I received a response from the Haloscan people.
I had emailed them to report the fact that the ‘edit’ function under “comment management” wasn’t working.
Their concise reply informed me that the ‘edit comment’ functionality is no longer available.
What, did they run out? How am I supposed to correct my commentators’ spelling mistakes? How am I supposed to put words in their mouths? How can you take this control away from me?
They promise enhanced functionality.
When?
I am astonished by the pulling of the carpet from beneath my virtual feet.
You can’t just take functionality away!
But I suppose they can. Especially when you’re not a paying customer.
I consider leaving Haloscan. I consider upgrading to a paid account for the privilege of exporting all my comments from Haloscan. Then ditching the bastards. It would be a drastic move, and I wonder if I would not be playing into their hands. Maybe this removal of the “edit comment” functionality is a ploy to get a massive infusion of cash.
“If all the non-paying Haloscan customers upgraded their accounts and became paying customers, how much dough would the Haloscan people be rolling in?” I wonder.
I wonder if I’m not a bit paranoid.
I wonder how I could consider the Blogspot (Google!) people more trustworthy than the Haloscan people. The Haloscan people, afterall, have ‘halo’ in their name. The Blogspot people have spot (yuck) or Blog (hmmm). There is also that whole association with Goo and gle.
I’ve not been honest, here with my words.
I’ve not been entirely disingenuous either, but wanting to be clever and poetic and beautiful has gotten in the way of sincerity.
I resolve to try harder henceforth. If I’m lucky, there will be clever, poetic, beautiful moments, but they will be sincere clever, poetic, beautiful moments. I’ll probably regress from time to time. Be patient. Grab me by the shoulders and shake me. Hopefully my cringe-causing affectations to greatness (or cleverness or poetic-ness or beautiful-ness) will be short-lived, and I’ll return to the straight-talk, the this-is-me-this-is- who-I-am I know to be me.
Even now, as I fight to break the habit, I find myself writing in circles without honing in on what I mean to say, like I expect you to “get it” but when I reread, my words ring false.
I mean:
When I read what I write, I sound like a phoney. I want to be honest. I want my words to sound authentic. So: I resolve to be more frank. I resolve to turn on the spigot to my brain so that even if I’m not spilling my guts with emotion, I’m at least giving a truthful account of what’s in my head.
I’ll start now, with my current view from the window of my mother’s guest room.
Having lived in England so long, I have forgotten what impending rain smells like. The pervasive damp, forever-about to rain state of affairs in England is so saturated with the smell of rain that it is the always-smell.
Having spent near on three weeks in a truly arid climate, where my skins crackles and my nose innards get crusty, I forgot the smell of environmental wet. Until last night when the cotton ball clouds rolled themselves up into a puffy blanket behind which the almost full moon glowed. The cotton ball clouds had become rain clouds. I could smell it!
From the vantage point of the guest bed, which looks out the window of my mother’s guest room, I watched the cotton ball clouds become fat, threatening thunder clouds with the glow of the moon whitening their edges. It’s a guest room decked out with paraphernalia of the Southwest. Anywhere else, and this room would be tacky: branches taken from the rugged desert and fashioned into pieces of art, Native American Indian feathers (of course, not feathers actually plucked from the Native American Indians themselves, but rather feathers plucked from sacred birds by the Native American Indians), prints of old cowboys with faces as rugged as the scenery outside my window.
Now, in the early morning, the sky is clear and pale blue all the way down to the gentle curve of a piece of the mountains that surround this valley. Sometimes I fantasise: if there were no Mista* would I give up the Smoke and banish myself to a place like this?
*The Mista is no man for this country (side).
Filed under: blogging
What better day than my birthday to respond to Bungz’ challenge: to write my memoir (or at least the title) in a mere six words?
To-ing and Fro-ing with Noble Intentions
To those who wish to meme along: Let me know so I can snoop on you.
Wishing that your memoirs are full of happy chapters and steamy sex scenes!
xx, c
The mother-in-law has complained for ages that she does not know what her son – my Mista – does for a living. My mother has the same complaint, about both the Mista and my good self.
