

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

if you can't write about depression and bad times in your own journal, where can you?

Well, I do wonder sometimes ...

I hope things are getting a little better.

Slight improvement but it vacillates wildly from hour to hour at times.

I thought long and hard about bothering with book reviews this year, but concluded that at some point I might want to be able to point to the fact I've done them -- heaven knows why, a kind of portfolio or something -- and that I do actually enjoy that level of analysis of what I read. Moving them out of LiveJournal rather emphasises that separation from my everyday rambling, and probably makes them less accessible to others.

I think about this sort of thing myself, without reaching a conclusion. I have set up Paper Knife to take the longer essays because I do feel LJ isn't really geared up to handle long material comfortably, but the stray comments I've received over the years about writing stuff that's too scary and intimidating for a journal nowadays receive very short shrift. My journal, my life, my writing, and if that means Derrida this week, so be it.