Raining! Must be Fall

Rain this time of year reminds me of when I moved to Seattle on Halloween in 2001. It was, quite literally, a dark and stormy night.
I don't mind the rain so much as the grayness that accompanies it. When I lived in California I actually imagined bad weather was more conducive to good scholarship since there is nothing to do and no desire to go anywhere once it is rainy, cold and/or snowy. Now of course I think my brain works better on sunshine.
Doesn't everyone's work better on sunshine? Winston shares my feelings about rain and snowy--he flatly refuses to endure them unless there's a walk involved and then maybe, maybe he'll go for it.

How come blogger can autosave this post from a webform but I cannot successfully run MS Word on this computer to save my own life?
Maybe the computer is trying to tell me that the days of long-form writing are numbered. Now everything must be distilled into a text message version of itself.
mst wlk dg nw. l8r

Dogs in the Night

Last night from about 3-6am we had the strangest pair of visitors--two loose, lost, sweet, strong pit bulls decided to camp out between our house and our next door neighbor's house. I guess the combined dog scent of four dogs between them attracted these wanderers. They were very sweet dogs and clearly trained, both wearing collars. But they were also "intact" pit bulls, which made us all a little nervous (esp. since the combined weight of our four dogs would probably equal only one of the pit bulls). We tried to find owner info on the tag and couldn't. Our neighbor called the police, who kindly told her that Animal Control didn't have any in until 8am (that seems dumb).
So we endured their romping between porches. They were mostly quiet but our dogs were in a fit over all the commotion and intruders.
I just have to wonder who around here keeps (and presumably breeds?) pit bulls? I hope they made it back home. They were gone by sun-up (which was at like 9am today--or so it felt like it was.)

Meanwhile, today is a writing day with a few late day appointments and a workshop with grad students tonight. I must finish up and then proof this essay and send it to my editors ASAP.

Read All About It!

Remember that show?
Somehow it popped into my mind as I was just cut and pasting together all my various book chapters, segments, bits o' text.
It isn't as long altogether as I had hoped it would be but it isn't hopelessly short either.
Plus it is full of placeholders I need to go back and finish writing that will make the manuscript longer. Anyway I think I might actually have something reasonable to trot out at SCMS this year. That's exciting.
Last night I had a big day at the MFit clinic--I found out that in the past six weeks I lowered my blood pressure a TON!!! Yay for me! I also lost all kinds of inches and pounds but it is the blood pressure that had me worried.
Been busy on my course wikis lately. It's cool to have the students participate in this way.
if i were listening to music today, it would be the new Feist I downloaded, along with some Cake and Ani. Been in an Ani mood of late.
if i had time to read a book for fun it'd be more of the Jane Austen Book Club.
if i got to go to a movie...i'm not sure what i'd see. I'm such a TV Girl. Loved John Cho on Ugly Betty last night. And Christopher Gorham (as always).

Cheeseburgers & Paradise

Despite my last post I really am a foodie at heart. Online I frequent Epicurious, Chowhound, Roadfood and other such places. I like to read food writing, especially's Meredith Brody's for the SF Weekly.
Last night my students and I were discussing the good burgers we knew. I decided a list was in order. In no particular order, here are some of my favorite, platonic-ideal cheeseburgers. (Note, my idea of heaven involves cheeseburgers. and dogs.)
1. Red Mill Burgers--Seattle WA
2. In-n-Out, various west coast (best fast food burger)
3. Fatburger, various (best turkey burger)
4. No Animal Burger, Fred 62, Los Feliz (best veggie)
5. Zingerman's Pimento Cheese Burger, Ann Arbor
6. Ruby Tuesdays (best mini-burger)
7. Chick-In, Ypsilanti (best midwest car hop burger)
8. Burgermaster, Seattle-area (best PNW car hop burger)

On the Care and Feeding of the Self

I'm six weeks into a project that I hope will help me be a better person. It feels kind of funny to type that--I don't mean morally or ethically superior--I mean physically, emotionally, health-wise better. I'm in a Healthy Life Management program (aka Fat Camp) and a Cognitive Behavioral Group for Chronic Insomniacs. I track what I eat, how much I move, how much I sleep (or not) and my emotions about both. It's all a little narcissistic and exhausting at times. But my ultimate goal is to have more agency over the environmental factors that contribute to clinical depression. Since I've been in a major depression for a very long period of time it is important to figure out what I can do about it.
So I eat better, sleep more efficiently, monitor things and generally walk the dogs a lot more.
I feel like the six million dollar woman (and I should, the whole thing seems to cost about as much): we can rebuild her, we have the technology.

