eh, fuck it. i'll keep blogging.
i may choose to edit the content a little more carefully than i previously did, but i'll keep doing this, right here, for a while longer.
i feel exposed, see. it's a little too easy for strangers to google my name and be one click away loads of personal information about me.
i'm sure i was, like, aware of how the internet works when i set this thing up, but i guess i never thought this far ahead. i mean, who knows who reads this? i'm discovering that there are more eyeballs here than i was previously aware of. it feels frighteningly one-sided at times.
so, hello strangers. feel free to introduce yourself. please... i wish you would.
that said, thanks to the commenting non-strangers for your encouragement and concern. you make me feel good.
i had a groovy holiday. i am so in love with my niece that the mere act of typing those words reduces me to tears. i sobbed while tearing myself away from that family at the airport. this little girl is so cute, and she dances like nothing you've ever seen, even when there's no music playing. (5 MB .mov) then there's my brother... one of the finest, funniest, smartest humans on this planet. and his wife -- one phenomenally amazing woman. i envy her spirit, her mind, her creativity... her proximity to my brother and niece.
do you ever feel like you're stuck? like you want to be somewhere else, but you don't know how to get there? i desperately yearn to live closer to my brother's family, but i don't know how to make it happen.
correction: i don't know how to make it happen while retaining what i currently have.
sigh.
i got sick a couple of days before we left north carolina and carried my germs with me, infecting little roxi and my brother upon arrival. then my cousin joy showed up, sick. i have a feeling i probably left some of my virus behind in my wake, too -- i'll bet there are others that probably started sneezing after i left, and i just don't know about it. so, uh, sorry about that, family. and apologies to all of the people on the planes, too. sorry you had to breathe that recirculated, germ-filled air. i tried to hold my breath.
i'm still blowing up a lot of snot, but it's not as bad as it was on christmas eve. i think that was the worst day. 6 of us had just travelled 13 hours, packed together in a minivan, from northern colorado to southern new mexico. we were all initially worried about how 18-month-old roxi would handle the trip, but in the end i was the one who complained the loudest. my head was stuffed up, my throat was dry, i couldn't sleep. i had hoped that the road trip would be a fun, bonding thing for all of us, but for me personally it was miserable. (i do have fond memories of doing a silly little jig for roxi in a disgusting truck stop, but other than that the trip is a blur.)
i'm rambling. you wanted me to keep blogging, you fools!
Posted by xta at January 2, 2006 11:04 PM | TrackBackI'm one of those strangers who reads your blog regularly. I love your stories and writing style, particularly your stories about your wide feet and living in North Carolina. One day (maybe about 2 or 3 months ago) I was looking for sites for wide width shoes and came across your blog. I've been hooked ever since. I love that there's someone else in the world who struggles with finding shoes. But I have one over on you. I wear size 11 wide. Try to find THAT in the stores. I also have family near Wilmington and in the Raleigh/Durham area (I live in Maryland).
I hope that if you ever decide to password protect your blog that you'll allow me to continue reading it. I've missed reading you the past few days. I'm sorry that the Internet has left you feeling overexposed.
I was thinking about starting my own blog this year. Perhaps you can provide some advice for a newbie on how to avoid overexposure on the Net. Take care!
Posted by: Delice at January 3, 2006 9:47 AMif you haven't already, maybe you could set up gvisit for your blog. it tracks the locations of your visitors.
i was startled to discover that many of my regular readers seem to be in India!
Posted by: lisa at January 3, 2006 10:15 AMI, too, am one of your regular visitors who is a complete stranger to you. I thoroughly enjoy reading your writing and I completely understand the heartache of being so far from loved ones. My neices and nephews live in Texas and Washington, yet I live in California and every time I see them it is so much fun yet so sad because I know it will be awhile before I see them again and they will have grown so much.
I can't remeber how I found you, but however it was, I am very happy about it. If you do still decide to password protect this site, I hope you would allow those of us "lurkers" a chance to continue to read.
I'm glad you're going to keep blogging. I would really miss you if you quit!
And I can totally relate to your stuck feeling. It's the 'retaining what you have' that's my problem too. Why can't we talk our families into moving closer to US! Happy New Year!
Posted by: lainey at January 3, 2006 9:03 PMHaving made the leap to password-only blogging this past year (and a whole new pseudonym), I completely understand your feeling of over-exposure. I was feeling over-exposed, and my blog was entirely pseudonymous. Okay, well, I guess in my case the word was "paranoid". But I know what it means to get wigged out by an oddly high number of complete strangers reading your blog. I think a lot of it comes down to the question of audience. I realized that I was basically writing for the same thirty or so people, and at least with a friends-only Livejournal could continue that (and curse myself now for destroying my old hosted blog now I know there are ways that I could have made it password only). But on the other hand, about half of those thirty people started as people I didn't know reading my blog, and then since became friends and/or trusted known readers (including, of course, you!). I do miss the serendipity of encountering cool people reading my blog, but not the inevitable feeling that accompanies that of lots of other totally unknown people reading.
So I guess my advice is simply to think about who you write for, who your audience is, and whether paranoia out-weighs encountering new folks (in my case it did). But if you go for the password, for G-d's sake tell me what it is!
Posted by: htrouser at January 3, 2006 10:39 PMHi, I'm also a semi-stranger that reads your blog. Semi-stranger because I know your brother, and found your blog while looking for stuff on his cute daughter. So feel free to tell your brother to beat me up if I'm stalking you too much!
Posted by: Ed at January 9, 2006 8:18 PM