E-x-c-l-u-s-i-o-n or I never really liked Groucho Marx but sure would want to belong to a club he belonged to

The post below is much more interesting. This is what I call a vanity post. Not a pity party as I’m not pitying me, but was written for me, by me, because I needed and wanted to get it out.

Oh nobody should blog while high on life. Gorgeous day and yes I am weather obsessed.

Saturday it was raining and miserable and I was antsy because I needed to be out walking, pacing the 600 square feet just doesn’t do it, nor does the cute bike machine or the even cuter exercise horsey.

When I was blogging for two blogs, there never was a day that there was an email lull. Was Saturday. Part of me was thinking, nobody loves me, part of me was wondering if Gmail was down, and part of me was delirious with joy

I remembered I had applied someplace about six months ago When I looked at the site it said “submissions are closed.” Now as that had been in late November early December, I assumed that they had made decisions. I shot an email asking why I had been rejected because I was curious.

I’m a writer. Rejections from say, oh Lives in The New York Times that are personalized makes me happy. Rejections that ask me to please please continue to submit make me want to sing.

Do I continue to submit? Hell no, I have this money losing blog and I’m working on my books. But sometimes….

I’m not used to being rejected without a courtesy email. I was curt in my email. This was to a blogging thing.

I didn’t know they hadn’t reviewed my blog yet. And realized later that they had either never gotten my original “application” which answered the questions they asked, or rejected it without letting me know

So I get an email telling me that everybody thinks their blog is special, and my blog has no apparent RSS feed and is hard to navigate. Actually I never tried the navigation function. I Google when I want to find a specific post.

I probably should have the navigation changed and the feed apparent, but those are minor problems that can be taken care of.

Courting Destiny is content driven and I’m damn proud of the content. Nobody has to tell me that Courting is a class act. I understand that quality is subjective. It can never be quantified. It’s a lot like love. Liking or disliking a person’s writing is very personal.

I had many problems my first two years with comments. But I learned that you can and should delete. End of problem for me.

I’m not saying I have the greatest blog in the world. Just because it’s gotten mainstream publicity and is taught in a University in England, I honestly never thought I was better than. I wanted other bloggers to get publicity also.

Blogging has been the first time when I didn’t excel in team play, except in all sports of course. Courting really is the first thing I have ever done that’s all about me, for me.

I like the feeling. I see it beginning to translate to real life. I’m no longer a doormat or obnoxiously apologetic or feel I want something for me, but other people deserve it more. This is all new so I backslide.

But I no longer feel the anger that I felt because I had problems that couldn’t be named and thus wasn’t living up to my potential. Because I lived up to much more than many people’s potential, and have reached a point in life where I can live up to my own.

Back to the thing I applied to. I was irksome in my email asking why I had been rejected. It would be impossible to save me in comment threads. Funny but I remember the days of being saved and saving others. I excel at the save.

I don’t moderate comments.

How can I be about building blogging communities when I don’t moderate my own comments? Many of you know I was crazed on this subject and drove people crazy in blog posts.

According to this person, people were trying to have a dialogue with me and I wasn’t responding.

I answer all comments on the assumption that people want their blog read and want comments on their blog. Call me crazy but I think commenting is more important than moderating when it comes to my blog.

And I spent more than a few weekends at home moderating marathon political political comments. The entire month I was on Grand Jury, I had an intense dialogue going with a Reverend who finally told me that nothing I said mattered because I’m a moral relativist.

That’s when I learned what one is, and have been using the term ever since because I love being a moral relativist. Evil. I’m pure evil. I am a moral relativist.

I think I know more than many bloggers about building blogging communities. Actually I was obsessed with the notion because at heart I’m an urban anthropologist/sociologist and love the concept of actually watching communities begin, grow, thrive, fall apart, whatever.

In real life we don’t get to see this both up close and from a distance. I do have the urban studies/social work background so I even could speak in jargon if I chose.

Yesterday I had a perfect day that I won’t share in interest of length.

I truly thought that I was in a good mood when I went to sleep. But I had weird dreams. They were very fast silent movies. I’m not a silent movie person. There were people in black & white stripe clothes with caps, and things moved very fast. Don’t really remember details of the dream.

But the characters were holding signs as they danced and sang silently. Remember that because a part of me was saying they can’t sing in silent movies.

The signs said:
Exclusion.
Yes we
excluded her.

She’s not up
to
standard.

Throw her off
the
assembly line.

Let her find
her way, she’s
not
up to
STANDARDS!!

EXCLUDE HER FROM
ALL GROUP
ACTIVITIES

SHE FAILS IN
BLOGGING
REFUSES TO
MODERATE COMMENTS

CAN’T HAVE HER
IN THE
BLOGOSPHERE

NO ROOM FOR
INDIVIDUALS
OBVIOUSLY LACKING
IN
SOCIAL SKILLS

EXCLUDE HER

Voice from chorus
Shouldn’t we kill her?

Entire chorus
EXCLUSION IS PUNISHMENT
SHE THINKS
SHE NEEDS NOBODY
SHE
NEEDS US, BUT
WE’RE GOING
TO
CAST HER TO THE
STONES, LET HER
MULL TRUE
LONLINESS

SHE’S JUST NOT
A TEAM
PLAYER

NO, NOT HER.

EXCLUDE
HER, YES THAT’S
A GREAT
ANSWER
EXCLUDE HER, YES!

Then I woke up in a totally foul mood, but did some errands necessary for life, had a mani/pedi, bought shoes, and walked.

Hey you can’t keep this blogger down. I had been thinking that I’m failing in blogging because I don’t moderate comments but to quote a blogger who has written extensively on blogging, it’s a new medium and can be anything a blogger wants it to be.

It’s the performance art of the millennium.

Yes I have written those things, and believe them to be true.

Everybody thinks their blog is special. Everybody deserves to be treated with respect when they applied to something six months ago and haven’t heard. Six months is a long time in blogging years.

I love other peoples comment moderation. I love belonging to groups. Sometimes. But when it comes to blogging, I think I will go down the solitary lane because there are so many bloggers I can email for support.

I’m just not comment driven. Communities are something else. To understand that is to understand much. The best blogging communities I know are bloggers who just find each other and form blogging or real life friendships or both.

It does upset me to be called “irksome” and to be told that I’m not socially adequate for a blogging community. If they knew me and said that…..

I don’t do twitter, am trying to unjoin myblogalog because the avatars on blog annoys me, and don’t have del.i.cous and other book marks on my site. Figure if people want they can find my blog easily.

I really only care that the content shows, and the load time is fast. Don’t have recent comments on the sidebar, don’t have anything that will distract from the content.

Cos damn, I can be worth it.

The last time I claimed to be a poet I was eighteen and trying to impress a real poet. He married me anyway.

Actually I would have declined membership as I don’t have the time and believe that if you join something, you have a responsibility to it.

That said I can’t help but be a bit irked.

All my jobs entailed assessing strengths and weaknesses. Most involved hiring and firing. Had I ever said any of the things said in the emails the word “lawsuit” would have been brought up.

Blogging isn’t the real world. It is a chance to make strong better communities that take the best things from the real world and expand or subtract, and find a workable new world.

I do feel very judged and judged unfairly.