I have been very hyper all day which is why I wrote the three posts contained in here. On Tuesday or Wednesday, I was talking to he who has play a zillion roles in my life. He said:
“You sound sick.”
I of course had to tell him that he’s been saying that forever. He doesn’t mean physically, and it was his version of a term of endearment. I always knew that. Come from a family….
I’m constantly reminding him in very subtle ways that once he was nineteen and made me fall in love with him because he looked like the Byronic ideal I had been dreaming about since I could dream about boys, and was the funniest boy I had ever met.
Funny; OK, he spent half his time making fun of me and I thought it was hysterical. I learned to give better than I got.
“No, you sound sick. Your voice sounds husky.”
Then I realized that my sinuses were clogged, my throat hurt, and while I wrote and revised a chapter and a half the week before had basically stared into the computer monitor most of this week. It’s a very nice monitor and my photos look their best on a 20″ Imac slide show, but I had plans.
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Somebody recently asked me if Googling and possibly getting in touch with exes is acceptable. Depends on the ex.
He-who and I had remained in contact until the List One of his friends had a radio show and would talk about my friend__, and his family and friends. My parents listened to that show, and the names seemed awfully familiar. They finally asked me, and yes it was, but I let my parents listen and tell me the news. I hate talk on radio.
The years went by. Google came out. I was the first person I knew to see its inherent possibilities regarding significant exes.
I found out that Zachary had died while exercising his Second Amendment rights. Always amazed me when my father would argue for strict gun control laws and Zachary for none. Zachary was from New Orleans and my very foreign policy Conservative Dad was into all the right, individual rights.
I felt tremendous gulit over Zachary. He-Who is in the media so I had been seeing his name on and in articles, mastheads, books and such. We had been out of touch for about eight years. I knew where I could email him though I didn’t know his email address.
Brilliantly and correctly I assumed his name would be on it. I was very nervous, and wrote something about how “if you don’t respond, I understand,” etc. etc. He called.
“Are you kidding? My mother gives my phone number to everybody and you’re…you, I thought you
were going to stay in touch with my mother.”
Nothing like inspiring some guilt in me…. I think the world of his mother, but she’s his mommy.
Because I Googled him and sent that email, I ended up with my quasi dream job, he’s gotten some things out of it, and we’re friends as we always were and were meant to be. We do respect boundaries and that’s very important.
i have other exes I have found on Google, but wouldn’t get in touch with, because we don’t have that firm foundation. And I have no desire to get in touch with them anyway.
I have been thinking of exes in terms of seasons and He-Who and I are like Fall and Spring. Much blustery and/or rainy weather, but the temperature isn’t hot and steamy, and no big cold snaps.
I so wish Zachary, who was the hottest, closest, muggiest of July days, in Midtown Manhattan or in the Delta, was alive because I do, and when I listen to Steve Earle I can’t help but think this would have been Zachary’s time.
Personally I think he’s better than Earle and am very glad that he’s in the permanent collection of The Smithsonian. It makes me laugh to think he’s a building or so away from Archie Bunker’s chair. Way fitting.
With today’s meds, he might have had his bipolar disorder under control. Most people would have been more understanding. It was called manic depression when we were together and I was with him constanly. I would have been able to see had I been less involved. Lucia and I tried writing a country song about Zachary and my relationship for years. We wrote two lines:
“six months of heaven
two years of hell”
I never claimed to be a poet. Though I wanted to be one.
Those July days are my favorite of the year, but only if near the ocean, sound, Great South Bay, or five steps from the Hudson.
I really need a name for He-Who. It’s either going to be Noah or Ethan. The one after Zachary will be AJ. He was like hot July nights and late summer going into fall breezes from the Hudson when you can even smell the salt.
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Lisa Sabin Wilson designed Courting. She just finished, I believe, WordPress for Dummies a book I personally can’t wait to read. I’m a bit in love with her husband, Chris, because even when he’s not directly talking about her, his love for Lisa shines through. It’s a very cool trick 
I am going to keep the Courting Pinup, nothing could be so iconic. Thanks, Cooper, Wombat, Jacob–each of you had lovely words and great points. Bone, I’m having Courting paper dolls made. I am keeping comments. That was being sick talking. They can be the best part of a post.
Originally it was going to be a minor face lift to declutter the sidebars. But I have been thinking and have some questions. Oh, it will remain pink, that’s not up for debate. I also love deco, hence the font, however….
The Courting pinup: If you have anything positive or negative to say about it, please do.
Comments: I have watched comments go from interesting to people acting like carnival barkers. They are a form or validation or a form of hate expression. But I see blogs where a person answers each comment. People look at the blog and think “it must be important.”
I don’t moderate my comments for a number of reasons. Basically Courting’s about self-expression, my self-expression. I don’t ever want people to think that they must comment, or have to come back to the same post over and over again. At the same time all my close blogging friends do get many comments, and comments can be the one thing in my life I feel jealousy over. It’s irrational and I know that.
