admiration

While taking a quick break from work I decided to do a little cybersnooping. Now before you go all judge-y on me, hear me out. ;)

Once, while talking to our staff analyst, I noticed on her computer an open web page. As someone with a similar cyberproperty, I immediately recognized the telltale signs that said the page on her screen was a blog. And I knew intuitively that the blog was hers. There is something about being a blogger that makes you feel an immediate connection with other bloggers. When you find them amidst the randomness, it is like finding your kin. You're bound together by the connections of the worldwide web. So I developed this compulsion t find her page.

Further fueling me on was the fact that she has never said anything about her little passion on the side. But then again, neither have I. If she is like me, then I suppose she wishes to keep part of her personal life separate from her professional life. Or perhaps she's just biding her time. At any rate, today I decided to finally go take a look.

I was delighted by what I saw. It wasn't even the contents of the page that tickled me because her subject is something I have absolutely have no knowledge or skill on. But I loved the vibe of her blog. It was fun, feminine and happy.

And I couldn't help but admire that she had such a passion for her topic. Enough that her posts came in quick succession. I can barely get one out a month! Which is silly when I think about how blessed I am to have so much I could possibly write about.

The problem, I think, is that I have pressured myself into writing "perfect" pieces. I'm harboring some notion that because I could (could, could) eventually try to monetize this blog then I must have some bigger, grander theme to it. (See entry: Show me the Money). But it seems that harboring that notion has not helped me become a better writer. Or at least it hasn't made me more prolific.

Maybe it's time to change my mindset. A little less of the "perfect", a little more of the me. That's what I always wanted anyway.

But just to make sure, come back next month and see if I manage to successfully churn out more entries.

write, darn you, write!

In the meantime, check out Candidly Pretty. It's the blog for DIY arts and crafts lovers. Oh, and by the way, she has no idea I discovered her "secret". ;)

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Darn it!

Ah, HTML, you foil me again...


Still HTML bobo

 Over a month ago I had this brilliant idea of adding a page to this blog. That page would be dedicated to faith. Seeing as how a my faith and my service make up a huge part of my life, it only seemed natural that I would have a separate section for it.

I don't envision myself writing long, theological pieces. I can barely write "regular" pieces as it is. Trust me, my list of to-write-abouts is getting longer by the occassion. Nor do I think I have the patience (aka intelligence) for profound expositions on issues of the Catholic Church.

What I would like to have is a repository of the many little things that I come across and that strike me deeply when I am at mass, at worship, at a teaching, in conversations or in prayer. Just those one or two lines of wisdom that help me understand a little more, feel loved a little more, become thankful a little more.

There was a time, when I was just beginning my faith journey, that I just soaked up knowledge like a sponge. I was enlightened by everything and I felt myself growing in leaps and bounds. But the danger with knowing something, is the tendency to start thinking you know everything. Accidental arrogance comes in and you start believing that nothing you're hearing is new.

But be that as it may, there is always value to being reminded. Because in my experience, what I have heard of before is also likely something I've previously forgotten. Each reminder is a brand new eureka moment.

And, if I'm really going to be honest about it, I need the cheat sheet. I don't have an eidetic memory and some really important realizations are going to slip by me because I didn't have a place to write it down. Or a place to read it. I suppose I could always use a paper notebook, but isn't that so 20th century? ;)

So here I am again, staring at my computer with a vision in mind and no foreseeabe way of achieving it. Short of learning HTML code (one more thing that is so last season...).

In as much as I'd like to put up that page, tonight will not be the night. I concede this round to that dastardly HTML. 

But don't count me out yet. 

Just... don't hold your breath waiting for me to return.

try and try again

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Show me the money

disclaimer: not a real ad

I was listening to the radio a few nights ago on the way home from work. As is my usual habit, I was tuned in to the Disenchanted Kingdom on 99.5RT (love, love, love that show!). Onboard that night together with the regulars was Kell (Kel?), one of the unoffical members of the Kingdom's court.

Although not a regular, I like Kell (Kel?). He's both intelligent and funny, which makes him a good contributor to the show. I think he's been friends with the rulers of the Kingdom for a while, because he falls naturally in sync with them. He sounds good over the radio too.

Anyway, that's not the point.

It turns out that Kell (Kel?) works for Nuffnang. If you've been around the net world long enough and you read other blogs (which I'm sure you do because seriously, mine cannot possibly be the only one you read. If it was, I'm grateful to you... but I might also be secretly judging you...) then you would have at least heard/seen Nuffnang, even if you're exactly sure what it is.

I'm not exactly sure of it myself. But looking up their website I can see a descriptive phrase underneath its logo. It is a "blog advertising community". Right. I see. Ok. Now, from what I can gather, Nuffnang seems to be where bloggers get together to form the mass and scale they need to be taken seriously by advertisers. I think it's kind of like a collective where Nuffnang is the Borg Queen. Nuffnang takes the ads, then distributes it among its members, placing it in blogs where the ad is most relevant, ie. an ad about diapers in a mommy blog. Or an ad about a clothing store in a fashion blog. They also send out bloggers for different marketing events where brands and companies are trying to generate word-of-mouth.

