Going Pear-Shaped

Do you know that I have a spare blog? I do. It's called Decay and Desuetude. I take pictures of falling down structures - people aren't allowed, and decaying nature doesn't count.



I love the inadvertent beauty in rust and peeling paint.



Come visit sometime.

To paraphrase Robert Graves, this blog is the show dog; Decay is my cat.

Five Years

Remember my oh-so-irritating list of things I was going to do before I turned fifty?

Well, I finally finished another one of them.



Yup - I got printed books for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. (Apologies for the awful glare besmirched photo - the books look better in person.)

I started blogging on the 23rd of July in the year 2006, with a post about the inimitable Julia Child and butter, which means that those five books actually represent four full years and about half of another. It's a lot of words, words that I didn't know were going to come pouring out the way they have, words that I wanted to keep in a tangible form. I mean, what's going to happen to my blog when Al Gore invents the thing that comes after the internet?

After futzing around with several different services that would suck all the posts in and print them, I ended up using Blog2Print because it was by far the easiest of the choices. While their service isn't as granularly editable as, say, Blurb, I cranked out the tweaking necessary to get my five books done in under an hour. They offer free shipping, which is supposed to take weeks; I had my books in days. (Yes, you can pay for faster shipping, but I found it unnecessary.) And I'm really happy with how they came out - it was a good ratio of time input to product output.

In fact, I'm so happy with the books that I got in touch with the company and asked if they'd give me a discount code for you all, my readers. And they did. If you feel the need to print out some or all of your blog for posterity and grandchildren, go to Blog2Print and use coupon code b2pmagpie15 - it'll get you 15% off between now and August 23rd. Call it my anniversary present to you.

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Disclosure: Nope, Blog2Print didn't pay me to tell you any of this. There is, however, an affiliate link in that there url - if you click over from here and make a book there, I'll get a little referrer fee. Is that okay with you?

A Grand

It is, this post, my thousandth.

To celebrate, I'm going to give away two things:

1) A copy of the best book I've read in years: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It's so good that I want to share - it's social and medical history all intertwined with racism, poverty, philosophy, morality and family, in a book that reads like a thriller. All you have to do is leave a comment by the end of the day on Friday 5/28; I used a random number generator to pick Stimey who will get a brand-spanking-new copy. And hey, if I don't didn't pick you, I love you anyway and go find a copy at your library or bookstore.

2) One thousand dimes (because I'm not flush enough to give away one thousand dollars) - allocated amongst the following charities. You get to vote and it's not winner gets all - each charity will get the dollar equivalent of the percentage of votes so 17% of the votes gets $17.

• Edna Hospital - a maternity hospital providing reproductive health care and fistula repair in Somaliland.
• Partners In Health - a Boston-based medical organization "partnering with poor communities to combat disease and poverty"; they've been on the ground in Haiti for years.
• Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen - they feed 1200 people a day, no questions asked, in Manhattan.
• Nothing But Nets - a UN Foundation program to provide bed nets to combat malaria.

A thousand thanks to all of you, for being here, for reading, for indulging, and for enriching my life.

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Tell Me How To Allocate My Dimes:

Two Answers, A Questions, A Request, and An Apology

Lord knows I am no kind of blogging guru. I know enough to get around, meaning, I only mess with HTML if I have to.

But I figured out two things about Blogger recently that I thought were worth sharing.

Answer 1) Like lots of people, I am periodically plagued with comment spam. Word verification helps, but it's so annoying that I usually leave it off. Recently, the comment spam has all been landing on old posts - which, happily, is easy to remedy. Find your Blogger Dashboard and then go to Settings > Comments > Comment moderation - and enable comment moderation on older posts. Blogger's default is 14 days, but you can set the time frame to longer or shorter. Then, if a spammer tries to comment on an old post, it won't appear, and you can easily delete it from your Blogger dashboard.

