Thus concludes January with my 16th blog post of the month. But who’s counting? Not quite on the NaBloPoMo level, but for me I think it may stand as a personal record. I didn’t set out with a specific goal, but as the month progressed I got into a rhythm of posting every other day, and over the last two weeks I noticed that my days never felt complete until I either had written a post or had one in mind for the following day.

But so what, right? Well, I guess that depends on what this blog is all about and why it is that I’ve maintained this blog – along with Xtina – for these past few years.

Not that I consider myself a writer, per se, but I do love to write. The whole process of writing — from brainstorming about topics to editing and getting feedback — is a joy to me. To do it well — which of course is my goal — demands a certain level of self-reflection and self-critique. Although I write mainly for my own personal satisfaction, it is important to me that the sentences and essays I post are of a certain quality. That means there needs to be some level of structure, logic, and artfulness to the compositions. These things do not always just pour out automatically. They take time, focus, and energy to do well.

Because this is  a personal blog, it also provides a place to recount my own experiences and reflect on my life. This part, which I took much further this month than I have in the past, is actually therapeutic, in the sense that it provides a focal point and good writing demands, to some extent, that the author stakes out a clear position, rather than waffle or be non-committal. I find that too often in my life I tend to think about things without conclusively addressing them. The act of putting metaphorical pen to paper often forces me to think things through.

I am a great believer in the power of inertia. I’ve found that when I’ve been idle, in any way, it is always far more difficult to get going again. But when I maintain momentum, picking up steam, accelerating, or just getting things done, period, is so much easier. Blogging regularly is a perfect example. Blogging builds momentum for all these things — writing, self-discipline, self-reflection, and even interaction with family and friends.

One of the great joys I have in life is being creative. Designing, writing, or even problem solving are fulfilling acts. Partly this is because it is so much easier to consume consume consume, and over the years I certainly feel that I’ve become quite efficient at consumption in many forms. From RSS feeds to YouTube, music, TV, books, food, fashion, et cetera, too much of my time is spent consuming. All of which might be momentarily gratifying, but in the bigger picture it proves pretty unrewarding. Being creative is a defense, and a counterbalance to that often insatiable habit of consumption. Hopefully what I create is of some greater value than mere self-therapy. But even if that is all it is, I can find comfort and fulfillment in that.

It might be hard to believe that typing a few hundred words into a web browser can mean all of these things to me. But, it does. And, if I may go extra-meta on y’all, even sitting here at my desk and writing this post is a perfect example of the phenomenon. Yesterday, I’d had the idea to reflect on Why I Blog. But the answer, at the time, was just a notion. It was only the act of writing this post that really focused my mind on the question which then allowed me to answer it, and understand my reasons. Not  everything we do requires critical analysis, of course, but in this case I have no doubt I’m better off for having been through the exercise.

So, I get a lot out of blogging. And, I’ve gotten a great deal out of this month of posting regularly. So to our loyal readers, you can expect a continued stream of regular posts. This month of blogging has also triggered many ideas and inspirations for topics and themes that I am eager to explore in the coming weeks and months of 2009. I look forward to taking that journey with you. And thanks for reading, it means a lot to me.

For the 1.7 regular readers of this periodically forsaken blog, you may still have a vague recollection of an earlier era (may even have been when we still went by The Duologue!) when a significant portion of my blog entries (there were more then) mentioned national political issues. Lots of stuff about little Georgie boy, Darth Cheney, and the rest of the Bush clowns.

Eventually I came to feel that OM was not really the best place for me to “ventilate those” grievances. So for the most part I ceased and desisted when it came to high political punditry.  It wasn’t because that part of my voice, brain and heart had atrophied, though, but rather because I knew I needed a proper home for them. Though I dropped politics as a topic here, those needs were sated elsewhere, via leading progressive blogs, where I’d  occasionally participate, and more recently, via my new best friend Twitter, and even real-world campaign activism!

That activist fire, which is what led to my once-frequent political snarking, was far from extinguished and despite my efforts to pipe down, still showed up here every once in a while. But I felt deeply that this is not the right venue to wax political about issues, media, and electoral issues. Nay.

The Actual Story

Today I arrived in Austin, Texas, where I am attending the Netroots Nation first annual convention. Or the third, but until this year it was known as Yearly Kos.

Why am I here?

I love politics, period. I care deeply about the policies and impacts of government upon the populace (citizens & not). And when I care about something, I usually get a strong itch to be involved in it. Politics is no exception. And one of the great things about politics is that it is a participatory sport. Now, since I have no desire to be a candidate myself, the next best thing is get involved in the grassroots.

That is what I am doing here. I am looking for my niche, my space, my voice. I desperately want to find a way that I can make some unique contribution to the throbbing ecosystem of ideas, movements, and actions that are politics in this country. Is there a particular issue, tribe, or format that calls to me? That I have the chops for? I really can’t say yet.