Some people make a lot of money from blogging. Some people make some extra money from blogging. And then there are the some people like me, who make no money from blogging at all.

So that got me thinking, (insert Carrie Bradshaw-esque voice here) can I actually make money with my blog? And if I could, would it even make money at all? More importantly, is my blog even worth an advertiser's time? I'm not famous, I have no specialization, most of my readers are my friends... will companies really think I can bring them the target market they seek?

I've been told on a few occassions that I write well. I always say I write the same way I speak. Read any of my pieces and you can imagine me saying it outloud to you, gesticulations and all. But is a talent for writing enough to make yourself a worthwhile blogger? After all, if you're going to be followed the least you can do is give your followers something substantial, something... relevant.

Am I relevant? At most I'd say I'm good for a few laughs. Or wry smiles.

Maybe I should have a gimmick. Some fancy, creative, kooky idea that sets me apart and makes me more interesting. With a gimmick, I become more than just a blogger, I can become a brand. A brand means something. It stands for something. It's the symbol that says you're not just regular, but special. Yes, like that little red dot on top of the siopao that says, "same out the outside, different on the inside."

Everybody wants to be special, don't they?

Maybe.

But the truth is, I just want to be me. Me when I write. Me when I think. Me when I talk to you via my blog piece. I'm not built for fancy, creative and kooky ideas. I just like to think. And write. And hope that what I think and write about are what you wanted to think and read about too.

In the introduction of Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote of authors:

"When he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him better that most of his schoolmates or lifemates... to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk."

It's exciting to imagine that I can get paid for doing this. The real question is whether I should.

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dear diary...

As of the moment I am averaging about 1 blog post a month. One blog post! What a sad, sad statistic. You would think that given the number of thoughts that run through a person's head in a single day, putting them down on (virtual) paper would be easy. But that's the thing... not everything you think, not everything you do, not everything you say is worth broadcasting to the world. Because honestly, sometimes no one is all that interested.

So why do I even blog? Before Passionately Pretending I had attempted to own virtual territory at least 2 other times. That doesn't even count Friendster, Picasa, Facebook and who-know-what-else-I've-signed-up-for-but-no-longer remember. When my last blog fell into neglect, I said I was done. I told myself I'm going to protect my privacy and clean up my digital footprint. I didn't think anyone was clamoring for my writing anyway.


So why did I choose to do this all over again?


I started toying with the idea of blogging when I watched Electroshadow being developed. The idea of putting yourself out in the world and having people read your work was an alluring thought. Knowing that there would be a place where your opinion could be voiced and maybe even matter was empowering. As I listened to a dreamer's dreams, it made me think of what my own dreams could be, and wondered if I attempted it, could my writing find its place in the world?

But what ultimately drove the decision was when I went rummaging through my long lost junk in our provincial home early this year. Having lived away from home for the last 15 years, most of our knick knacks and assorted trinkets have been stored away to gather dust. Periodically, my mother reminds us to look through them and see what we want to keep and discard. During one such sojourn down memory lane, I came across a collection of notebooks and some haphazard pieces of paper.

There, scribbled on the back of these notebooks, or on torn out notebook paper, or loose stationary of varying designs were written my random thoughts.

pieces of me

It seemed that, at varying points in my life, wherever I was, when I had a thought and the thought was big enough to disturb me, I would grab whatever material I had on hand and write. I would write my observations, my realizations, my experiences. I would write because writing made it real. I would write because writing gave my thought a semblance of sense, if not structure.

Some of what I wrote were deeply personal to me, while others were simply meant to capture the essence of that moment. I am sure that what I found at home that day was only a portion of what I have written in my lifetime. Many have likely been lost or thrown away because it had never been important to preserve them. Their purpose was to filter the thoughts of the time. Now in my 30's, re-reading what has been left behind, I realize they weren't just for me then, it was for the me in the future.

In my youth I kept a diary, treasures I have kept safe until today.

my first attempt at chronicling my life

vol. 2 - with just as bad handwriting

still at vol 2 but with better handwriting

(contents blurred to protect privacy. hahahaha!)

As I grew up, keeping a diary fell to the wayside. Entries came few and far between. When I completely filled my second volume, I thought I had outgrown the need for a notebook and pen. I had a brief daliance with digital journaling (both attempts have resulted in entries now forever lost to me) and then there were the mini blogs and the habit of jotting down my life on tenous surfaces.

Seeing, literally, pieces of me and my life scattered everywhere made me decide that it might be a good idea to have a single place to keep those pieces. I now have a small notebook that holds my more personal musings, the ones that were never meant to be shared.

a journal of my 30's

Then I have this: Passionately Pretending. Where I pretend that somehow my thoughts matter.


If not to me now, then to the me in the future.

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