intellectual properties

2001-2010: how far have i come?

today is my 9 year blogiversary. first actual post here.

a blogger-friend of mine recently wrote that while she doesn’t expect people to reach the standard linear milestones (college–>job–>marriage–>grad school–>children–>mortgage, etc), she does expect people to continually improve themselves, and that what you are doing at 35 should be a progression from what you were doing at 25, or even 30.  or, if maybe not totally progressive or linear career-wise, at least life-wise, the key being change, learning and growth.

i agree that the arbitrary benchmarks are foolish, but keeping track of things that can be put on your resume aren’t necessarily super important to everyone either. my quality of life is way higher, even if it’s the same life and there aren’t a lot of measurable differences. shouldn’t i be happy about that?

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QOTD

IMG_0550, originally uploaded by _Reagan_.

another reason i blog. if i didn’t say things about myself, i’d feel no room to say anything about anything.

also, on the flip side, if you believe you are perfect, then by logic you must believe everything else is perfect too.

QOTD

“I want to plumb the depths of the concrete to a secret place where the literal bleeds metaphors.”

–BHJ, on his “process”

i love his blog because his mind wanders and makes connections where there were none like mine does, only he is way better at writing about it.

the best is yet to come

i know, i know, a million things to write and note about our trip, but honestly there is so much that it’s taking some time to form it all in my mind. the sidenotes, the details, the overarching themes. i am organizing them in my brain, but they don’t want to come out just yet.  i’m also making a scrapbook, and jay’s making photobooks, and these processes affect the writing, and so there’s a lot to be done.  the problem, for me, with blogging large amounts of autobiographical content is that there are no deadlines (obvi, i wrote my BM08 post almost 12 months after the event), but i’m going to give myself one: by next monday morning, i need to have my posts written and my momentos organized.

i should have taken time to write notes while we were traveling, and i did from Amsterdam to Berlin.  but then it felt like i was doing this, and constantly taking notes in my head about what i would write instead of actually DOING the things, and that i wasn’t really “unplugging” if i kept drafting blog posts in my head. and so i stopped.  this would be disasterous for autobiographical reasons it weren’t for the photos we took, which help me remember the order of operations, and i’m sure there are things that i have already forgotten.

i also read 3 excellent books in the past 6 weeks and am on the 4th, and these are causing all kinds of interference with wanting to write autobiographical things.  the books! they are so thought-provoking.  i want to write about them instead.

so this is not just a “i’m blogging but i’m not” post, here is a thought, on which i ruminated much while travelling:

these days i am more and more greatly appreciating and admiring and taking inspiration from the people in my life who are living unconventional lives, whether “successful” or not.  when we were in our 20s, this was sort of expected - after college you joined the Peace Corps or volunteered in some 3rd world country, or traveled around the world, or tried being an artist/musician, or worked at starting your own company (if you are dot.commer, maybe you got lucky), but for a large percentage of people, after a few years of trying to wrangle the world into your dreams, many got married, settled down, bought houses, had children, and secured “regular” jobs. not that there’s anything wrong with that; for many, those few years were enough and settling down WAS their dream, and i fully support that, but i’d be lying if i said it was inspirational to me personally. so moving into our mid-30s, with many of my friends now approaching or passing 40, those people in my life who are still forging their own paths, struggling to maintain their business and not sell their souls to pay the bills (especially true for artists, musicians, and photogs), i am finding great comfort in them, despite their repeated exasperations over the difficulties, the stress, the waves of success and defeat.

i find myself currently realizing how “middle path” i am these days, and wondering if this is just my rather taoist nature, if maybe this is my true self and i am not who i thought i was, or if i have fears i am not addressing preventing me from actualizing my potential. these friends and colleagues, especially the strong women in my life (because no matter how much equality we have gained, we are still not equal), remind me that taking chances and pushing lines is really important, and that the adage about regretting more the things in life you didn’t do than the things you did is a truth.  i get annoyed by people who look at my life and tell me i’ve got it made and so i should “be happy with what i’ve got” when i start to complain/ruminate on who else i could be, what else i could be doing.  no, i’m sorry: i am happy, but i will not “just be happy”. this is my life.  i want more.

mistakes i know i am making

i’ve been lazy again this week and riding the bus instead of biking to work. the upside is that i get offline reading done in the 20-minutes each way that i otherwise don’t find/make time to do. i finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and reading dave eggers on the bus every morning put me in a thoughtful and contemplative but good mood. now i’m reading The Informers, and reading Bret Easton Ellis on the bus in the morning does not so much put me in a good mood.

