The very first blog I ever looked at was written by my first love, but despite the hazy, rosy glow he gave to everything he touched (in my eyes), I thought the form itself was self-indulgent, pompous, and annoying. Today I just added that blog to my google reader list – which already has 20 blogs on it – and finally decided it might be time I start a blog myself. I’ve had a livejournal for a little while, I’m on various social networking sites, but in general I’m always a little behind on technology for someone of my generation (mid twenties). I blame it on being raised by wolves in the deep woods on a mountain top, but I know that is an inadequate excuse. I’m finally over thinking this form is inherently bad.
So, I have not entirely formulated what this blog will be, but I have found that if I decide I am required to know all my goals and structure for a project before I begin, then I just never start. Thousands of ideas have been born and died in my head because of my need for full preplanning. Some things I might write about:
- why this blog is named The Opposite of Static
- struggles in how to define identities without creating new normative structures
- gender in general and femme in particular
- fat
- sex – queer sex, kinky sex
- attraction
- class
- long distance relationships and my bafflement that I seem to be in one
- alternate forms of relationships that include romantic friendships
- my love and discomfort with all of these listed topics and my constant need to problematize
- my inability to spell and insistence that spelling correctly is a new concept anyway that isn’t inherently valuable
- interpreting (when I figure out how to honor the ethical and professional imperative of confidentiality in reality and also in appearance so as not to create any unnecessary anxiety in any clients)
- my enduring long term love of This American Life, also my new obsession with Radio Lab and Re:sound
- that I’ve already used the word culture but am deeply uncomfortable with the concept and will never know what it means (oops, then I took the listing that mentioned culture out, but I’m keeping this one)
- my even deeper discomfort with how we relate culture and language
- why I hate the words natural, authentic, good body (this is actually a long list, but I’m drawing a blank!)
- oh and my obsession with Battlestar Galactica (and crush on Starbuck)
Doesn’t that all sound so exciting? I know, it really, really does.
If you have any helpful advice for a first time blogger, send that along. I will be fussing with the site, adding a profile, email, etc, at some point.
And some clarification: in my memory the boy mentioned in the first paragraph introduced me to his blog when we were dating, in 1996, but I just checked the blog itself and it seems to have been started in 1999. Either way, it was before blogs were a commonly understood concept. It was also with him that I first used email. My high school gave each student an address and access to all-text terminals that would freeze if you tried to navigate the baby-web. I was resistant at first to email because I thought it was cold and impersonal. Now I use email as a way to carry on an epistolary romance. Ahh, the ways we change. I like the idea of starting this blog with pointing that out, given the title.
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