Blogging

Blogging will be light for the next four or five days, as I'm home for Thanksgiving. I've missed hearing people say "up yonder" and "sociacurity" (an elision of "Social Security," similar to "preeshaytit" in that sense), and I've missed the way my mom pronounces the word "employee" (em-PLAW-ee). :D

The latest issue of Rhizome has a report on blogging, and there's a special issue of Logos devoted to Election 2004. I'm going to try to read all the essays in the latter if I can; problem is, I don't know where to start. Any suggestions?

Feministblogs.org is an aggregate of weblogs about feminist and politics from a feminist perspective. Check it out! So far, the contributors (not including myself) are:

• BlackFeminism.org
• Rad Geek
• Mouse Words
• Rox Populi
• Sappho's Breathing
• Sheelzebub
• Trish Wilson
• Wicked Muse
• feministe

Here's how to get your feed in there. I forgot to tell Rad Geek, who started this project, that he could just use my category-specific feeds for feminism and politics, but I can do that now, I guess. :)

After the election and the emotionally-charged reactions to it, Michelle and Cindy have started afresh, deleting their old blogs and starting new ones. I don't quite understand the motivations, mostly because they've done it for personal reasons I can't possibly know. While I'm dismayed to lose the old posts, I respect their decision, and they don't owe anyone an explanation. I'm more concerned about the likelihood that some will stop blogging completely, like Rana, who has announced that she's going on hiatus indefinitely, and now Jeanne, who is thinking about taking Body and Soul down.

I know it's awfully melodramatic, but images of self-immolation on a pyre of virtual burning books keep coming to my mind. I might as well say it -- suttee -- because I can't pretend not to notice that these are all bright, eloquent women. It should be obvious that I have nothing but respect for all of the bloggers I've mentioned, I certainly understand the desire to retreat and reflect for a while, and I'll support any decisions they make about their blogs, but it's precisely because I hold them in such high regard that I must object to the decision to stop blogging (in the case of Rana and Jeanne, that is).

NB to Cindy, Michelle, Jeanne, and Rana: Please correct me if I've misrepresented your motivations. People have assigned motives to me before that hadn't even occurred to me, and I don't want to do it to anyone else. I sincerely apologize in advance if I have.

NCA is going on right now. Is anyone blogging it?

Lately I've been checking out those Standard Deviants DVDs from the public library, particularly the ones on physics and chemistry. I figured it was time for a review of scientific notation, scalars, vectors, one- and two-dimensional kinematics, Newton's laws of motion, etc. The viewing is motivated by my desire to use metaphorically terms like "covalent bonds" in casual conversation to impress my friends and my paranoid fantasy that one day I just might find myself in an imperiled spacecraft and need to know this stuff. Yeah, you can say it! I'm an "odd bird." I've heard it hundreds of times before.

There aren't many annoying situations that can't be assuaged by listening to music. Yesterday I was standing in a long line at the post office -- which normally causes me to seethe in my cauldron of impatience -- and I had my CD player, headphones, and Emmylou Harris' Anthology playing. I decided right then and there to make it a point to take my CD player, headphones, and several CDs everywhere I go. Today's soundtrack is Pizzicato Five's Happy End of the World, which you should all check out from your libraries immediately.

Go see Cindy at her new place!

A news story for which I was interviewed came out today. If you'd like to read it and aren't registered at philly.com, you're welcome to use my login info. Email: abstractgroove at lycos dot com, password: ararat2

I'm only quoted a couple of times, short quotes at that, and a little oversimplified, but it's to be expected. Oh well.

I wonder what Chun is thinking right now about the current political climate. I typed his old URL into my address bar, hoping he had come back to say something about the election and the aftermath. Come on, Chun! Make a cameo appearance at Crooked Timber or at Michael Bérubé's or somewhere! (I will, of course, feel like an idiot if he's already done this. Please point me to it if he has.)