At the recent family reunion, my uncle tiptoed across eggshells (figuratively: he’s been in a wheelchair since he was 16 thanks to someone exercising his 2nd amendment right) when he asked, “I know I should know, but can you tell me again, what is it you do?”
The mother-in-law overheard this exchange and laughed. I laughed with her.
“See! You’re not the only one!”
Immediately my thoughts turned to The (eagerly anticipated)Book, and I wondered if The Magnificent Peach and her magnificent, beautiful, blogging comrades had infiltrated my mind. I hoped they had, for then I would be a better blogger! Whether they had or not, I was reminded that in many circumstances – great, small, horrible – you’re not the only one. I look forward to reading about the great, the small, the funny, the tragic and will take comfort in my good company.
You can too. Buy the book, support a worthy cause (Warchild), and have a laugh or a cry!
The mother-in-law has complained for ages that she does not know what her son – my Mista – does for a living. My mother has the same complaint, about both the Mista and my good self.
At the recent family reunion, my uncle tiptoed across eggshells (figuratively: he’s been in a wheelchair since he was 16 thanks to someone exercising his 2nd amendment right) when he asked, “I know I should know, but can you tell me again, what is it you do?”
The mother-in-law overheard this exchange and laughed. I laughed with her.
“See! You’re not the only one!”
Immediately my thoughts turned to The (eagerly anticipated)Book, and I wondered if The Magnificent Peach and her magnificent, beautiful, blogging comrades had infiltrated my mind. I hoped they had, for then I would be a better blogger! Whether they had or not, I was reminded that in many circumstances – great, small, horrible – you’re not the only one. I look forward to reading about the great, the small, the funny, the tragic and will take comfort in my good company.
You can too. Buy the book, support a worthy cause (Warchild), and have a laugh or a cry!
According to my Haloscan dashboard, I have at least 4 comments to the last post, but they are not showing themselves on the blog itself (go on, take a look).
Anyone else having problems w/ Haloscan?
This post is supposed to be about female depilation (as opposed to male depilation or just depilation in general). It’s supposed to gross out the squeamish Mister Jimmy Page and his trousers.
But, I don’t feel like blogging about my recent bikini wax.
I feel like blogging about the thoughts in my head, which right now are jumping all over the place from 1 silly place to another, but all with a common theme.
Like I notice my last post didn’t have any labels, so I’ve gone in to edit that post and assign it some categories. I wonder why I’m always forgetting to assign labels to my blog posts. Then I wonder if each time I edit an already posted post, does this cause readers like bloglines to think I’ve posted something new? In other words, can the Internet distinguish between a new post versus a simple edit to a pre-existing post.
I think about how I cannot get enough of Muse. I listen to them over and over and over again. For some reason, Muse makes me think of The Overnight Editor, for whom I have the utmost respect and fondness, and I don’t even know him and that just seems weird.
And why on earth am I so damn certain that OE likes Muse?
Then I think of OE and the lovely Isabel, and I wonder how many moments together have they been able to steal from the distance or is it just an Internet thing?
I trawl through my blogroll, — and the moment of typing ‘blogroll’ makes me think, “why is it blogroll. why not blog role or blog list or list of blogs. and is it one word or two?”
I’m always wondering about 1 word versus 2. Headstart or head start.
I think about how sick and tired of being a Slimy Mollusc I am. When will I evolve? I’m sick of checking my stats and wanting more and more and more. I should be satisfied.
I reread my last sentences. I laugh at myself. “I should be satisfied?” I ask myself and laugh at myself because the implication is that I am not when I so totally am.
Today is the Mista’s birthday. He is a Taurus. When I originally renamed the accompanying foto, with the explicit purpose of using it for The Mista’s birthday post, I mistyped and the foto became Toto.jpg rather than Toro.jpg. What a world of difference the slight difference in shape between ‘r’ and ‘t’ makes in this instance. I’m startled by this spontaneous observation. I don’t think I’ve ever quite appreciated how very similar a ‘t’ looks to an ‘r’.
t r t r t r
The r is missing the little umbrella handle of the t.
The t, the little hooked beak of the r.
