Spoiler alert: Squirrel Nutkin gets away

Pages 54 & 55 from The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter.

So in a little less than 10 days I’m going to be giving a short talk at the upcoming BlogHer conference in San José (details of the “10 x 10” series here). It has been so dadgum long since I wrote in here that I feel like I practically have to explain everything, what with me no longer really knowing (as if I ever did, but still) who’s reading or why. Back in the day I would do annual reader surveys, and it was great; “lurker’s delight” I called them; I learned a ton about what folks read for, what they preferred, what they wanted to see more of, so on.  Lately, though, it’s a field here that I’ve left to go fallow, which of course isn’t the worst thing in the world, from the standpoint of the field. Fertility is restored.

Whoever you are reading this thing, hey! Thanks! And welcome to the ground floor of a building remodel. We’re just about to swing some hammers.

The above image popped up when I was rummaging around in my early Flickr stream. I remember it accompanied a post (this one). I was rummaging back there because I was hunting down images from the 2008 BlogHer conference, the first one I went to, slack-jawed in amazement at it all. The changes/ evolutions/ you-name-its since then have been so big. In my own life, in my sense of what I can or should write about, in what this particular vehicle has been about (meaning: the blog), in the blogosphere generally.  So much has changed that people expect monetizing and dread publicizing and presume multiple platforms and blah blah blah. Not all people. But enough. Whatever the case, some hybrid of self-awareness and self-consciousness is part of the whole dealie-o.

Makes me think about my first love. We neither of us even considered  such a thing as lesbianism (funny! because we neither of us had dated a guy, either!). So when we were falling in love with each other, we really had no idea it was happening, until: BAM, there it was, upon us. I remember thinking, years afterward: Wow. Never again will I fall in love, or even become attracted to someone, without knowing it was happening.  Thereafter, ever after: self-consciousness.

It’s a mighty honor, being asked to be among a small group of folk reflecting on the past 10 years in the blogging/ BlogHer community.  And as so many really nifty practices within online community, occasions like this have ripple effects in all sorts of directions. For me, it’s brought me back to thinking about this space, and what to do with it, after what has been the longest drought in an eight-year run peppered with droughtlets.   I’m finally capable of spending the time here,  easing as I am only now up to the six-month-mark on a job that began with way more of a bang than anticipated.  Balance is returning, gradually, and with that, the opportunity once again to take a breath and look over here and see what good use this place might be put to.

I have stories of the kids, of me, of various in my head, as ever. But I’m giving a lot of thought to how to continue writing about them and the intimacies of family life whilst my children are now more kid than child, each of them.  And one of them has a very clear bead on the next thing after kid: youth. Tween-dom. And the gaping maw of what follows.

They both are now totally different beings than those who kept me company at the outset of this blog: both are literate, both (with our oversight, but increasingly) are beginning to forage into this Internet. As many long-time personal bloggers do, especially those who’ve written about their children, I am faced with the intriguing opportunity to shift the object of my gaze, as I find myself more and more compelled to blur the focus on them.  As all things: a journey.

Meanwhile, utterly dada nonsensical titles revealing absolutely nothing about the contents to follow, with zero tags and absolutely no SEO, just like I like it.  Kickin’ it ol’ school.