Random thoughts

Need to visit Molly, Chase and my other neglected blog friends -- and take off the blogrolls others from whom I've drifted away.

Need to start blogging daily again -- SO MUCH to write about, all the time, that it just seems overwhelming. And I hate the way Facebook forces me to limit my thoughts to one or two measly paragraphs, wrtng lke a txtng teenagr.

Listened to Vivaldi on the way in to work -- I simply love Baroque music. If it wasn't a time of such filth and cruelty, I might have liked to live back then. How did such gorgeous music arise in such a dungheap of a society?

Noted that one Fabio Biondi recorded this particular CD of Vivaldi. Looked up his name online. Fascinated by a line in his bio, "driven early on by an inexhaustible cultural curiosity ..." My kind of guy! Not that I care much about guys. But you Ladies might enjoy his baby blues glowing at You from www.europagalante.com/fabio_biondi

Weekend is on the way -- a palette of possibilities!

Taking my name in vain?

If you miss a keystroke when attempting to visit Isis, if you type eastcoastdweller.blogpot.com, you reach some kind of Christian merchandising site. Weird. Well, at least it's not porn.

I guess I should be flattered. Well, there are a few delightful people who visit here regularly but I highly doubt that enough folk are beating down my blog-door, eagerly whacking out the keystrokes and missing that little "s," to make that sneaky trick profitable.

Snarky Scotsman!

What is worse than an editor who miscorrects text, introducing an error where no error existed before?

Perhaps a blogger who keeps promising to visit his blog friends and barely follows through?

I did swing by Trisia's bloghouse last night, and Maria's briefly today, but I am still embarassingly behind. And I can't expect visitors here if I never leave Isis, can I? That's an iron rule of blogworld: you have to give to get.

Today, I had to send out a release about a local concert series which would feature the classic works of Aaron Copland. Yes, Copland, not Copeland.But yours truly introduced an "e" into the text that was sent to me, being quite unfamiliar with the family history and the doughty old Scotch immigrant who anglicized the family name from Kaplan to Copland.

A little research would have saved me, but I did not do it. I thought I knew best.

No one has called me on the carpet yet. But the day is still young.

Blog tidying up

Gazing around at this little place I tenderly call Isis, I realize that some corners have grown dusty.

It takes me about a month to go through my entire blog roll, because I like to post comments that are more than mere superficiality, and go beyond the top post, on the blogsites of my friends. These days, some of those friends have moved their original sites and I have to jump through a few hoops to visit them -- that needs to be cleaned up.

This also explains why I don't comment more frequently on some of my favorite blogs.

I realize that I have a few good friends who I have not yet added to the rolls, and need to do so.

With great sorrow, too, I realize that other friends have closed down their blogs or haven't updated them for many, many months, or have not visited here in so long that I realize that we have just drifted apart. Those names will come off the blog roll -- but I will add them back in an instant if they ever visit here again.

I guess everyone has to do that now and then.

Your name on the lips of others, your footsteps in forgotten sand

Have you ever typed your Blog name in a search engine?

Every now and then, I do that with mine, eastcoastdweller.

Mostly, it dredges up my visits to my regular blogfriends. Sometimes it reminds me of blogs that, for whatever reason, I only visited once or twice, long ago, and I think about who I was then and wonder if I should rekindle the friendships.

But the strangest thing is to find your name, your blog, mentioned in places to which you have never been. It happens.

RSVP

443.

As of this moment, that is how many responses have piled up, unanswered, on Isis, to various posts since this blog began.

A great blog is all about conversation and so I have attempted to dig back tonight and post some answers. I've worked out a little system that should help me to do that more efficiently.

Of course, the problem is that when I answer your responses, as good blog buddies, some of you will whack the ball back into my court again -- which, don't get me wrong, is wonderful.

Anonymity, like innocence, never lasts

This week in the world of PR, my employer is facing a certain challenge with which I have to deal. Today, word of this challenge has spread so far that I just fielded an annoying phone call from some radio dj in another part of the state, making fun of our explanation for what we did.

Of course, this is a useless blog-post since I can't get any more specific, although it would be so cathartic to do so. I've blogged long enough now, about enough things, that anybody with the desire to do so could probably figure out exactly who I am and where I live and where I work.

I think that's inevitable if one blogs long enough. If you mention local events, someone can do a newssearch. If you mention what you do for a living, they can narrow down the possibilities of your employer.

And then, repercussions could follow.

Those of us who are grownups might get fired, or depending on our blog content, get cut out of the family inheritance or lose a relationship. For young folk or people living alone, actual physical danger might result.

Blogging Blues

Those of you out there who have been around Isis for a while know that I have on several occassions managed to step on some blog toes. I did it again the other day.

