two sentences

A while back, I came across the online journal of Bob Zangas, a Marine reservist who had already served a five-month tour in Iraq when he volunteered to return as a civilian to help train Iraqis in the technology they needed to become journalists. I liked his journal, which had interesting detailed descriptions of his daily life that included his personal thoughts, lots of photos.

While surfing for publishing news yesterday, I was shocked to come across a week-old article containing the following: "Blogger Bob Zangas, 41, Marine Reservist and father of three, has been killed in an ambush outside Baghdad. His funeral is today in Pittsburgh."

People die every day in the news, and I did not know the man. But from reading his online journal, I knew that he played guitar and sang, liked to run, adored soft ice cream, and other small details about him that turned those two sentences into something more personal. According to his sister, Bob was supposed to come home in June.

From Bob's final entry:

"I know it is not my money that I am giving away and I am not interested in receiving thanks. But it points out to the fact that this is a society that is in desperate need of everything. It is like pouring a cup of water out in a dry desert. The water disappears and you are left with the feeling of 'did it do any good?' Sometimes the answer is 'yes.' Sometimes the answer is 'no.' Sometimes you wait for the flower to grow. I donít mean to sound depressed because I am not. I am enjoying this work immensely. It is very gratifyingÖas long as the flowers grow eventually. I have hope that they will."

March 2004 comments: Read | Post | LJ

poll: online journals

World's Cutest Urban Tapestry Fan
The Suttons' grandson wearing an Urban Tapestry
" Sushi and High tea" t-shirt. Cuuute! :-)


I've been posting Blatherings for about seven years now. Some years, I've only posted a few times a month, others I've posted daily. I have found the archives useful from time to time when I want to look up information like the date of a particular event, or the name of someone I met once years ago at a convention.

I don't post Everything in my journal, though I'm sure some people assume I do. It surprises me how many people assume that an online journal is an accurate reflection of what goes on in someone's life. It may be the case for some people, but unless the author makes a habit of posting frank and personal updates constantly throughout the day, every day, a lot of life complexity is going to be filtered out.

I've never been a huge fan of overly-detailed journals which focus exclusively on external micro-events (e.g. "I woke up at 6:12 a.m. and I had breakfast and then my cat hacked up a hairball as big as my head and then I cut my toenails and called my friend Sophia and then I read the newspaper..." etc.) unless they are unusually well-written or include interesting descriptions of food. :-)

Then again, it surprises me what some people do post in their journals with the false assumption of privacy. I always assume that anyone I write about will eventually find out what I have written, even if the page is password-protected or a "locked entry" ( here's an example of one Livejournal user whose so-called locked entries were reposted as public entries).

I originally began Blatherings to keep in touch with distant friends, but have since come to prefer more traditional methods for maintaining contact with friends. From my Web statistics and private e-mail messages, it's clear to me that far more people lurk than post comments. Which is fine, of course. I tend to do that as well, these days more because of physical limitations.

I can't claim I post entirely for myself; if that was the case, then why not keep a completely private journal? With an audience in mind, I post for different reasons, including: venting, writing exercise, summarizing an event for my own archives, self-therapy, and creativity inspiration. And sometimes out of curiosity or research for a potential article (I promise not to use any real names or post URLs without permission)... hence the following survey.

Questions for all those who have online journals of one sort or another...

How long have you been posting?
Why did you start your journal?
Are you basically happy with it?
(Is it achieving what you had originally hoped?)

Feel free to answer in your own online journal instead of the message board, but please do post a URL so I can find your entry.

March 2004 comments: Read | Post | Livejournal

booklust

My friend Parki at the cottage.


I've been doing a lot more reading lately.

Read Valley Of The Horses by Jean Auel in two days, also finished Timeline yesterday. Was about to eagerly head off to buy the next book in the Auel series when I realized that if I keep up this reading pace, I'm going to run out of room to store my books as well as spending a lot of money on books I likely will not read more than once.

It was, after all, the desperate need for more office space that motivated me to move huge piles of my books to be packed up and stored; doing this after an evening of repetitive mouse work was what set off my original tendinitis last March. The books I had been moving are still sitting, like guilty vandals, in one corner of our living room because we have no more room in our storage locker. As for the locker, it is already bursting with boxes of books and bike gear and snowshoes and a plethora of perturbing knickknacks. The locker needs a thorough purge, of course, but Jeff has been too busy with work and I haven't had a set of properly working arms for a year.