But I do know that I am invigorated, energized, and very thankful to be here, among people who give a serious damn about the world we all live in together. These people aren’t sitting idly by, yelling at their TVs and then drowning their sorrows in a pitcher of spud lite. Nope. Here we have union organizers, NGO communications directors, political operatives, and, yes of course, tons of bloggers. (I’m a big fan of bloggers, btw).

What am I doing?

I’ve been to a bunch of conferences, in a number of roles. At some, I’ve sat in the audience, maybe asked a question or two, tried to spark up a conversation here or there, and then gone home. With some new ideas in my head (or, less pleasantly, things I wanted to forget), yes, but not necessarily new connections with other human entities are certainly not feeling empowered to lead a better life.

But here, after a single day of attendance, interaction, speech-listening, and then drinking with my Netroots Nation cohorts, I am feeling just that: excitement, connection, and a very tangible sense of possibities that lay before me. That is just why I came and that is just what I’m doing.

• Added ‘Related Posts’ link to each post
• Added links to thee site’s ‘Most Popular’ posts
• Set up post tags (see them after each post)
• Backed up our WP database
• Created a favicon (O is the rising sun over the ‘M’ountain)
• Updated the sidebar content a bit

I have already found the ‘Related Posts’ stuff to be fantastic – certainly a more human way to find old interesting content on the site than randomly sifting through monthly archives – or even categories.

Also, I tried to get the Tag Search amd a Tag Cloud working but no luck. I’m not giving up yet! Hopefully these features add to the appeal of the site; we are now averaging close to a 700 page views a day. How this is possible, I have no idea, as my guess is that there are less than 10 people who are actually aware this website exists. But as recently as August, OM averaged just 200 page views per day.

I guess we’re doing something right!

Matt Mullenweg can barely buy a drink, but this 22-year-old open-source enthusiast developed WordPress, the open-source publishing software favored by blogging diehards around the world. In 2004, WordPress became well-enough known that Web publishing powerhouse CNet hired Mullenweg to work on it and other projects. Mullenweg quit in 2005, however, to work full-time on WordPress, which today is more like a content-management system, with various templates, widgets, and plug-ins, and Askismet antispam protection.

that what you write is really

any good at all and he said, ‘You can’t,’

‘You can never be sure.’

‘You die without knowing,’

‘Whether anything you wrote was any good.’

‘If you have to be sure don’t write.’

– W. S. Merwin

A few summers ago I took a public relations class at one of the local university’s continuing education programs. We briefly studied the history of public relations, its use after WWI, and it’s infiltration into the corporate sphere. There was lots of subtext about the inherent nature of PR, its (dis)honesty, its manipulation of ‘truth’. Then we studied lots of theory. OMG, so much theory. It’s a very murky field because some things that shouldn’t work, work and somethings that should work, don’t and meanwhile the public is learning about how they are being manipulated and developing more and more defenses (like an immune system) to the control being spun by the machine.

I wonder too about the conflation occuring because of blogs — personal journalism, personal interest (design, craft, books, &tc), professional, corporate — how does public relations figure into all of this. Are people ‘keeping it real’ (can you even keep it real? what is the nature of reality?) Some have asserted that Andy Warhol’s notion of ‘everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes’ has been replaced by a global notion of ‘everyone will be famous for fifteen people‘. How are we shaping people’s perception of our lives? Are we being honest or is there a slant (conscious or subconscious) that is creating a ‘meta-mutant’ persona? I

The other day I was reading a blog (I can’t remember which one right now, I’ll update when I find the link) and there was something about the voice that made me think the blog was ‘inauthentic’. It was constructed as a personal journal, but there was something about it that made me think ‘Nuh-uh, this person is gunning for something’ — a book contract, a job, a site fully supported by advertising — and I was turned off, perhaps it wasn’t true but it was enough for me to close tab and move onto something else.

• Bloglines - As I love to read blogs but hate looking at Google Ads, I have found that ye grande olde bloglines is a knockout. Yeah, some sites are bitches and refuse to serve their entire posts, but at least I only have to view the site when I see a really stimulating post. What I like best is that – being that I use several computers, bloglines always knows which posts I have or have yet to read. Totally addicted
• WordPress - As a blogger myself and as a web designer fora few others, I find WordPress to be the King of All CMS software. Especially for free. But more than that, the massive community of developers who have created a massive and wonderful library of cusom plugins, themes, and widgets make this software incredibly powerful. And thanks to the orignial elegant design, even novices soon master WP.
• Del.icio.us – I use it mostly to bookmark things I might want to peek at later. Handy, easy, and fun. Also, good for its ‘popular’ feature, one of the best ways to find the current zeitgeist of the blogosphere.
• Myspace - Lame, I know. But, fact is, I know tons of people who are on here, way more than blog, way more than IM. Some folks even would rather send a message on Myspace than via email. Freaky.
• Flickr - I post my picks, I can see my friends’ family’s pics. I can find new amazing and interesting images. Really extremely well done. Indespensible.

And, although I cheated by posting this without being tagged, I will attempt to tag others, who I bet will not continue the meme. Fuck it.

• x
• dendrimer
• anny