Yeah. It's Still Me.

Consider it a part of the general redesign and fluffing of my life right now.  I just wanted something different.  It may look different again tomorrow.  I make you no promises.

Another Milestone

I also think it's worth mentioning briefly that the last post I did was my 1600 post.  I cannot believe that I have had 1600 things to say.  Maybe I shouldn't have?  (And you may heartily agree with that, too, depending on how often you read here.)  It will undoubtedly be a long time before I hit 2000, but I have at least reached the same number of posts as the year in which Shakespeare started working on Hamlet.  (See?  I can get him in ANYWHERE, whether it seems he's germane to the conversation or not.  Hamlet.  Relevant to EVERYTHING.)

Yeah.

Back to my books.

Well....That Was....Unexpected

I'm in the last phases of cleaning out all the things in my grading folder to close out grades tonight, and as I shifted the papers around, I found a typed essay with JUST READ IT!!! on the top mixed in with other assignments.

Puzzled, I glanced at the title, "The Hollow Woman."  Then my blood absolutely froze in my veins.  If you're paying attention to all the players and points around here, then you will know that was the title of a blog of mine early in September.

Once I started to breathe again, I started to read.  One of my students has taken the structure and even some of the words of that entry and sort of....written back to me.  I had to read it twice because my brain stopped working the first time through when I realized whole phrases had been lifted from my own writing.

It's not signed, or rather the typed signature reads only "Anonymous," so I have no idea where it came from.  It's a personal thing, the content of which I won't share here.  Someone perhaps connected to what I was saying in that blog and wanted me to know it.

I am torn between two emotions:  compassion and a wariness that I can't quite shake.  The last time current students of mine found my blog, a couple of really bad things happened.  This doesn't feel like that, though.  And those students weren't writing back, either.

I'm going to take it on faith, then, that this is just somebody who wanted me to hear their response, to know they were listening.  I am going to say, "Likewise."  I hear what you're saying.  I'm sorry it took me so long to find it.  And despite what you may believe, I am sure that nothing in your past would possibly keep you from whatever future you desire.

Get Your Language....Here

I just added the Google Translate dropdown menu gadget to the blog.  It will put all the wonder that is here into  50 or more different languages.  Knock yourself out.  I know this makes your life complete now.  You're welcome.

I Has Been Quoted

I noticed a sudden surge of hits to the post about the Birmingham Museum of Art, and I got curious.  It seemed they were coming from Facebook of all places.  (No.  I can't track you.  I'm not the Government.  And hi, Government.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.  Move along.  I can, however, see where my visitors come from through Feedjit, scrolling down the bottom of the page to the right...)  Anyhoo, I started wondering if maybe there was some connection between the flood (more like tidal wave for me here in my quiet corner of the e-verse) and the museum, so I looked on their FB page.  Look what I found!  Awww.  Isn't this sweet?  Much love to them for the link.  They're fabulous.  People should give them gold by the boatload.  They're absolutely worth it.

Riveting Statistics

I just opened up my Last.FM page and looked at some of the statistics there. I never remember to go to the page with all that stuff they keep track of.  I don't know why.  I suppose I could take advantage of it somehow, but well, I just never think about it.  They track my "top songs" and "top artists" by week, month, year, of all time, etc.  That's kind of interesting, I guess, to see how my listening trends change over the course of time.  The "scrobbler" doesn't work all the time since frequently it's blocked by a firewall at school when I'm working in my room and listening, so I'm not sure these are entirely accurate, but I suppose proportionally, they are representative.  According to their record-keeping, my top ten artists of all-time are:

1) Josh Ritter
2) The Black Keys
3) The White Stripes
4) Maroon5
5) Calexico
6) Wilco
7) The Tallest Man on Earth
8) Bob Dylan
9) Pink Floyd
10) The Rolling Stones

This, of course, is based on number of plays.  I am profoundly surprised not to see Ella Fitzgerald or Chris Thile/Punch Brothers in my Top Ten.  (I just clicked "more" to see who else made the big list, and Thile is 11.  Fitzgerald is 20.  Who knew?  If Punch Brothers and Thile were combined, they'd be at number 4....)  I guess I listen differently than I think I do.  For some reason, I didn't perceive the White Stripes to be that high up my list.  Either that, or they are in EVERY SINGLE PLAYLIST I've ever made.  Heh.  Jack would be so proud.

Looking at this list, another thing strikes me.  F, if you're reading this, you probably have noticed that your little fingers are all over this.  I would imagine that you are especially amused by number eight.  Yeahwell.  So be it.  Nobody has managed to convert me to James Taylor yet.  On that point I hold resolute.

I never think about having true "favorites," so it's a bit odd to see these as a top ten list.  It depends entirely on my mood and current kick or obsession as to what I listen to.  I could just as easily swing into a country kick tomorrow and listen to nothing but Patsy Cline and George Strait for the next six months.  I wonder what my top ten list would look like then.  Hmm.