That is the price that one pays for writing a blog that reaches out to other people, that talks about other people and that also attempts -- and sometimes flops -- at humor.

I have set myself a simple rule for blogging. I will be very slow to be offended by what others may say about me. I will recognize that most people, at least the bloggers that I know of (and frankly, who else WOULD write about me?), would never write anything intentionally hurtful about me. And neither do I wish to offend the people whose blogs I visit. Sometimes our words are clumsy. Clumsy, but not malicious.

And if something does seem offensive, I will ask the writer what he or She actually meant. Once we understand each other, we will laugh about it and move on. Neither the writer or the writee, I would hope, would beat themselves up over it. Neither the writer or the writee, I would hope, would question their own intelligence at having miswritten or misunderstood. After all, stupid people don't blog. They're all busy being your boss or driving badly on the freeway.

Brilliant blog friends

I found a new toy on Jessica's blog. It's supposedly a way to rate the reading level required to read someone's blog.

I'm wondering if the thing operates like a fortune cookie or a savvy clairvoyant -- utterly at random or with the desire to flatter.

For Isis got a "genius rating."

Which means, if it is true and not some kind of eenie meenie miney moe thing, that not only should I feel quite smart but so should every one of you who visits and comments here.

Blog friends, beware

I was having so much fun this afternoon reading some of the old posts of a certain new blog friend, that I had a wild idea. I am going to pick out a few of you on my blogroll this weekend, especially some that I haven't visited in a while, and read a couple of your very old posts, but limit myself to replying to posts with zero entries.

Just a silly thing to do. Nothing is sadder than a lonely little post with no friendly comment to comfort it.

Happy Anniversary, Isis

Tomorrow marks one year since I began this blog. I'm jumping the gun by one day to celebrate it because I'm liable to forget the special day if I don't write while it's on my mind.

Adena inspired it, beautiful, brilliant, irreverent, sassy, delightful, profane Adena. I found Her blog in a casual websearch for some topic that I have now long forgotten. I found Her comments fascinating and the best way, of course, to answer them, was to create a blog of my own.

I have met so many intelligent, creative people in the year since my first little post. Some have commented once or twice and slipped away. Others have become close friends.

I thank each and everyone who has visited Isis, especially those who have shared their comments.

I will keep this blog going for possibly forever or at least the next fifty years, unless all the hydrogenated oils and greasy meat that I enjoyed in my youth catch up to me before that time.

Why the title? In my study of the world, I have lingered long in Egyptology. I especially found fascinating the mysterious role ascribed to the Goddess Isis in the development of civilization.

She is largely forgotten today, obscured in the study of mythology by loud-mouth boy buffoons like Odin and Zeus.

Thus She symbolizes what has happened to Women in the course of mortal history.

I am a firm believer in the greatness of Womankind, in Her intelligence, in Her universal beauty. My passion in life is to do what I can to help restore Her to Her proper role -- which is to speak freely, to live freely, to lift up Her lovely head in confidence.

Isis is the Goddess in every Woman, deserving to shine forth in Her full glory.

Blogging woes

How long will this blog last?

I have several webfriends, once fanatic bloggers, who have not posted to their sites in months. I miss them. I wonder if they have tired of the work that is required in keeping a blog going, if they have lost the passion.

Sometimes days, even weeks, go by, when I don't update my blog either.

It's not as if I don't have ideas. I have folders full of clippings and downloads that I find interesting and about which I would like to comment. Things happen everyday that are bloggable.

I suppose I am just lazy.

I have kept a written journal since 1986 -- sometimes writing daily, sometimes slacking off for weeks. I suppose my blog will follow this pattern.

I'm not going to pull the plug. I do enjoy this outlet, very much. And I especially enjoy the responses that you all provide to me, even if I am sometimes negligent or slow in replying.

Hurting feelings

Remember when you were a kid and you grabbed a stick and played swordfight with some friend or a sibling?

Greatest fun in the world, until and unless one of you actually scored a point of pain, jabbing a tender place -- hopefully never an eye. Then the tears and the recriminations erupted.

I love words. I wouldn't be a blogger if I didn't.

But wordplay is swordplay, of a different type.

Every now and then, something that I write is going to jab a tender spot in one of my readers. It's happened four times now, with four different people. Usually, it will be absolutely unintentional. Unless You are a misogynist, a terrorist, a slow driver in the fast lane, an abuser or molester of children, a bigot or a fan of Charles Manson, I probably don't hate you and didn't mean to hurt your feelings.

I hope that we can always understand that. I don't link people whose blogs I don't greatly respect. And I write in sincerity. I believe what I profess to believe.

Another blog idea

Very soon I shall launch another blog, completely different than Isis and FLOW.

