Indulge Me, Please [Updated]

I just this moment --- 6:10 pm, central time --- realized that today is the 25th anniversary of the day I met the person to whom I am married. Aka The Husband.

We began living together about six months after we met (hey, I was 30; he was 43; we more or less knew what we were doing), but only got married ten years ago. S

o we've always celebrated the day we met rather than our wedding day. Now, why did I forget the day?No, not because I'm a bad wife. Indeed, I'm The Perfect Wife. (I'm kidding, I'm kidding, for god's sake!)

Because as is typically the case in early June, he's in Europe today. (Attending an annual conference which, yes, happens on/around June 9.) And he's been gone for fifteen days (first he went to Bilbao, than to London to see not the Queen but our kids), so, ya know, I've just been here at home, by myself, working away on my book, oblivious as to the world around me. Including oblivious to the day of the week.

Which is how I realized it was our anniversary: I wondered what day of the week it was.

Figured out it was Tuesday and then, out of curiosity, wondered what the date was --- and, whoops!, realized it was June 9.

Anyway: to my husband --- my dearest friend, most loyal companion and supporter, the one person who loves me just as I am --- I say: It's been a lovely ride. Here's hoping for twenty-five more go-rounds. (Although, ahem, given our age, I doubt we'll make it. So let's enjoy it while it lasts.) U

PDATE: I realized as I clicked "publish" that not only is this the day, but I wrote this post to the minute almost of meeting him. We'd "met" via the personals (which back then meant exchanging real letters), then on June 9, met for our first face-to-face, which consisted of: Hotel bar in downtown Des Moines (I had a gin and tonic; not sure what he drank), and then we went to see "Liquid Sky." (Short plot description: Aliens from outer space need endorphins released during orgasm.) (I can't make this stuff up.) (My candidate for prize for Wierdest First Date Ever.)

Dissection of A (Failed) Attempt at Digital Journalism

One quick, drive-by post (I want to get back my other job. Today: Explaining how Philip Armour made his zillions so I can get this chapter FINISHED.) A

nyway, wanted to pass along this  fascinating dissection of a failed attempt at "online" journalism. Stoltz does not present any hard evidence for his claims about the speed at which people read online (yes, I clicked over to his "source," but the source simply presents the date as fact, without any supporting evidence.)

But I think we agree that there is an inherent difference between reading paper and reading a screen, and so his basic argument --- that print journalism can't be a one-for-one transfer from paper to screen --- is true. Anyway, completely worth reading.

And once again, I curse Twitter: I learned of this piece via @boraZ while doing an "Okay, I'm just going to turn on the computer for fifteen minutes and do a quickie scan of Twitter" and of course found ten things I want to read. Sigh.

But back to Mr. Armour. And hey, some day I'll heed the experts' advice, apparently supported by fact, that blog entries need to be SHORT, damnit, SHORT. Because, ya know, no one wants to read these long rambling semi-disquisitions.

Thinking About . . . Thinking; Or How Self-Referential Can I Make One Blog Entry?

Stan Hieronymus commented on my previous post and I began writing a response to his comment and next thing I knew my comment had morphed into a lengthy and probably useless rumination on other things. And had therefore become more of a blog entry than a comment, and hey! Who am I to waste a possible blog entry?

Particularly when the entry is about blogging and therefore self-referential and therefore . . . Anyway, in that previous entry I wrote:

But there wouldn’t be much point to the blog if I weren’t writing the book.

I was referring to the meat book, my work-in-progress. And Stan commented "Not sure what you mean by "the point." And then he asked:

So you are blogging to support the meat book or the beer book?

And hmmm, I thought. Good question.

I think what I originally meant was "I blog because I'm hoping when the next book comes out, more than one person will know about me and therefore it." (*1)

Or . . . maybe not. Because if I weren't planning to write another book, would I want be writing anything? And if I were writing another book, then I'd probably be, ya know, writing, and so I'd probably be blogging.

Anyway, while I was pondering that circularity (because, really, this is just an exercise to see how far I can push the circularity and self-referentiality --- which probably isn't a real word --- of a single blog entry), I started thinking about the process of blogging (especially in light of the fact that I've just experienced about a ten-day period of not much blogging.

And I realized again just how much I enjoy blogging, far more than I expected to. So, why, I wondered, was that? Answer: Because it's intellectually challenging. More so than I expected it to be.

This short format provides more freedom of structure and content than does a 115,000-word book, weirdly enough. The content of a book is confined by a whole lotta parameters (ones that many writers are tinkering with and pushing to the max).

That's especially true of non-fiction: A book can't start out being about beer, and midway through turn into a discourse on nuclear power or the mating habits of prairie dogs. Well, okay, it COULD be -- but no one would read it. A blog entry, however, can be about anything I want it to be about.

Better still, I can use the blog to explore and think about all manners of ideas/subjects that I might not otherwise ponder at any length. Because it's one thing to think about something --- for example, are we living in a truly new age or is there nothing new under the sun , or where is the American economy going? --- but it's another thing to think thoroughly about that something.

