Category: writing

This day in history

I remember that day. St. Paddy’s Day, 2007. Yes, a magical day by all accounts.

No leprechauns leaped. No green beer was guzzled. No four-leaf clovers were molested.

But I did have the luck of the Irish : wink :

It was on this date, two years ago, that Oh Fair New Mexico breathed its first blog post.

It was The Good Man who first suggested the theme for my blog. He went with the “write what you know” angle, and it worked. Ok, more often than not, this blog is my personal ramblings and not really NM related, but that’s ok too. I took the idea and ran with it, as they say.

I’d wanted to write a blog for the discipline of writing something every day. I wanted more than an extensive journal rat-a-tapped in Word and kept on my hard drive. I wanted a place to publicly air my thoughts and twisted ideas.

I remember in the beginning, I timidly sent Avelino Maestas an email asking for advice. His blog seemed so freaking cool, what with his gorgeous photographs interspersed with is his witty, smart writing. I had NO idea how to blog, and Avelino very kindly gave me some pointers and encouragement and then out of the nest I fell to test my own ideas.

So here I am at 532 blog posts later and I think my wings are getting a bit stronger.

My work as a writer has increased IMMENSELY because of the discipline of writing this blog every weekday. Some days I cramp up for ideas and then I force myself to write something anyway, even if it’s terrible. Some days, I have more ideas than I can put down in writing.

Often, my loving husband (who was but a boyfriend when this whole thing began) will say, “I can’t believe you blogged about that” (most recent example was about the toilets at a restaurant we visited).

Occasionally I have blogged about something that hits me on a very deep emotional level, and I know that maybe no one wants to hear me, but I have to say it anyway.

Once or twice I’ve even gotten political.

My most popular post thus far caught me off guard. I wrote it for me, the melancholy of a NM ex-pat longing for home at the holidays. But it evidently struck a chord with some of the folks back home, too.

So I continue on with my blog. It’s for me. It’s for you. It’s for New Mexico. Each year I go through the agony of missing where I come from and reconciling to where I live now. The ebb and flow of life.

For all the folks who give me a read now and then, thank you. I actually cannot properly express my gratitude. As someone trying very hard to make a go as a writer, any pair of eyes on anything I write is a genuine gift.

I realize that these sort of blogiversary posts are rather self-congratulatory. Heck, in the midst of all the rejection letters I get from publishers..if I don’t pat my ownself on the back, who else is gonna do it for me?

By the way…The Good Man has promised me a dinner at a really nice restaurant when I get 100 visitors in one day on this blog. The closest I’ve come is 88. So my goal in the third year of blogging is to finally collect on that dinner! I know ya’ll can help me with my cause!

Meanwhile, Oh Fair New Mexico, you still sing a song in my heart. You and me, we are one. Thanks for the inspiration and for my humble beginnings.

Cheers to the next 500 posts!

Photo by Karen Fayeth

Whoa, I didn’t know…

The upcoming film “Hotel for Dogs” was a book penned by none other than New Mexico’s own Lois Duncan. As a kid, I loved many of Ms. Duncan’s books.

I understand that the hype from the film has given new life to her writing career that went a bit off track after the brutal unsolved killing of her 20 year old daughter.

Back in the day, my mom used to take us kids swimming on a hot summer day to the Coronado Club on Kirtland Air Force base. Occasionally we’d see Ms. Duncan there (I believe her husband worked for Sandia Labs).

That was back in the days when mommies stayed at home and would take the kiddies to the pool and we would meet daddies after work for dinner. It may do my mom’s heart good to know that I have incredibly fond memories of those days.

And that fondness includes Lois Duncan. I’m happy to see her back in the show.

This was all brought to the front of my mind by a great article written by Joline Gutierrez Krueger for the ABQjournal:

“Real-Life Tragedy Almost Derails ‘Hotel for Dogs’ Author’s Career”

That which is taboo

Yup, I’m in love again. Painful, lustful, forbidden love with a steely, powerful object.

My new employer is a lot behind the times when it comes to IT expertise, but they are hip as hip can be with the portable crowd.

When I started work, I was asked “Would you like a PC or a Mac?”

Why, the answer was simple. Mac, please!

In fact, that was one of the go-no go requirements of changing jobs. Having used nothing but a Mac for the past twelve years, I would say I was reluctant to slip back to the Windows based environment.

So, my previous employer provided Macs, but they were refurb and a step or two behind the technology curve.

Not so with fascinating new employer.

No, I got to work and was greeted with a sleek, sexy, top of the line MacBook Pro. The 15-inch variety, 2.53GHz. Four beefy GB of memory. A roomy 300GB hard drive.

Yum!