anyway, i know i am going to europe for the first time TOMORROW and so should write something maybe about that today also, but before i forget, in the appendix/addenda to AHWOSG, written later after the first publication, called Mistakes We Knew We Were Making, Eggers discusses the inevitable position that non-fictional, autobiographical writers get into, which is that, because we do not live solitary lives, we write about OTHER PEOPLE. and those other people may not like what you wrote about them, or the circumstance, or how you remember it, EVEN IF IT’S TRUE. or, maybe, i should say, ESPECIALLY IF IT’S TRUE. which i can understand, you know, from their perspective. your “dirty laundry” being published for the world to read. it might sting. it might put a huge brick-heavy damper on relationships. and this is something i’ve been faced with recently, what with my whole huge extended family joining The Facebook and realizing that i’ve been writing about my life here for, oh, 8 years now, and even though i try not to say too much about other people and personal things, i have done so, sometimes without really remembering and suddenly these ghosts from the past pop up and people are angry, disappointed, hurt. so just after a recent bout of this, i was reading the very end of the addenda of the book, and Eggers wrote something that made me feel, not…justified, but encouraged? to continue to be open and share. he says (more than once in the prelude and appendix, actually):

“We feel that to reveal embarrassing or private things, we have given someone something, that, like a primitive person fearing that a photographer will steal his soul, we identify our secrets, our past and their blotches, with our identity, that revealing our habits or losses or deeds somehow makes one less of oneself….

…Because secrets do not increase in value if kept in a gore-ian lockbox, because one’s past is either made useful or else mutates and becomes cancerous. We share things for the obvious reasons: it makes us feel un-alone, it spreads the weight over a larger area, it holds the possibility of making our share lighter. And it can work either way - not simply as a pain-relief device, but, in the case of not bad news but good, as a share-the-happy-things-I’ve-seen/lessons-I’ve-learned vehicle. Or as a tool for simple connectivity for its own sake, a testing of waters, a stab at engagement with a mass of strangers.”

and i agree. so while i do deeply respect and recognize personal boundaries and have taken great care over the years to not represent anyone but myself (and honestly the family-related post that recently upset someone i didn’t even realize was publicly published - BLOGGER FAUX PAS), i also do not believe in covering up, hiding the parts that aren’t pretty. because i too believe that it does not make you less yourself, less valuable, to show your flaws. those with flawless facades are difficult to believe. they are hard to connect to. possibly this is why there is so much Schadenfreude in our human nature: because in the mistake we see others make, we see ourselves. and so sometimes i admit, when i hit that “publish” button, i know it might be a mistake, but the feedback (even if negative), the connectivity, always makes up for it.

(semi-related note that i couldn’t work into the text above: sometimes even people you don’t know get really offended by you writing about your own life. dooce.com, blogger of epic flaw-revealing proportions, has started publishing her hate mail and monetizing it. SUCH a good idea. haters suck.)

peace offering

(this note was originally posted on facebook, as it was regarding a specific facebook-related incident, but relates to things i write here too.)

yesterday, i offended some people that i love.

so for anyone who might have been offended by the “don’t be an idiot” remark about the healthcare debate yesterday, i apologize for my word choice. my comment should have only been only in support of the bill and not a derogatory comment on those opposing it. i am all for strong opinions, freely held. i don’t ever want to be seen as polarizing or offensive. i want to be seen as informative. and i know you can’t please everyone, but sometimes you have to remember who might read what you write if you’re gonna post it publicly.

i’m not surprised that some people were upset. i have all kinds of friends from all walks of life here, and i know some of us disagree on a great many things. there are a lot of my friends and family who write things that offend ME here too, but i don’t defriend them or get angry. i just don’t respond when they write things that offend me. i just let it go. i try to remember we’re coming from different places and mentalities, and that reading things they say that i disagree with only makes me know them better and remind myself that there are other ways of looking at the world.

i definitely don’t always think i’m right, and i have changed my mind on a lot of things because of great debates with friends and family, and it’s one of the reason i love being connected to people online and off. we learn from eachother. you can’t know eachother better or learn anything or change any minds if you just close yourself off to the hard debates, cross you arms and walk away with a “we’ll never agree, i’m not listening to you anymore” and only keep friends who agree with you. if it’s too hard for people to do that, to keep the connection but ignore the parts you don’t like, i guess i understand.

and finally, no matter who’s ever right or wrong, if someone else’s experience of a conversation with me is that i’m judgmental, confrontational and condescending, i need to do something about it. i’m truly sorry that some people got hurt or offended, but if nothing else at least this has been valuable because it’s caused me to have some moments of self reflection and i’ve been questioning and re-evaluating the ways in which i’ve been communicating online. every now and again, in all my years of blogging etc, this happens, and i have to recalibrate.

thank you.