I took this photo of a cottage sunrise
one misty morning a few years ago.


Storage space is one of the main reasons we may eventually move into a house. We need more bookshelves! I hate throwing out books. Okay, I hate throwing out anything, but especially books. I would make a terrible bookstore owner because every sale would be somewhat traumatic ("arg! you can't take my last copy of Freddy The Detective!"), and it would give me too much of an excuse to accumulate more books.

Anyway, I decided to turn to the Toronto Public Library. I don't use libraries nearly as much as I should, I'm ashamed to say, especially since several of my friends are librarians and my sister designed the Toronto public library card for young patrons. In any case, I've put a bunch of books on hold, including the next two Jean Auel books as well as Wrapt In Crystal by Sharon Shinn (thanks to Lissa for the recommendation!). If I like any of them enough to read more than once, I will buy it.



This photo was taken a few minutes earlier. Amazing how
quickly the light changes, and how completely it
alters the feel of the lake.


More hints re: mystery filker photos from yesterday:

Photo #1: she has been nominated for several Pegasus awards, plays penny whistle and guitar, some harp (possibly other instruments I don't know about).

Photo #2: also a Pegasus nominee, has done just about everything from professional acting to bald eagle research, and he will be at FilKONtario in a couple of weeks.

March 2004 comments: Read | Post | LJ

yay for drugs

Who is this filker? (hint: she has visited my place, was at Consonance)


Had a mellow weekend. Did lots of reading: finished Factoring Humanity by Robert Sawyer, read Clan Of The Cave Bear by Jean Auel, started Timeline by Michael Crichton and Valley of the Horses by Jean Auel. Saw Return of the King again (my 5th time) with Jeff, Ruth, Sara and Annie. Brunch with Ray and Parki and Jeff. Took a lot of walks; I passed my goal for the Idita Walk challenge last week, and now I'm seeing how far beyond the 1049 minute mark I can get in during the next couple of weeks.

It looks like I'm going to have a creative outlet after all (yay!), thanks to my friend Michelle Sagara West, who has asked if I would be willing to cowrite another short story with her. I said yes, of course. She offered to do all the typing during our brainstorming/planning sessions; by the time we actually start writing, I should have recovered enough from my elbow sprain to at least be okay with longer ViaVoice sessions.



Who is this filker?


The anti-inflammatories I started taking last week already seem to be having an effect; the pain has subsided enough that I can happily say things are starting to improve again. Yay for drugs! :-) Thanks for the advice and encouragement posted in Blatherchat and Livejournal; it is much appreciated.

Thanks also to Scott and Amanda and Zoe Snyder, Dave Clement and Tom Jeffers, Paul Kwinn and Beckett, and Alisa and Hailey Grace Garcia for the surprise phone call from Consonance in California last night! And for singing the Hockey Monkey Song at me. I missed you guys, too.

And congrats to Terence Chua, who is going to be the guest of honor at Consonance next year!

March 2004 comments: Read | Post | Livejournal

keeping sane

Went for my follow-up appointment at the fracture clinic this morning. It's been four weeks since my fall on the ice, and I'm still in constant pain. After some poking and prodding and another set of X-rays, the doctor concluded that the pain is from a combination of a sprained elbow and a flare-up in my tendinitis.

Unfortunately this means I can't start treating my tendinitis (physiotherapy, arm strengthening exercises) until my sprain heals, which the doctor estimates will be about four weeks.

It's been very difficult trying to work on my fiction writing recently. It's one thing to try doing any kind of creative writing using voice-activated software; it's another trying to do so while also in constant pain. The fracture clinic guy told me to start taking anti-inflammatories four times a day, so hopefully that will help. Another worry: because I've been relying so much on my left arm, there's been a bit of tendinitis flare-up there as well.

Going a bit nuts, not having an easy creative outlet. Makes me appreciate how much I relied on fiction writing, songwriting, playing my harp and flute, photography, and cartooning to keep me sane that way. :-)

I've been doing a lot more reading; I can still read books by propping them up on a pillow in my lap. Recently finished Angelica by Sharon Shinn, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (thanks, Jodi!) and am about halfway through Factoring Humanity by Robert Sawyer (thanks, Rand!). Parki and his sister Kate convinced me to try watching Cracker (first season on loan to us from Vartan & Hrach), a British TV series, and I'm hooked.

Meanwhile, I'm going to take one day at a time.

March 2004 comments: Read | Post | Livejournal