Have I been silent on the O.M. blog for so long? Can it be? Yass, the new computer that we put together earlier this year took a giant dump and died on us. So we wuz without a computer for weeks, on the the other side of the digital divide. Our internet connection was fine but we had nothing to connect to it. Damb. The lights on the router mocked us, shining brightly noon, night, and day, with nary a way to decipher the bits & bytes of the series of tubes called the internet. But here we are again with a little help from our friends and employers, back to dish de dirt. Or not. But whatever.
In the end the silence served me well and saw the resurrection of my paper journal as well as the emergence from the woods, with startlingly clarity, of my own internal monologue. So now that this voice is strengthened I wonder “can I say that here?”. My own thoughts run the gamut of innocent to wicked & I wonder what can I share? Should I share it all? If I don’t, what do I edit out? Do I want parents, friends, co-workers, neighbors, whoever, etc. to know the strangeness that exists in my mind? The stuff that only I know, the stuff that I might try to translate for Wade or put in the idea book or share with you over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine?
When you put something on the internet you are broadcasting. Your signal might be limited to the people who google “duologue” or obscure lyrics from unknown bands or your loyal friends or randoms who blink and forget about your words that pour forth from unknowable depths. So what do I want to broadcast? What part of my mind to I want to perpetuate here on the eternal experiment of the internet?
So far I have posted mostly my thoughts on parenting, occaisional glimpses into the every day experience of one Christina Munoz (there are lots of us), occasional political comments, links to things that amuse, but there is so much more. (Note: I am so immersed in this phenomena of the intarweb that in a given day I might see 2 or 4 or 6 or 12 things that I think “o, wow, I should post that!” but then I think “ah, well, they’ve probly seen it” or I send an e-mail to the person I think might enjoy it most.) Then the days grow longer between posts and I end up using the O.M. as a memory book & post some bit of trivia or capture a moment that I want to remember in words.
But now this voice is back in my head again and there is so so so much that isn’t here. F*ck, I can’t even begin to convey what isn’t here. Sometimes when you read someone’s posts on the internet for a long time you feel in weird way that you know them, but how can you? You don’t know the sound of their voice, the gleam of their eyes, the way they catch their breath before they speak, the way they hold your eye while they listen to your story. You don’t know them. Just like you can’t really know who I am by the bits and pieces that find their way here to this part of the the GUI wherever you read this.
Should I be open let it all hang out? Where is the next place to go? Will I continue in the same safe vein of mundane trivia from my daily travails?
I guess you have to keep reading to find out.
2 Comments
Well, I figured you had a hit counter that did geographical indexing (my web page does too, BTW), but I was trying to be respectful and wait for the opening to send my sincere best wishes and tell you how profoundly impressed we (my family) are by the creativity and effort that goes into the Duologue….its become part of the day, right after the NYT.
Congratulations to you both on everything – from the beautiful son to the sweet life in SF. The Duologue radiates happiness and inner peace, so you must be doing something right.
xtina, this is an amazing post that (aside from the pooping pc) reflects many of the same internal debates i deal with, as do, i suspect, virtually all non-totally-anonomous bloggers. as for the ‘neato’ links that once were more fun to post, the blossoming of social bookmarking (digg, popurls, even google news) has renedered that technique less unique or useful than it once was. the ‘slices of life’ approach is fun (personal but not really revealing) but also takes either a) an odd event or b) well-thought out writing, not necessarily my specialty when i blog.
regardless, whatever you post here, know that all of your entries automatically have at least one fan (me) and when you really let loose (this post is a good example) you really do uplift the quality of the dewch/OM. Plus, it makes me wanna be more innarestin as well. personally, i’d love to see anything you have to offer, whether the most banal of observations or grotesque or uterly silly, or anything in between.
to ooteb, thank you for the kind complement. and congratulations to you as well on your family and exploits in the wilds of brazil.
the duologue is dead. long live the duologue.