A.H.W.O.S.G.

stellar: full of stars

especially now that this thing publishes to facebook i’m finding it extremely difficult to say anything more personal about the SF Fashion Awards.  part of the problem with proliferating your blog is that people read it.

i do not want to detract from the fact that i fully appreciate and respect what Del Geronimo is doing with this now-annual event: giving props and recognition to designers who create amazing things and get little in return in the way of media or coverage.  and let’s face it:  fashion is a business, and getting public recognition is IMPORTANT — if you want to run it as a business. anyway, please consider everything here constructive criticism. i have a whole mind full of other caveats but i’ll just get on with it:

my personal conflicts around the event, and the award i was nominated for (which i somewhat discussed here), were more or less two-fold:  1. the name of the event implies that all of SF fashion is represented, and 2. because it is done by popular vote, it feels like somewhat of a popularity contest amongst those who do end up represented, instead of some sort of independent panel giving awards based on merit.

the first thing:  to call it “THE SAN FRANCISCO FASHION AWARDS” suggests that the event producer has gone to some length to create an inclusive event that pulls from all the fashion scenes in SF.  it is true that during the nomination phase, ANYONE can be nominated (i think). the problem is that the circles in which the nomination forms and such are distributed are overlapping and insular - i don’t think this is by design, just by lack of coordination and effort. for this event to REALLY encompass all of SF fashion, there would need to be a huge push and a team dedicated to reaching out as far as possible, spreading the word, getting people “on board”. i honestly have no idea how hard Del tries to do this - maybe he does as much as he can, but i’m sorry to say that if that’s true it’s not getting very far.

so what emerges is a list of people nominated of which i pretty much personally know almost everyone (except the models, although i’ve been in shows with most of them too).   even if this were called the “The San Francisco INDEPENDENT Fashion Awards”, this wouldn’t be representative. i read SFINDIEFASHION.COM daily (which is awesome and you should too if you love SF indie fashion), and there are tons and tons of independent fashion designers in SF.  most of designers in the events and fashion shows listed on that site i’ve never heard of.  so the question is are people just not interested, or are they not getting reached? i have no idea. (btw, remember last year? i was in the running for things that made no sense, and said pretty much these same things then.)

on a more personal level:  i am deeply honored and humbled by receiving the award for Best Blogger (especially since i STUDIED WRITING in college and have never had a job as a writer so getting an award for writing somehow makes me feel like that degree in English wasn’t a complete waste of 4 years), but honestly: this blog isn’t about fashion. this is a lifestyle blog. this blog is about my life. fashion has, in recent years, played a larger role in my life, MANY THANKS to all of the people who’ve encouraged me to develop my participation and roles in the fashion scene. if it weren’t for the likes of Danielle@Missing Piece and Miranda Caroligne and Scatha@Miss Velvet Cream and Staz@BadUnklSista encouraging me to push my love of dressing up into something more, a huge part of my life would be so much different than it is, and i am extremely and eternally grateful for that. and while i could argue, if i wanted to, that “fashion” IS a lifestyle, and therefore it makes sense for a lifestyle blog to win a fashion award, still: there are bloggers/writers out there who focus all of their content on fashion, and even some who focus specifically on SF fashion, like sfindiefashion.COM or Fashion Smashion, a snarky blog who thinks they should’ve been nominated for best blog.

so while i am totally humbled and fully appreciate the recognition, i find it a little uncomfortable to stand up proud and say “YES! ME! I’M THE BEST FASHION BLOGGER IN SAN FRANCISCO!” because i honestly don’t believe it’s true. (reagan insists that the award i REALLY won was “most fashionable blogger”, and that i would gladly accept an award for. :=)

on the second point, during the voting period, one of the nominees wrote that she wasn’t going to participate because she felt it was all just a popularity contest. she is an ARTIST (in the truest sense i have ever met in human form) and was not into the idea of “winners” and “losers” in art, or having to “promote yourself” in order to win, instead of just winning on merit. still, she was nominated, and so many of us voted for her because if anyone was going to “WIN” she deserved to win.