Answer 2) I finally got sick of the blogroll that ate my sidebar, a blogroll that was pulling from Bloglines even though I stopped using Bloglines as a reader. It was out of date and out of control. But I'd been reluctant to use the Google Reader widget because it was, to me anyway, ugly and I didn't know how to make it match my template. I figured it out! I started by selecting a handful of feeds and tagging them "Blogs You Should Read" - tagging them let me select a subset of the whole damned list of feeds, and creates a folder with the tag name. Then, in Reader, click on Settings > Reader Settings (towards the upper right of the window). From Settings, click onto Folders and Tags.


Make sure that the folder is marked "Public", and then click the link that says "Add a blogroll to your site". That'll take you to a pop-up window where you can configure the sidebar widget. Leave the title box EMPTY and set the color scheme to NONE. Copy the generated HTML and go back to your Blogger Layout page. Add an HTML widget and paste in the HTML that you just copied out of Reader. If you want a title, add one here. That way, the title and list in your new blogroll widget will pick up the styling that applies to the rest of your blog. Matchy matchy joy!

Question) Sitemeter lets me see a lot of information on a per visit basis - like Domain Name, IP Address, Country, City, Time of Visit, Visit Length, Page Views, Referring URL, Visit Entry Page, etc. Is there a way to get that kind of detail out of Google Analytics? Because if there is, I can't figure it out.

Request) Please enable your email in your Blogger profile. Click on your profile and make sure it's linked to your blog and your email. You can have a separate email exclusively for blog stuff, if you'd like. If you don't have a real blog, you can set up a "blog" without any content so that you have a profile with an email. This also goes for people with other than Blogger blogs - you can have a Blogger profile that links to your Wordpress/SquareSpace/TypePad blog - or even to your Etsy shop. But the email is key - it's what lets me reply to your comment, which I dearly love to do.

Apology) Blogger seems to be comment challenged of late. I can't comment most of the time, at least from the (cough) PC in the (cough) office. So, I may well have been reading and not commenting, but the not commenting isn't my fault. And I still love you.

Starting And Flying

My first blog posts were on 23 July 2006 - three years ago today. Somehow, it seems fitting that I'm getting on a plane to Chicago later, to fly to the BlogHer conference for the second time. What's more: I am tickled and grateful to have won one of the Blogher Johnson & Johnson sweepstakes - so my trip is covered. Phew!

Despite Thoreau's admonition to "beware of all enterprises that require new clothes", I've done something I've never done before: I had a pedicure. Somehow, it seemed like the right time to use the gift certificate I got for Christmas.

To keep you busy while I'm gone, I filched a meme from Schmutzie: please, if you would be so kind, leave me a comment answering these three four questions.

1. What is your website url?
2. Where are you from in real life?
3. What do you want to be when you grow up?
4. Should I keep my blogroll? It's gotten out of hand and out of date.

And, if you're going to be in Chicago, find me!

A Little Verklempt

I tend towards the stoic, I tend to hide my emotions. I'm private and I don't share. For years, the many years between our marriage and my pregnancy, people would ask "so, are you going to have children?" and I'd deflect, "oh, we have cats". I never answered the question - it was way too personal and I really didn't want to share that pain of childlessness with anyone. When I finally allowed as to how we were trying, what with all the infertility treatments, people - including close family - said "we thought you didn't want any kids."

Well, I'd never said that.

This is kind of a long way around to the fact that I am a little verklempt that a couple of posts of mine have been singled out this week by different people, and I want to say "thank you". It means a lot to me, it really does.

The Hotfessional dubbed On Marriage a "perfect post", and if you'll go read her post about my post, you'll understand why.

Julie wants to repost the same piece on Momocrats.

And someone - I don't know who - picked up Playing Round the Garden Trees for the Stirrup Queens Roundup Extravaganza. The roundup, in a nutshell: Each blogger was assigned a single blog to read from July 2007 to July 2008 and they chose a single post that spoke to them--that became their favorite. To my anonymous reader - thanks, I liked that post too, and I'll probably dig up some more little shrubs tomorrow.