But really it is good. For many years now depression has made me its bitch. No amount of drugs or therapy has really changed that so it was time for a new approach. It's funny, in my classes we talk about virtual selves and virtual identities--yet I think those constructs are present for me whether any media or tech is involved or not. Not many of my students know "depression sheila"--or they don't know that they do. And my family doesn't know "scholar sheila." I think I value the people in my life who know my various selves and who value me all the same.

Stuff that Breaks My Heart vol. 309,831

My favorite coffee/donut shop is now in a deal with Starbucks to sell their donuts nationwide.
Top Pot, how could you?

I guess it really is money, not donuts, that makes the world go round.
Above is the Capitol Hill Top Pot, location of many a dissertation writing session back in the day.

listening to: The Mountain Goats, pledge drive is messing up my week

Winston in his new "Wag More, Bark Less" get-up. He should certainly work on the second part of that one. This outfit is being transformed into his halloween look--to be posted at a later date.

what is one's blog-dentity?

so there's all kinds, right? like the Pop Candy woman to Javi to Ohbejuan to pro-blogger types like the Machinist on Salon.
but it seems to me that blogs are about a kind of selective disclosure and cultivated public persona: the academic blogger, the fashion blogger, the gossip blogger turned gossip subject.
and i wonder just how "academic" i am or want to be (here at least). Like maybe i want to blog about representations of bipolar disorder. That's academic (representations of) but also deeply personal to me.
And I don't think it is just a personal=political kind of thing either since the personal is so self-consciously constructed.

Lurking is not a bad word!

Recently someone sent me a digest from a DigiCult listserv in which the users are debating the term "lurk" and its connotations.
I wish someone had asked me about it since I've been thinking and writing on LURK since 1997.
And here's what I think, in a nutshell: lurk, offline=negative social connotation, like Sartre's voyeur or Spike or Angel (vampires) on Buffy.
lurk, online=term from Usenet, appropriate etiquette that can be stretched and used to understand how many websites and online spectacles address computer users. To lurk is not negative or anti-social (necessarily). We all lurk these days but if you are placing the term in conversation with online community or participatory culture, that's another thing and complications arise.
Just don't forget that the online etymology for lurking is different than the OED version.

blogs don't die, they just fade away

So I haven't posted here in roughly, um, a year and a half. maybe I just suck at time management but I've been genuinely busy during these past months--I got married, I worked a whole lot, I got sick with various inconvenent ailments, I went to Seattle, Vancouver, California, Hawaii, California, Pennslyvania, Chicago and other places too. (Note to self: Volcanoes National Park=inspiration for every alien planet film/TV sequence ever.) I swam with sea turtles, moray eels (eek!) and beautiful fishes.

I wrote quite a lot and the book is in a good place lately, smack full of original scholarship and ideas. Am working on interesting stuff.

I took care of our sick dog and watched her die. I found us a new dog and have watched her become part of the family.

I read things great and small: more Anne Lamott, Joan Didion, E.B. White (again). Numerous issues of numerous magazines (current favorites are Blueprint, Everyday Food and that old workhorse In Style, which I always use to explain the culture industry to my classes). And for work: Foucault, Virilio, Jenkins, Chun, McCarthy, Cubitt, Galloway and oh so many more.

So why post again? It's not like I suddenly have more time or am filled with news all of a sudden.
I guess I'm just feeling bloggy thoughts. Things that belong on halfbakery. Or something like that.

Yesterday I heard these philosophers on the radio telling jokes. Here's a good one.
A snail gets robbed by two turtles. The police ask him for a description of the turtles and he replies, "I don't know, it just happened so fast."

harder than it looks

so many things in life turn out to be harder than they seem to be--or harder that one expects them to be. being an adult for instance. or writing. or maintaining a blog. all tough stuff at times. easy to slip out of the habit with such things.
like this blog. weeks pass and i don't have much to say here because i'm busy saying it in other places. teaching, doing service work, it all takes something out of you.
as does the turn to darker, colder, less green weather. lately i've been listening to rilo kiley a lot. there is a great lyric in one song about the "slow fade of love," which goes something like--
"He said the slow fade of love
And its mist might choke you
It's my gradual descent
Into a life I never meant
It's the slow fade of love"
sometimes i think that is what adulthood is all about--a gradual descent into a life i never meant. usually i like being a grown up. but every so often i miss being, oh, say, 27. when i was 27 i had wild hair and loud clothes and fewer responsibilities. and i lived by the ocean and drove my podcar. i was much more interesting then. now i live in the midwest, walk dogs, drive a different car and wear clothes in neutral shades to go with my neutral hair. how i miss my old world sometimes...with all its pain and imperfection.

yet, what else goes on these days? i am in TV-love with Veronica Mars--what an amazing show. wedding planning proceeds at a steady pace. i'm sure we'll figure out the key details eventually. i've been buried in grading for weeks now--not fun. students should learn how to use commas one of these days.

