Have you ever gone somewhere on vacation or a business trip and wandered around feeling like, "This is home!" It's somewhere you've never been before, maybe never even heard about, and seemingly by accident you end up there and realize it's where you've belonged all along.That's what my last few weeks in the blogosphere have been like. (Oh come on, Blogger! How can you be spell-check-alarming the word "blogosphere!?")
It started when my dearest told me about Politits (DCup). So I went and looked. Whoa! Here was a wild combination of ideas and feelings all coming at us in well crafted prose, a unique voice, and quantity. (How in the world does she mother three, work full time, commute to work, and post so much!? It boggles my mind.) Commenting there seemed a no-brainer: her posts made me think, or made me laugh, so there was usually something to say. And lots of people went ahead and said it. This was a pretty verbal bunch, more so than any other blogging zone I've been in up to now.
She mentioned my blog in a post and that led to comments and frequent visits by Liberality and The Pagan Sphinx. Meanwhile dearest wife also pointed me to Vulture Peak Muse, and I started to comment over there, as well. All three of these new blogs are daily reading now.
But as I looked at the comments every day, I naturally end up following people back to their portions of this wonderful little community. A little interesting dissension here and there, and polite, humorous, balanced, well thought out, and no trolls (knock wood). So I ended up hooked on OKJimm's Eggroll Emporium, and FranIAm (I love that Latin in her blog name), and Lemon Gloria, and Emma Tree, and today I added Adventures Ink and distributorcap NY (both of whom had extaordinarily good posts on top today - outsider art and We the people..., respectively), and Passions of an Odd Chick who posted paintings including one of sheep (!!) and whose previous post was about hummers (!!). I'm also looking into our new candidates Divajood and Nunly...
Where will this end? And will I ever have time to sleep again? Soon I have to go visit Mary Ellen, Randal Graves, Mathman... I don't have the links for all of these yet - but I think they will soon read as the list of my "Fav daily" bookmarks. And there will be more...
Too many blogs, not enough time...
But plenty of welcome, and plenty of brains (with manners). Wow. I always wanted to live here, even when I didn't know it.
>>>> Appendix de Grenouille #14 <<<<
You might think Grenouille is ALSO wondering "Where AM I?!" but he's his usual cool self. He is using frog visual and echo-location senses to check that my orthodonture (braces twice, because anything THAT much fun should have an encore!) is still holding position. All is well.And yes, we washed his feet first. And again afterwards (he insisted, but I felt his request for rubbing alcohol was a bit insulting).
14 comments:
Yep, it's official--you've been bitten by the blogging bug.
I enjoyed looking over your bloggy links. I don't usually go for political blogs of any kind, but I did enjoy roaming around in Politits.
Welcome to the neighborhood! I'm so glad that you feel at home in this community. I feel lucky to be part of this online assortment of characters, everyday intelligentsia, artists, musicians, writers, thinkers, film makers, parents, siblings, neighbors, teachers, preachers and pals. It's a fun, respectful crowd and I feel like we're becoming a sort of family. Considering that I don't live near my extended family, this is especially important to me.
I'm really, really glad you've become a part of it. I'm reading Moomin Light regularly and I feel like your lives and ours are very similar on the parent/couple front.
Happy blogging!
And debd - thank you! I can't do politics all the time. It's too exhausting. And I love the feel of your blog.
P.S. That's some nifty orthodontia.
Yuppers. You have been infected with the dreaded 'blogitis'.
No one really knows where the infection starts....but personally, I think it is something in the beer.
Enjoy yourself!!
I visited your gallery. NOW THAT'S WHAT I'm talking about.... not your grandmother's watercolors. Do you teach???? I love, love your paintings and your vision...how did you get there? If you were here I would ask a million questions like a little sponge because you are who I want to be when I grow UP!!
Thank you, everyone, for the welcome. I knew this was a disease - at least it's a sociable one (beer, etc.).
Debd - welcome back! I keep watching your blog for anything new - glad you're getting a break (hope it's been good).
Odd Chick - I'll be happy to share the tiny bit I've discovered in the last couple of years of experimenting. Some of it can be found in my blog posts. If you go to my Flickr account Paintings set, a number of them link to the blog post that tells something of how these come about. I'd be happy to share more - drop me an e-mail (it's on my website) if you want to correspond about painting. I'll learn as much from you as you do from me.
DCup - the more I think about it, the more common things I tick off between our households, too. And if Mathman gets those glasses, that will be another. Mine need to go bi-focal to relax my eyes (I've got the eye twitch again that sent me to the opt. for the first pair). Gotta make an appt.
We'll all get old (nah!) together.
There's no if about the glasses, they are on the way. There is no sleeping with blogging, the 100 days (actually 100 day ones) and fantasy baseball.
OK - I can help myself to understanding the 100 days, and I'm now getting the blogging loss of sleep thing for the first time, but fantasy baseball??? Where do I find out about that?
I've seen fantasy hockey, I think (a whole invented continent, intrigue, etc.!) and I participated there (I'm Erki in the comments) - but fantasy baseball?
wow, steve, just what I want is more blogs to read:) goodie! you surely realize I am serious, having NO life right now!
thanks for the blog mention, btw and the giggle over Gfroggie doing dental hygenist...
xo
Steve, I play fantasy baseball in a league on Yahoo Fantasy Sports. Dusty is the commission. I don't know any of my other opponents.
We played fantasy baseball on line for a few years a long time ago (mid-80's before the web) and had to pay the phone company close to a buck a minute for the connection. We had to save up real money to attend the initial auction and sat with books of stats for second, third and more distant choices. As I remember you had $80 in total to bid for a whole team so if somebody blew $20 on a pitcher or a famous hitter they ended up with all the rest being second string. The whole thing ended for us when a very nasty guy got a surrogate to take over an abandoned team. He stripped it and won the season but us and several other players were done.
I'm happy to meet you too. Thanks for the props.
Linda - You're welcome - this is a cool group.
Mathman and Susan - I have to check this out (like I have time to do something ELSE on line - I've got painting to do) - I'd never heard of it before.
And Susan - I REALLY had no idea this was going on before the web. I remember doing stuff on-line before 1990, but only a little (bulletin boards and newsgroups, mostly).
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