i empathized with her feeling, but at the same time - it is what it is and so why not run with it? and so i decided to try to shelve these conflicts and just promote and support what the INTENTION of the event is, despite all the caveats and misgivings. but then when we were there, the day of, i did not see her and felt some guilt/shame that she was standing her ground as an artist and not a player in the scene and to be honest i felt a lot of weirdness around her not being there because i agreed with her, but there i was all dressed up in my fancy dress participating like i didn’t have any conflict. (it turns out, she was there too, i just didn’t see her).

i am not a huge fan of competition myself - it brings out the worst, not the best in me - and i can totally see how as an artist to get into the realm of “winning” - who can “win” art? - feels like a violation of principles. but fine line here was at what point are you being too much of an art snob to accept an award from people who love you as an artist? at what point are you “too cool” to promote yourself, say thank you, open up and accept appreciation, and instead snub those trying to lift you up? i felt like it would be totally and utterly disrespectful to not show up to receive an award given to you out of love, no matter how many issues the implementation might have had.  the intention is about RESPECT, and getting the nominations and votes of your peers is a sign of respect, a sign of love, a sign of recognition, and i think respect is deserved going both directions.

hopefully, as the SF Fashion Awards evolves, the net will be wider cast, the participants will be representative, and maybe the voting system won’t be as janky (or non-existent) and people will respect it more and more cred will be given to the event and the scene and the artists, which is the whole point to begin with. SF fashion gets put down a lot and there’s not a lot of attention for designers who are brilliant and hard working in this city, so i think the event should continue because i think it’s important. it just needs to grow, and there needs to be a diligent effort on the part of the producers and organizers to make it grow in a direction that reaches further than it currently does.

as for the actual fashion SHOW at the fashion awards, the only thing i have to say is: KITTINHAWK: i want you in my closet.

stellar

a full and proper thank you and other extended thoughts coming, but for now…..

paths

there are some blogs written by people i don’t know i’ve been reading for so long it seems a little….strange. one i’ve (and thousands of other people) been reading for like…..7 years? is dooce.com, and while i’ll let you discover for yourself whether it interests you or not, i have often wondered why *I* have been reading (and, admittedly, laughing and crying) along with someone’s life i don’t know for so long, especially after she became, more or less, a mommyblogger. yes, she’s hilarious and a good writer, but so are many, and since her topics have wandered into lands i don’t generally keep up with (babies, housewares, what it’s like being a famous blogger), it’s interesting that i keep reading. she recently linked to her about page, and i think i discovered a little piece of why i might be so drawn.

1. she graduated high school valedictorian 1993 in a conservative place (utah). i graduated high school valedictorian 1994 in conservative place (northern michigan). (i LOVE her note on being valedictorian.) (plus, this means she is only a year older than me? woah.)

2. she went to college from 1993-1997, majored in english. i went to college 1994-1998, majored in english.

3. she was raised Mormon, and “grew up believing that the Mormon Church was true.”
i was raised Free Methodist, and grew up mostly believing my church was true as well. and then she says: “the one skill I learned in college that serves me well now is not how to solve differential equations or how to write a paper deconstructing The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, it’s how to distrust organized religion.” i’ve written somewhere in here before about how comparatively studying religious texts in college pretty much destroyed any faith i might ever have in organized religion.

3. she started her blog in 2001. i started my blog in 2001.

i think that’s where the comparisons end, as i do not have 2 kids and 2 dogs and a husband and a house and make enough money off my blog to both a) not work and b) buy all sorts of things for my house and blog about them.

but still, i think those three things alone give us a lot in common, if you extrapolate a bit. high school in a rural/conservative place the 90s, liberal arts college in the 90s, study of writing and literature, growing up religious and then disconnecting from religious roots, finally ending in braindumping all about these and everything else all over the internet.

my point here is not some sort of weird attempt to make my blog more cool by mentioning my commonalities with the 26th most influential woman in media, cuz like i said, i make nothing off this, and i’m over earning cool points. it was just that clicking through and reading that, first of all, i found those 3 similarities sort of EERIE, especially that they are basically at the same time (are there other bloggers out there with those three things in common, within those years? speak up!), and secondly, it then occurred to me that the reasons i stay, shall we say, “attached” to some blogs are maybe not because of what they write or how they write it, but because i have something more in common with who is writing them.

end random deconstruction.