If some people got book contracts tomorrow I would feel a bit sad, but I would really feel happy for them. I know this as it has happened throughout my life. When somebody close to me did write a New York Times best seller, several years ago I practiced walking through book stores for weeks before it came out. I knew it would get front of the store placement as I asked. I found myself amazingly happy, and not jealous at all.
Book deals are a crap shoot at best, and I was glad to see somebody I know well “win.”
I do get many more comments in pages, and would hate for people not to be able to rant about Allied Interstate.
But I want Courting to be a more literary blog. I’m in this for the writing. I enjoy reading other peoples blogs and don’t always want to leave a comment.
Comments can provide invaluable feedback. I do delete comments that say nothing about the post, though I read the blog first and if I like it, leave a comment. I thought that was the correct thing to do.
If I read a blog for the first time and leave a comment, if the first comment isn’t returned, I always wonder why. Did the person hate my blog? Do they feel more important? Is their time so valuable that they can’t be bothered?
Hey, most people wonder these things.
I understand that most bloggers have never seen their blog taken over by commenters who question their morals and their sanity among other things. While those experiences stopped quite awhile ago, they’re beginning to make me self-conscious about what I write now.
I’m also aware that anything a blogger writes can be distorted by other bloggers and found at your nearest search engine. Actually search engines themselves can seem to distort a post. I wrote: Hate being adopted? Talk about it somewhere else. It’s one out of over a million “hate being adopted,” phrases on Google. It’s one of my personal favorite posts, and I made it into a page that doesn’t get comments but is read. It is surreal to see so much of my own life out of context on Google.
These experiences don’t make a person ready for bad reviews. Reviews are subjective, and are based on content, not morals or design. People who review blogs without the consent of the blogger aren’t playing fair.
That wasn’t really off the subject of comments, just an observation that if people want to badly enough they will find a way to comment. While I’m at it, if you’re going to quote me, even to distort my post, link me so that I know. It’s really not fair any other way.
So my second question is when I have my blog re-designed, should I keep comments or not?
I will of course keep all the ones that are in Courting up until then.
The color pink and whether or not you like or hate my writing isn’t up for discussion. Everything about the design and comments are. I ask these questions because I’m confused, and have been thinking about putting Courting on hiatus.
I’m very obsessive and think about my blog too much. I would rather think about almost anything else. It’s 55 degrees and the sun just came out. As the sun rules my life, I’m out of here.
Oh, if you like my writing you can state so. I have heard all the complaints about it, so please don’t tell me I whine, my posts are too long, I’m non-linear, and more. Then again if that makes you happy….
Pia, I am going to shoot you off an email sometime today.
I am writing a post about my blog and the design but, won’t get it off today due to just getting back from an interview etc etc but I’ll send you an email with my opinion.It would be too long here.
Comments are debatable but I think turning them off all the time would be problematic unless you really did not want feedback and were must going to write.
There is a think called crazy egg you can have put into your template very easily and if you leave it in a couple days it will tell you where the hot spots are in your blog and help in redesign.
No,no, the comments can’t go.
I think simple is better.
I read a lot of blogs, I comment on very few.
I know for one thing that I wouldn’t still be blogging if not for the comments.
Of course I don’t get the noise either.
If you do take down the pinup I think there should be something equally iconic to replace it.
just my $.02
Glad you’re staying with the pepto. There’s not a lot of pink in the blogosphere. I find it soothing
Could you make the pin-up like a Barbie? Where you could dress her in whatever you like, whatever mood you were in? I think that’d be neat.
By the way, I’ve always wondered. What is she sitting on? Is that like a lily pad or something? I’ve never been able to figure that out.
The pinup means Pia. So, Google means nothing is forever?
Cooper thanks for the suggestions. I think they are worthy
EW–the comments and the pinup will stay, though I hope smaller. I want the focus to be on the content
Jacob that means a lot. Thank you
Bone, paper dolls that I will send you and demand a picture of–you playing with, with other people in the room
I believe she’s sitting on a pulp version of a vanity but she can be sitting on whatever you want it to be with some restrictions
Doug–Google means nothing is forever but everything stays somewhere in the Googlesphere
Glad you are keeping the pinup. I like your comment about the wisdom of googling and contecting ex’s–”depends on the ex”
Googling for exes can be awkward. At least I find it so because I seem to be the ex everyone wants to google for.
I haven’t had a fiscal quarter go by without someone emailing me or commenting on my blog. I keep in touch with the people I want and, though it sounds cruel, walk away from the people I want to avoid. This is usually the case with exes.
I can’t say it’s all bad, though. I have gotten back in touch with one person that I care for very much and with whom I had lost contact.
Here’s to ambivalence.