I have a collection of very obscure old books -- essays, poetry, etc., that date back to the early 1800s. Gradually, at my own pace, I'm going to transcribe them from their fragile pages, into this new blog. Perhaps they will interest other people, perhaps not.

Random searching turns up a new pearl

I can't officially link Her yet, because I just found Her blog, but this morning I did the random-search thing and stumbled across a jewel -- a fairly new blog but one with a lot of promise.

Imagine a calculus teacher who loves gardening and spiders. That's Rudbeckia (learningcurves.blogspot.com). Chase in particular, being a teacher,too, might like to visit over there.

The world is full of brilliant Women!

Today's blog-peek: Susan

Ms. Susan (Heart in San Francisco) recently theorized that "Saturday Night is Wasted on the Married."

If, upon reading that post, your sides don't hurt or you haven't come dangerously close to wetting your pants or you haven't even chuckled or chortled, let alone snickered, guffawed, belly-laughed, giggled or tee-heed, you might wish to see a pyschologist about your humor-impairment problem.

The picture here is Susan's icon. We're not specifically informed whether She is the one with the gnarly hands or the one with the pretty shoes. I'm betting on the latter.

New concept for this blog

I had an idea this morning, an exciting idea – perhaps fueled in part by my happy mood since Sweetie’s sinus infection appears to be very minor this time. Thank heaven for Advil and the 24-hour Walgreen’s that sold it to me late last night. I’d crawl into hell on my hands and knees or at least make a middle of the night drive for my Goddess’ sake.

This blog exists to celebrate, adore, empower, uplift and rejoice in the magnificence of, Women. Not just magazine models – all Women, for every Woman in the world is beautiful in Her own way, a being of incredible power and potential and worth.

That is why I exist, too, to share this important message, and it is my joy and my passion.

Lovely red-headed Dawn (whose blog I have not visited in a day or two – sorry Dawn, I promise to visit tonight!) has offered me technical guidance in setting up a website that will be dedicated to the above goal, in a way that a blog cannot.

But this blog will continue along with that site. And I had an idea this morning to share the steering wheel.

What if Isis could become a true community where trusted Ladies who visit here often, could have posting privileges alongside me, posting whatever came into Their brilliant minds, plugging Their own delightful blogs shamelessly, adding appropriate links, adding resources that They, as Women, believe are important for other Women?

Can you imagine the cybervoices of possibly hundreds of Women, sharing each other's concerns, offering advice on everything that matters to Women, right here on this little blog?

I am so excited about this idea that I could burst. What do you all think?

A new link

"Chocnut Yek" (Girlstuff) has joined this blog group, and I am honored to make the announcement. She is sassy, smart and confident, writing about odds and ends here and there.

Yek lives in the Phillippines, like Lizza.

Urgent safety questions

The majority of the people who post to this blog are adults. But a few members of this blog community are a little younger. We treat them with the respect that they deserve and I don't believe that any of the regulars in this blog circle would ever seek to hurt them.

However, let me tell you about an experience I had a while ago. I have a youthful friend in Oregon, not a member of this blog circle. Just by knowing Her name and Her town, in all of about five minutes --- and I'm no tech expert -- I was able to Google up a map right to Her front door. Of course, I was just testing out the theory that it could be done -- most computer literate people have heard about such a thing by now. I've done it with myself and even my grandfather. But what if I had been someone else, with dark intentions?

I visited a certain blog recently and someone had filled out a survey there that revealed quite a lot of personal information about themselves. Information that might be useful to a a person of malicious intent.

It got me to thinking -- I would never want anyone in my blog circle -- well, any human being for that matter -- to be hurt, especially by someone who lurked on this blog of mine and then followed it up to somewhere else.

I recently posted a laudatory link to a young writer's work in this blog circle and She received well-deserved applause. But I am questioning my wisdom now in having done that. Have I increased the chances that someone -- not one of you but a lurker, a sick person -- might stalk Her or some such thing? Should I refrain from mentioning any of Her future posts and erase the one that I put up? But if I do, then Her work remains known only to Her immediate friends and people lucky enough to stumble upon Her blog.

What are your thoughts, dear readers?

Death by blogging

The "delirium tremors" have set in. Pink elephants dance before my eyes. But I will add two more fine bloggers to the roll tonight, Melanie and Laura.

Melanie is one of those rare bloggers who keeps more than one blog going at a time. She loves Her camera -- isn't that obvious? -- and Her family and the world of dreams.

Laura Stamps is an accomplished writer and a devotee of the mystic world. She's another who came to my blog first -- and I always appreciate that.

I realize that the gender balance on my blog list is seriously tilted -- can I help it if Women are just better bloggers?