All of you, you that read, you that write, you that comment, you that support - thank you.

Tales from San Francisco: Blogher

Four jet planes
Three nights in a bed alone
Two days of Blogher
One lost jacket

I'm home!

Blogher was fun. Blogher wasn't really what I expected, but it was a good time. It was a little like a college reunion, lots of smart women with a common interest. I got to meet people that I'd only known in the ether, like Sarah and Jen and Julie and Erika and Nora and Christine and too many more to list (and if I didn't list you, I'm sorry). I reconnected with Isabel, who I knew in a past life. I still don't know what the point of Twitter is, but I signed up anyway. I went to a couple of wonderful sessions, and a couple that were all jargon without much practical how-to. I scored some seriously sweet swag (including a bluetooth headset for my phone and a tattoo from the tattoed Cecily). And Susan made me weep.

There were parties. And I know there were "parties" that the little people weren't invited to, but I got to plenty. The closing night party at Macy's was a little peculiar - champagne in bags, wine in shoes, and vodka in lingerie. Alongside the lavender macarons in the lingerie department were samples of KY jelly - um, yuck?

I promised Kelley that I'd take her to BlogHer, and I did. KC took a picture of Sarah and me with Kelley, which I don't have yet, but I got one with some chocolate, her other favorite vice.

Would I go again? I don't know. The fact that it was in San Francisco, where I had a free place to stay and non-bloggy people to hang out with meant that it was lower stakes than it could have been. But the community aspect was great - it made me feel less alone. And that's nice.

Leaving, On A Jet Plane

My bag is packed.

I've been reading posts hither and yon, along the lines of "you'll know me by my smile/pump/laugh" or "I'll be the one burping/gesticulating/sweating". And one that scared me - apparently there's a secret handshake.

The Aussie Chick is ready to go. I've got my cards (they match my new header). I know where I'm staying (not at the Westin). I think I know how to get to the conference. My iPod is loaded, and I've got stuff to read on the plane(s).

I am, however, a bundle of nerves. What possessed me to do this? Why on earth am I going to a conference about blogging? Do I really have to worry about my shoes? Oy.

And, even though it's a blogging conference, I think I'm going to leave my laptop home. So, see you on Monday, unless I start emailing posts under the influence.

Rhymes With Sunday

The child is completely erratic as to identifying letters, and can't spell her name past the first two or three letters, but she’s into rhyming.

Sometimes she quizzes me:

• What rhymes with steeple? (People)
• What rhymes with pink? (Sink, mink, slink)
• What rhymes with medusa? (Kousa)

And sometimes she just announces, with glee: Cat and bat rhyme! Tree and key rhyme!

At the doctor last week, for her four-year-old checkup, I mentioned this to him and then prompted her: "What rhymes with bill?" Her answer? "Kill." His dry comment? "I saw that movie". My response? Mortification.

Speaking of rhyming, I met S. and Z. of Rhymes with Javelin the other day. It's a funny thing, knowing someone on-line and then meeting them in person. On the one hand, one learns a lot of stuff about a person from reading their blog (and their breadcrumb trail through other people's blogs). On the other hand, it's a complete stranger! In your house! I had a lovely time, and I'm happy to now have face and voice to put to a small piece of the interblogs. Thanks for coming to visit, S.

Commenting Etiquette

A question. If you comment on a post of mine, and your comment triggers a response from me, I usually email you back instead of responding in the comments (that is, assuming I can find your email address). Mostly it’s because of how I behave with regard to other people’s blogs – I nearly never go back and read comments that appear after I’ve commented – not because I’m not interested, but because there’s only so much I can keep up with.

• Do you like that?
• Do you hate that?
• Do you like to get a response via email?
• Or do you prefer to see responses in the comments?
• Do you know that Blogger now has an option whereby you can subscribe to comments via email? Have you tried that?
  