That's the point of writing, isn't it? Presumably human beings have been thinking about complex issues since, well, since they stood upright and became "human." And the motive for creating systems of writing was so that humans could organize and disseminate those complex ideas.

Yes, for millennia people relied on an oral tradition as a way to share knowledge. But the act of writing makes it easier to do that.

So, to wrap up what has now become an absurdly long-winded thought about probably not much of anything: I think the blog is less about supporting the beer book or supporting the meat book than it is about supporting my thinking habit. Because I am an idea junkie. Low-rent, to be sure, but a junkie nonetheless.

And aside from talking, writing is the best way I know to assess, analyze, and ponder ideas. Or, to paraphrase someone a lot smarter than me: I think; therefore I blog.

__________________

*1: Because the brutal reality of writing for money is that the money only comes in if someone buys the writing. And therefore writers have no choice but to expend huge amounts of energy promoting their work. Until they hit the Bigtime, at which point promotion is optional.

The Statistics of Blogging

Today's foray into the wierd world of the New York Times Styles section produced an informative and interesting article on blogging statistics. (*1) The short version is as follows:

• Many people decide to blog.
• The vast majority soon abandon the effort (95% of the blogs clogging the web have been abandoned by their owners).

What the article does not tell us is the average life span of a blog. Six months? A year? Three years?

I posted my first entry on June 29, 2006, and hey, I'd like to know where that puts me, statistically speaking.

I gather from the article that many people go into blogging the way they go into, say, tryouts for "Survivor" or "American Idol": They wanna get rich, famous, or both.

If so, no wonder the failure rate is so high. This ain't easy, folks. It requires a huge investment of time and an even larger investment in intellectual energy.

Indeed, I think that's why I collapsed into a heap last week. On any given day, I'm essentially putting out the brain power necessary to create and sustain two completely different intellectual and creative endeavours: a book and a blog.

And yes, they are different animals, and yes, blogging is a serious brain-energy hog. If my intellectual life is a house, then the book is the refrigerator (which, in a typical house, consumes the most energy), but the blog is all those electronic gadgets with their little red and green lights (computer monitor, DVR, flat screen TV, chargers, etc.), which, if left plugged in and even if not turned "on," consume an inordinate amount of energy.

(We're working up to do a major remodeling project, and houses are much on my mind at the moment. Another energy sink.)

(The remodeling project, I mean.)

Anyway --- I can't decide if I'm glad I'm in the five percent of bloggers who manage to keep the motor running. Certainly it would be easier to write the book without the blog, and vice versa. But there wouldn't be much point to the blog if I weren't writing the book.

So, there you go. Another of life's conundrums, one I shall, for the moment, leave unresolved.

_________

*1: For a brief explanation of why I read the Styles section, see the note at the end of this entry.

California Brewpubs From a Fresh Perspective

This report of a brewpub-based road trip through California is weirdly fascinating --- because it mentions none of the usual suspects. Probably because it involved two guys who are (refreshingly) not part of the whole craft beer scene. Nuthin' like a new slant. Kind of like painting a room a new color and moving two pieces of furniture: Voila! Same room; fresh perspective.

Tip o' the mug to @ellinoz, one of the more delightful humans I've encountered at Twitter.

Who Knew?

Well, well, well. What I thought was tiredness turns out to be THE weirdest virus I've ever had in my life. (I swear: the world ain't gonna end with a bang or a whimper, but with us all dying quietly, unwhimperingly, from an assault by a diverse and ugly collection of attacking microbes.)

Anyway --- I've spent most of the past four days in a horizontal position. Not feeling sick, exactly. Just  . . .  unable to move.

Then last night, quite suddenly, my temperature soared, I experienced THE worst case of chills ever, and wondered if the end was near. I crawled under the covers, lots of them, and lay there for what felt like an eternity. (Wondering if maybe I had died, and the afterlife looked like a dark, soft pile of duvet.)

And then wham! My temp returned to normal, the chills evaporated --- and I felt . . . alive. A bit tired, but otherwise normal.

I blame all of this, by the way, on The Baby: during our recent visit, he was sick. Ya know, in that way babies are so delightfully, concretely sick: Constant flow of snot, boogers galore. Baby-sized coughing, wheezing, and hacking. A waterfall of virus-laden drool streaming from his mouth. And of course vomit aplenty.

All of it taking place simultaneously and, more often than not, landing on me (because I had a hard time letting go of the gorgeous creature. I am besotted.)

But I digress. During my down time these past few days, I discovered that Twitter is sweetly suited for the sick. In the ten minutes I could manage being upright, I could scan Tweets, zip off a couple of re-tweets, and lay back down knowing the world was still out there, ticking away without me.

Sooooo..... I may hang low for a few more days, just to make sure this viral beast has in fact split the scene. And then I will return. I hope all of you are well --- because the alternative is soooooooooo not fun.