And now, I have to get back to listening to more stuff.    Maybe I'll look at Last.FM in another six months or so and see if anybody else has edged out these.  If I think about it again.  Maybe.  Because I know you'll be on the edge of your seat waiting.

Comment

I checked in on the old blog this morning, and lo, there upon my dashboard, there in shades of orange was the indicator that I had a comment!  My blog got a comment!  I clicked upon it with a bit of trepidation....  Was it my old friend AC?  Had some heretofore unknown entity liked what I'd written?  Hated it? Was there a kindred soul out there yearning to commune? (excuse the hyperbole, I'm still having my first Diet Mountain Dew of the day.)   I get very little feedback here.  I'm usually just tossing this stuff off into the void, and even though I'm okay with that, the thought of actual interaction made little writer's heart nervously quiver.....  (okay.  it got away from me again.  I'm working on it.  I'm working on it.)

Yeah. You guessed it.  Spam.  BOO.

Well, there's a button for that, isn't there?

O_o

New Blogger Interface

Okay.  Blogger CHANGED.  O_o  I mean a LOT.  It's okay.  I'm getting used to it.  This is a Google groove, and I like teh Goog.  I just have to find everything again.  The new interface is very clean and stripped down, so points there.  It just takes a minute to feel like it's still my blog.  I'm sure I will still be filling it up with the same old crap, and I doubt any of you are noticing visible changes on your end, so I'll get used to it here soon enough.  Wow.  Welcome to the new.

10.000

I just noticed that my hit counter has reached 10,000 (at least in its current incarnation).  Auspicious.  Thank you, whoever you are, for bothering to stop by.  I know most of you are here for the Beowulf's Boast or because Google dumped you here by mistake, but anyway, thanks.

Tumblr

I just realized that I've had my Tumblr for a little more than six months now.  I was looking back through my archive and noticing certain trends.  I really like the archive feature of it for that, for a way to notice how my interest in some things comes and goes, how my interest in many things stays constant, what a massive freaking geek I am.  I'm posting a link to the archive here if you'd like to go take a look at it, too, even though the most recent posts are always streaming along the side of this blog.  I know you're just "eat up" with care, but, hey, there are pictures, moving images, and MUSIC over on Tumblr..... (just sayin')

Hat Off (Hiatus)

I wish I could be clever for you, or witty, or silly, or whatever it is that you've come to expect of me, but right now, that just isn't happening.  You will probably see a slight absence here.  This blog is a bit tidal, anyway, and I've been going strong for me this year.  I need to take a little bit of time right now and get my head back together about something.  It's not the sort of thing that makes good reading, actually, if anything that I ever write does, so I beg your polite indulgence. Rather than say something trivial in an uninteresting way, I'm going to choose to say nothing instead.  I'm sure I will crop up with the horrifying, the amusing, or at least an item worth running your eyes over sooner rather than later, but rather than bore you with this piddling little existential crisis, I will simply take my jingly cap off and do some silent soft shoe on the edge of this abyss where it will annoy no one.

Tumblr Again

I've added the RSS Feed from my Tumblr, A Perpetual State of Wonder, to this blog.  Now you can get all your Wheaties in one quick one-stop shopping trip.  (Well, if you're exceptionally geekish, that is, or interested in books or Doctor Who or Star Wars or fountain pens or quotes or the Beatles or whatever else happens to be drifting through my Tumblr obsessions at the time....Caveat Emptor.  Don't say you weren't warned.)

Musing

I should be grading.

Instead, I stopped a moment to check in on the electronic universe I'm addicted to fascinated with.  I think after the kind of day/week/month I've had lately, I can take five minutes, right?

I've got Sara Tavares playing in the background, and she always makes me ponder.  Her voice is just something beyond. I've blogged my fascination with her before.  You can search for the entry if you like.  If you haven't heard her, proceed to Grooveshark with all due speed and take a listen to Balance.  It's the one I've got spinning now (if things on iTunes can said to "spin"...my age is showing with my choice of verbs, I suspect). 

Anyway, this isn't what I'm musing over.  I was just looking at this odd mishmash of stuff I have here on the blog: fountain pens and pottery jesters; lunar insanity and crushing despair; road trips and tripping down stairs; flights of fantasy and random nightmares; and I wonder who in the world comes on these disjointed little rambles with me and why.

I know why I'm here.  I write this thing to clear the noise out of my head, to put all the broken pieces on the table and shuffle them around until a pattern appears.  It has always worked better for me; I've always been more faithful to this than to a paper-and-pen journal.  Of course, there are things I cannot say here, certain things I have to code or shield since I'm doing this little soft-shoe in front of a live studio audience....but maybe that's not a bad thing, either.  Maybe the presence of somebody in beyond the footlights keeps me more honest, more thoughtful about what's falling out of my keyboard than I might be otherwise.  Nobody likes to turn out a bad performance, after all, not in front of a paying crowd.....