and still...the book. i had a good writing day yesterday. hopefully will have another one today. am getting ready to send stuff to publishers (very intimidating).

what it takes to blog

Lately I've been wondering about what is required to produce a good blog. There is a certain labor--a willingness to spend time in the trenches reading and responding and writing. Javi clearly does this and his blog has launched a fan base. Colin's blog is intricate and clearly in conversation with other bloggers--academic computing types, photography people, arbor-bloggers.
And yet, I wonder where I might find the time to develop good blog habits. It reminds me a bit of when I used to read Usenet some time (was that really 11 years ago?) ago. If one read a group regularly then it was easy to keep up and follow the conversations there. But if one even let a day slip by it would take much, much longer to find the way back.
So is there such a way to be a casual blogger? A reader and writer who sneaks in and out of the blog slipstream at will?

and you thought this would be interesting, right?

all my deepest darkest secrets were revealed long ago. If I were to reveal them anew I'm not certain I'd chose to do so online. Instead I meant this blog to be a place for mostly rambling prewriting. It is a trial-and-error effort.
Just like actual writing.

Yet I find my own personal stuff--the people I care about, places I love, images I want to retain--imprint themselves upon my writing even if I intend it to be academic. Why is this? Why can't I separate the personal from the professional or are those distinctions blurry for a reason?

I think it is interesting that we go along looking for something interesting in other people's lives, no matter how boring they are.

better photos

of the ring and the ring-giver...

now it's real

i know it is blurry but this is my left hand wearing the new ring that Stephen gave me. It comes with a long-term commitment and some kind of ceremony but I am not too worried about those details just yet.
yay for me and Jasper and Winston! Who thought someone would want to marry us, what with the bathroom accidents, barking and constant worrying?!

showtunes = torture

it turns out that traveling is generally more time-consuming and interesting than blogging. perhaps it has an intangible instant gratification that writing a really good post lacks?
July turned into a busy month. Lots of writing, seeing people, crashing a car, getting engaged, etc. i'm hoping that august proves to be less eventful. although next week i have to drive to erie to have dinner with my dad and "hawaiian brother" (only i would go to erie to eat with someone who lives in hawaii.
che sera sera.
or whatever.

am still writing on mobility and gaming and also working on the 70s game console chapter. The esteemed Anne F. thinks I should be sending it to publishers so that is another goal for this month.

Stephen just killed a bat that got into the house, was terrorized by the cats and injured by one cat. i contributed by acting like a lunatic and turning on all the lights and the showtunes digital radio channel from cable.
i mean, if andrew lloyd webber can't disrupt sonar, who can?

left coast

i've been working on my handheld gaming article and also on the 1970s home gaming book chapter.
i've also been getting lots of sun, checking out new places (or new to me) and seeing old friends here in laguna beach and other southern california places.
i'm also trying to get things started for my fall courses and for videogame class too. i may try and get an interview at Blizzard Entertainment, the world of warcraft people. i figure they owe me one boyfriend at the very least.
i think that's about it for this morning. except maybe for a photograph.

back on track

so the blog here has been quiet for good reasons. mainly it is because i moved and, in packing up my worldy belongings (again) and that makes me cry a lot and get completely overwhelmed.
this kind of thing rarely leads to solid writing or research. now i'm enjoying my reward and, as luck would have it, the writing is happening again. i think it is one of those things you have to be careful with and take care of. It is so easy to stop writing and, once stopped, painful to start again. but now, i'm in california--laguna beach--and writing again while looking at the ocean and being in the sun and being near friends. it is amazing how huge a difference those things make.
i began to think that perhaps the reason i find ann arbor unsatisfying is because i don't find it intellectually stimulating. maybe i am not in the right loop there. but i miss art and popular culture and good local radio. and a world that is bright and moving at a brisk clip.
and yes, i feel that energy in orange county and i feel faster, lighter. i breathe more deeply despite the haze and smog. i smell the ocean. and know i'm home.
or in the place that most feels like home even though i don't live here anymore.

and the book progresses at its own pace. but at least its back on pace.

blog politics

I heard a story last night on radio (The World) about censorship and blogs. I guess MSN's blogging service, MSN Space, is complying with Chinese government censors to block blog posts with titles that contain words like freedom, democracy, Taiwan, Falun Gong, etc. Boing Boing has a good article on it (can't believe that Boing Boing is still around!). I think one of the more frightening aspects of this trend, in which corporations like Microsoft and Google cooperate with local governments, is how local "community standards" are impacting the globally published writing that happens on blogs. Who sets those standards? Governments? Does it matter when the government setting the standard is not democratic and its constituents don't have a voice in setting those standards? Besides that, how "smart" is the software that monitors blog posts? Maybe our panoptics are a bit off?

My best flowery windowbox

My best flowery windowbox,
originally uploaded by scmy.