Despite this looking like a quiz, it isn't. I'd really like to know your habits and your preferences. Do tell!

Delurk, And The Perils of Tonic

Tomorrow, the 3rd of October, is delurking day - as decreed by Schmutzie, Sweetney and Jenandtonic. So delurk tomorrow! Here and elsewhere. And, as a refresher, delurk means getting up the gall to post a comment to a blog where you've been reading posts without commenting (a/k/a lurking). You don't need an account. Go ahead. Try it.

Jenandtonic's blog name reminds me of a little piece I read in the Sunday Times Book Review, about the remaining one of the Two Fat Ladies and her penchant for gins and tonic:

About Wright’s heft, The Daily Mail’s interviewer comments: “It wasn’t the alcohol that damaged her health. It was the quinine in the tonic water she added to her gin — two pints of gin a day for 12 years, which I calculate as roughly 9,000 pints of gin and over 50,000 pints of tonic water. The quinine destroyed her adrenal gland, and now she can’t lose weight, even if she lived on lettuce — which I doubt she ever would.”

Imagine. It's not the gin that's hurtful, it's the tonic. Who'd have thunk it?

On Blogging

It's my anniversary. I made this little blog and started posting a year ago today.

Years ago, I'd created a tiny website, for my own amusement and because Earthlink offered them up for free. And I posted a picture of the cats and a picture of W. wearing the family wig and a picture of myself lying on the couch with cucumbers on my eyes and a cat on my stomach, and I called it a day.

When Miss M. was born, I started it up again, and posted pictures of her and some other weird stuff that I wanted to share. And then we moved and Earthlink simply could not get it together to get our DSL service working so we up and switched to Verizon thank you very much. And my tiny website disappeared.

But I kept collecting oddities "for the website". And so finally last summer, in a stretch of glorious free time while my office was being renovated and I therefore got to stay home for most of July, I created this blog. The first post was something that had been kicking around my desk for two years. Finally, or again, I had an outlet for all the bits (bytes?) floating about in my head and on little scraps of paper scattered hither and yon.

Back in May, the Blogrhet women issued a sort-of meme, in the form of four questions about one's blogging experience:

1. Go back to first or early post. How would you describe your voice back in those early days? Who were you writing to? What was your sense of audience (if any) back then?
2. Do you remember when you received your first comment? What was it like?
3. Can you point to a stage where you began to feel that your blog might be part of a conversation? Where you might be part of a larger community of interacting writers?
4. Do you think that this sense of audience or community might have affected the way you began to write?

I didn't start this to become a part of a community - but it has sort of, slowly, happened anyway. At first, the only person reading was my sister. In November, I participated in Fussy's NaBloPoMo - and made 45 posts in 30 days - and I started getting some readers and some comments. But things didn't really gel until about six months ago - though I can't for the life of me say why. Starting in about February, nearly every post would get at least a few comments. And while I'm not writing for an audience, I often sense - as word hits paper - which posts may attract comments from which readers. And those readers, I read them too. And I find them reading the same people I'm reading. The other day, I was working my way through my Bloglines list, and found that I was commenting just after the same person each time...it was like I was following her around in real time. And the people? I've come to know some of them off-blog, through back channel emails. It's like my circle of friends got bigger, in a mysterious way.

When I first embarked on infertility treatment, I perused the internet for information and fell into support. Through some boards, I ended up meeting other women - in person, on the phone, by email - and I'm still in touch with many of them. Blogs weren't part of that equation, but I can see how they could have been.

But now, it's my place to scribble thoughts, remember toddlerisms, share recipes and collect the odd whimsy that floats past on the sidewalk or in the pages of the Times.

Search, but you may not find

The specificity of these recent Google searches that landed people at my blog stuns me:

• How to Train A Baby Magpie
• What would happen if I lost 3 liters of blood
• How are Don and Deirdre Imus these days

And what's more? I have no answers for any of them. I'm terribly sorry, guys.