The sea of essays calls to me.  My five minutes are up, and this particular little frolic has to come to an end.  I'm going to tuck up the corners of my curiosity, fold it neatly, and slide it back in the drawer until there's time for it again.  But as I pick up the pen and turn to the task at hand, I have to admit that on some level I'm still wondering.....

Optimized for the Mobile World

If you're on a mobile device and everything is suddenly stripped down and you're thinking, What the...yeah, you're in the right place.  Blogger now allows me to optimize this for mobile viewers.  Now you can view my sage ramblings on your iBerries with greater ease.  Or, if you like squinting at the dangerous sheep, you can click at the bottom and look at the regular web view instead....Everybody else, carry on.

Landmark

The Fool's Cap Map of the World

This is my one-thousand-and-first post.  The landmark event slipped up on me without my realizing it.  I feel that I should have done something to mark the occasion, swept up the dust in the corners, polished the brass a bit, should have put on my dress motley and my good cap at least.  For six years and a thousand posts now, I've been using this little corner of the electronic universe as a safeguard for my admittedly dubious sanity.  For everyone who comes along on this wild and whirling tour, even if it's only to see what happens when all the wheels finally do come off, I can but say thank you.  It's been a good place to dance.

Duh

Just took down a post, so if you're looking for it, you're not nuts.  I am.  I reposted a poem I had already put up back in October.  How silly of me.  I can't believe the mental gearings are so stripped out that I can't even remember what I've already put here and haven't. 

Well. 

Yeah, actually, maybe I can. Crap.  My brain is turning into mush.

Anyway, the poem definitely wasn't good enough to be up twice despite the fact that there were some significant revisions to it.  I won't inflict it on my "readership" (and yeah, I'm lacing that with heavy irony, would you rather I call you a captive audience or a mercy mission?) more than once.  Sorry, world.  I will strive to be more interesting.  Only....My motley is a little faded and worn just now, and I think most of the bells have fallen off my cap while I was busy with other stuff.....

Reading Fool

I found this, and it just struck me as perfect for me.  My personal ex libris is a reading fool, more ornate than this one, sitting in a library with his shoes off and his feet up enjoying a moment away from his duties entertaining the rest of the world with a book.  I love the detail and the color of this little guy, too.  I might make him the new icon for the blog, but I would sort of hate to lose the picture of the Black Fool from King Lear at the top.....

Tumblr

After a long time ignoring it or just not having time to play with it, I started an account on Tumblr.  I really like it.  I can post things there fast, the little pictures and snippets that I normally like to share on FaceBook.  I have decided to stop putting those things up on FB so much.  I feel as though I am probably bothering people with them on FB, know for a fact that some people have "unfriended" me because I am an avid sharer of the silliness and sublimity that I find in the world around me. 

It's okay.  I am...an acquired taste, I suppose.  That's probably the most polite way to say it.  Here, I can create my own bizarre little corner of the universe, and it will offend no one.  If people want to see the things I've been putting up, they can look in on my Tumblr page when it suits them.  My FB account is going to be getting much quieter, though.  I will be picking up with Twitter more, Tumblr more.  Just lately, I've come to feel very odd about FB for some reason.  Maybe I'm just going through a burnout phase with it.

Anyway, if you're one of the folks who does enjoy the random nonsense I indulge in on FB and you'd like my Tumblr address, let me know.  I'm not posting it here.  It was already on FB, and I think I tweeted it, perhaps. I will be happy to send it to you privately, as well.

Appropriate, I Thought

Yeah.  You're in the right place.  Still me, jangly cap with the bells intact.  I get tired of things quickly as far as blog decorative details.  I finally found a blog template I can honestly say that I like, though.  It feels appropriate for me.  It's the closest I've come to one I think I'll keep.  I just wish the body was dark.  I like light print on a dark background.  If I were enterprising, I might be able to tweak it and get that effect, but right now, I'm going to leave it as is.

With regret, I also got rid of my Japanese bell.  I love my funin, but I got tired of the sound and of having to cut the sound off every time I came to the site.  If you found it restful, I apologize for it going away.  I just needed a change.  I still have my real ones hanging around the house and outside, but the one on the blog ultimately got on my nerves.

Oh.  And beware the sheep at the bottom.....

A Query

Somebody I know told me today that she'd left a comment on my blog recently.  The only comments that have shown up here are the ones that have been left by my Chinese Porno Spam buddies. (Oh, they're persistent.  Foolishly so, considering I just delete them out of hand whenever I see kanji and links...)  Her comment did make me wonder, though, if I am somehow missing other comments from legitimate blog correspondents.  Maybe if you wrote something and you thought I'd write back here, you might write me again?  Or email me?  Most of the time I assume nobody is listening, and that's fine, but I'd hate for you to have wanted to say something to me, and it have gotten lost in the great beyond....