That’s it. Otherwise no difference.
Yet the difference between toro and toto, undeniable.
The Mista is no Toto.
I’ll be taking my Toro to sushi for lunch. Who knew bulls ate fish?
The Internet.
How would I go about identifying page 123 in the Internet?
The next nearest book at hand is ee cummings 100 poems. Suddenly I feel a part of greatness, because my nearest book doesn’t have 123 pages. The Great Greavsie and Tagger also had this problem.
I pull myself up and reach into my carry-all-on-the-tube-bag and clasp my talons onto the book that will allow me to play the game.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díaz
“The future appeared cloudy and there was no doubt he sensed his own mortality and that of Trujillo in the fall of Cuba. Which might explain why, when he met Beli, he jumped on her stat. I mean, what straight middle-aged brother has not attempted to regenerate himself through the alchemy of young pussy.”
Now, play: Ani! Martin! Lillipad! Bungi! Funny Girl! (or don’t).
The rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people
I tell myself I need to move away from vain egotism. I need to make progress. I need to blog about real life things (not silly little thoughts!), happenings, events — these are the things, I tell myself, that are to be blogged about: momentous occasions, flamboyant scenes, brick and mortar actualities, not a dilettante’s ephemeral notions about a simple name.
I would like to think that I am one for progress. So I dig in my heals and resolve to write about happenings, events, brick and mortar actualities. These are the things that will propel my blog to new heights. These are the things that represent progress.
At the drop of a hat, I invent a new word! Blogress: the general movement of a blog to more relevant and interesting material. I wonder if this is progress! I wonder if this word will catch on. Later I will realise that ‘blogress’ looks like it sounds like ‘duress’, and it just might not carry the connotation I had originally intended. Later I will realise that this entire paragraph is a distraction, a detour. Back to blogress . . . .
happenings, events, brick and mortar actualities . . . . progress . . . .
It was just so obvious, wasn’t it?
Heathrow airport, like this blog, has grand designs to be a flagbearer of progress. First there is the newly launched Terminal 5, an ambitious project that began over 20 years ago (4 years of ‘public inquiry’, 13 years of planning, 6 years construction). Next is the proposed third runway. I can hardly wait.
For those of you who think Americans have no sense of sarcasm, I’ve just broken the mould.
Considering how much Heathrow and my blog have in common, you’d think I’d be able to muster up enthusiasm for Heathrow’s ambitious plans.
Here’s why I can’t:
For the moment, let’s set aside Terminal 5′s well-publicised teething problems.
First and foremost, I live in a SW post code. For those of you who live in my neck of the woods, you know what that means. For those of you who don’t, it means I live under a steady stream of air traffic. American readers might jump to the conclusion that I live in a ratty-tatty neighbourhood, because America has the luxury of “unlimited” space. Airports and flight paths can be planned around the neighbourhoods with enough cash to matter. Not so much in London. I live in a nice neighbourhood. There are expensive homes and flash cars and celebrities even! But, there is also the almost constant hum of a jet engine overhead.
When I first moved to the lower left hand corner of London, I didn’t think I would get used to that hum. I have gotten used to it, and I don’t want to have to recalibrate my senses to an increased hum in the hum.
The new terminal is a done deal. The third runway is still a proposal.
Despite the obvious need (obvious to anyone who has sat in the taking-off queue at one of the two existing runways and watched the line of aircraft coming and going like little silver cannisters on God’s giant invisible conveyor belt*) for better, bigger, more efficient air traffic infrastructure, I stand against the proposal for a third runway. I could recycle the valid arguments that have been made against the proposal, but those would only be countered by equally valid arguments for, and doing so would be disingenuous. The plain and simple truth is I just don’t want any more planes flying over my head while I’m having my coffee in the garden.
That is why a forward-looking girl like myself with personal aspirations of progress, is so squarely opposed to another brand of progress.
There’s more to be said, but I’ve gone on too long. Another time.
*I used to be an agnostic. Until I wrote this post in which I have proved the existence of God: the giant invisible conveyor system is too big to be for anyone other than Him. It’s existence provides the evidence for His existence. God, this blog is getting good.
