…I Am A Tree

Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

The events of the past couple weeks have triggered a variety of responses from people over that time, illuminating the different ways we all approach the online world.

Kim and I have both been very open about many aspects of our lives, both in-person and online, so much so that Kim jokes at times that the whole world knows about the workings of her uterus. It’s probably because we’ve both been involved in online communities since the early Nineties that we frequently treat discussions online as though they’re in-person. I’ve probably written millions of words on BBSes, online services (GEnie, Compuserve and AOL), discussion boards, blogs (both my own and others) and now Twitter, and if you were to put all those words together, I think you’d have a pretty good picture of who I am. We both have made many friends online that we’ve never met offline, and possibly never will, yet that bothers me not the least.  It doesn’t diminish the friendship I feel with them.

Those who read this are likely people I consider to be at least strong acquaintances, if not good friends. Some just online, some mostly offline, but many of you are a blend of both.  If you’re one of those people, I see my online life as an extension of The Conversation, one that carries from meat space to the digital realm and back. 

I approach each online environment differently, too.  Facebook serves several purposes.  One, I keep in touch with people there I haven’t seen in decades (in some instances).  Many of the people I am friends with there come from many different aspects of my life — if my friend wheel worked, you’d see probably five or six distinct groupings of people (let’s see…hobos, tooboarders, pagan friends, high school friends, gaming friends, offline friends, online-only friends (bloggers, etc), and some work colleagues…that’s eight different major groupings, and often there’s no intermingling). People from a few of those groups knew my mom, for instance, so I posted info over there as I felt was warranted to keep them in the loop. 

Two, facebook is silly and I like some of the games a tad.  You may have noticed that.

Twitter is more for my daily rambling musings, coupled with back-and-forth slow chats with a lot of folks. In many ways, my twitter community mimics my old blogging community back about seven-eight years ago, in how we all talk to one another.  What’s different about that, though, is that I see many of the twitterfolk in person, which never happened in my early blog days. Twitterfolk are often those I would consider to be at least good friends.

And then there’s this place, which has seen much writing by me over the years, coupled with long droughts (now filled by twitter summaries to at least keep the blog alive with some new content).  I used to spend a lot more time both writing and reading blogs than I do now, but it’s still part of my process.  Lately I’ve discovered it again as I try and process things about mom.

What you all may not realize is that there are things left unsaid. There are some topics that simply won’t be talked about online, let alone in meat space.  Surprised? Some may be. For instance, you may have had a touch of understanding about the situation we faced with my mom in Pittsburgh, but what I tweeted, blogged, and posted on facebook did not, in any measure, convey the true situation.  Reading back over everything I posted recently, I’m not surprised by how much I left unsaid.

Something else that some people may not realize — I’m actually quite shy in person.  I’m frequently loud and boorish to make up for that, to which some of you can attest… It’s often very ironic to me that my job requires me to some times stand in front of very large groups of people and exude self-confidence.  It’s when you get to know me that I don’t shut up. Before then…wallflower.  Living an online life helps with that, too, after a fashion.  For me, it eases the awkwardness I may exhibit when I first meet someone offline, since we’ll already know one another a bit.

Not everyone is like me, though, when it comes to the digital world.  That’s okay, I can understand that.  But you should know that this is who I am. As I said earlier, if you put everything I post in various places together, you’ll get a good picture of me. While there are times I will edit things a smidge, mostly, you’re seeing me for who I am.  That won’t change.

Amusing ones (to me):

• who is the author of i am a tree?

Why, me, of course. This used to be known as The Gamer’s Nook.

Sad ones:

• when husbands don’t talk

That one seriously saddens me…

IVF ones (some doozies in here…):

• Surviving IVF
• survive negative news IVF
• what was your ivf protocol at cornell
• male guide to ivf
• mans guide to ivf
• ivf and husbands
• ivf description for men
• ivf failed oh well i can get pissed then
• ivf humor
• ivf husbands
• ivf husbands point of view
• ivf is bullshit
• ivf survival guide
• information for husbands going through ivf
• how to tell your wife no to ivf
• how to deal with a failed ivf
• can i get ivf with a married man

Some seriously raw feelings there, and that last one? Umm… yeah.  It also reinforces to me that I need to write more about the whole IVF thing, especially with a new cycle looming.

And a whole shitload looking for Watchmen and Pink Floyd quotes, based on single post references. Weird seeing what people search on…

The more I blog, the more traffic I generate.

Go figure.

And yes, that’s sarcastic. I’m fully aware I’d hit new lows on traffic over the past couple of years. The few times there were spikes were when I was talking about;

• Kim’s surgery
• IVF
• DelFest and the Tornado

Now that I’ve found a renewed interest in blogging, coupled with the twitter feed, traffic is up almost 18% the past month.  I know, that’s not much in the greater scheme of the blogosphere, but it is interesting to me.

Well, now that I have twitter tools installed, hopefully there will be automatic blog updates daily of what I say over there. Currently, it’s set to fire at 3 AM every morning. Hopefully this will also give some folks incentive to get on twitter. My blog posts now link over to twitter as well. As I referenced before, I’m feeling the desire to blog again, and will be doing so on an ongoing basis.

As to the hobo blog, I’m leaving it there in its current form, but won’t be updating it moving forward. I’m rolling everything back into this blog. I was writing so little as it was, that I might as well just put it all back together again. Besides, Railroad Earth is a big part of my life, so why not write about it here where it belongs?

I predict a number of posts coming up about Colorado, which was a wonderful trip.

Well, that went well enough. I think I got twitter tools configured not just for posts on the blog showing up in twitter, but for daily captures of my tweets. Let’s see if this posts to twitter.

Hopefully I don’t break things… more anon.

Kim’s new outlook on blogging has me contemplating things as well. I’ve been remiss about this place for a while now, putting up one post a month – if I’m lucky — and I really do want to see it used more.  Part of it is simple burn-out. Blogging since 2002, it’s been tough to find things to talk about, especially since I got into twitter.

 I think that may be changing. Yes, I do need to add the twitter tools here so I have some content, but I do think I’m going to give this a go again. Hopefully it’s not as sporadic as it’s been over the past couple years.

So let’s see how this goes.

Yeah, yeah, not blogging. Yada yada yada. I keep meaning to, and then forget.

Oops.

I really should get that twitter feed installed at the very least, shouldn’t I?

Total aside: Kim addicted me to Gossip Girl. We’ve now seen both seasons and man, it’s fun. I really didn’t expect to be this much into a show like this, but there you have it.

Caprica continues to taunt me. January can’t get here soon enough. I won’t even mention A Song of Ice and Fire, and the pilot being readied now for HBO… w00t!

So, how’s folks?

Yes, I’m still here. Still tweeting more than blogging, obviously. I need to setup that tool that captures my tweets and blogs them daily for me…

Hope all three remaining readers are doing well!

Thanks to Kim, the blog has an awesome new look and feel. The name is changing to “…I Am A Tree” because it works better. Sure, there’s a line in Butterfly & The Tree that says, “I am a butterfly, you are a tree…” but there’s also a line of, “You are a butterfly, I am a tree…”

And it works better for a blog name. Same URL, just a back-end name change.

Onward to new thrilling blog posts!