It has this utterly awe inspiring, new crystal clear glass screen, the cool backlit black keys, and the glass trackpad with NO button. Nope, it’s all in one. You can scroll on that bad boy, click anywhere and whoa does it work nice.

The unibody design is light and compact and feels solid and well built.

This thing beats the crap out of my last work machine, an old style MacBook pro, that poor dented aluminum thing.

Then yesterday, I had occasion to work from home, and as I sat on the couch, caressing the keys of this hot young MacBook Pro, I looked at my VERY old, personally owned 17″ PowerBook (it dates back to, I believe, 2004) and then at my new work speedster and yes…I fell in love.

I mentioned later to The Good Man that I was in love, and that I may have to save our pennies (a LOT of pennies) to buy one of these. This might ensure that my writing projects are no longer in peril of going to the great bit bucket in the sky when my PowerBook fails…and it will. Soon.

He couldn’t hear me. He was too busy caressing his own brand new MacBook Air (well, new to us…he bought it refurb on a smoking good deal).

The family that computes together (on the same platform) stays together.

We’ll call this: Still life with Macsexy Beast. Taken with my company provided 3G iPhone.

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Oh, a small bit of irony. My beautiful, glorious MacBook Pro machine……well my IT organization got a hold of it first to set it up. They also turned it over and used an old fashioned electric engraver to scratch the company name and identifying information into the unibody metal case in a shaky script.

I believe, when the tip of the engraver touched the silky nickel aluminum blend unibody, somewhere in Infinite Loop, Steve Jobs shuddered.

Who engraves stuff anymore? My *dad* used to do that!?!!?!?

Conflicted emotions

The times, they certainly are a’changing.

One place this is perfectly evident is in the world of newspapers and reporting.

A number of key dailies have either gone out of business or gone to internet only publication to cut printing costs. As these papers scale back, they must also downsize their staff.

Just last week, I was referring to something that Gene Grant had written about in his column (published in the Albuquerque Journal). I’d said that I had always liked Gene’s work, whether or not I always agreed with him.

I find him to be both eloquent and articulate. Something lacking in so many of today’s so-called journalists.

Just two days after I had been extolling Gene’s virtues, I read his last column for the ABQjournal.

Said Gene: “A small story in the historic and difficult choices newspaper owners and editors are facing. It’s tough out there.”

Gene and his opinion column have fallen victim to the world of the internet and the ever present blog-ready online world.

I love my blog and the forum to be able to openly express my opinions on a variety of topics, but I realize that the blogosphere has taken down talented journalists like Gene.

And I have conflicted feelings on that subject.

On the one hand, I lament the lack of real journalism with integrity and reporting “just the facts.” This is, I know, an antiquated notion. Opinion has made its way into the media, as each paper has its own axe to grind. My own local rag, the San Francisco Chronicle, is one of the worst.

So although I wish for strong, precise journalism, it just doesn’t exist anymore.

Then again, on the other hand, I think the rise of blogging is a good thing. No longer am I subjected to only the forced opinions of my local paper or other media outlets. I can seek out a variety of dissenting opinions, take them all in, and then make up my own mind. Knowledge is power.

I wonder if blogging wouldn’t be quite the force it is if our journalistic outlets gave us the unbiased news we desire? Or perhaps it would be popular, but in a different way.

So while I’m sad to see the demise of newspapers and the downsizing of talented writers like Gene Grant, I think it was inevitable.

The newspaper world is a stodgy old industry and it’s high time for that old dog to learn some new tricks.

Change or die is the motto these days. Newspapers aren’t immune.

Something tells me 2009 is going to be a wild ride.

I’m doin’ it.

As mentioned yesterday, I’m participating in Blog Comment Day 2008.

The rules are to comment on five blogs, two have to be blogs you’ve not commented on before.

So since I’m running around the ‘net putting in blog comments, in some cases, I’m using pseudonyms. I know, that may be cheating as it isn’t driving traffic to my site, but since I don’t know these folks….yanno….

Here’s my list of where I’ve been this morning:

1) I started by going to the WordPress front page because they always list what’s hot on their service.

My eyes went right to a post on Apple 2.0 – Fortune on CNNMoney.com.

The topic of the post was, “Does Steve Jobs Lisp?”

The post was made in response to an episode of the Simpsons where there was a Steve Mobs character, a send up of the real Steve Jobs, who, in the episode, spoke with a pronounced lisp.

Well, having had some “in the same room” time with the guy, I can confirm that yes, he does lisp, slightly. My issue with the Simpsons version of SJ was that they had him in khaki pants. He doesn’t wear those. He wears jeans. Usually with holes in them.

Anyhow, I put in a comment but comments are moderated on that site, so mine may or may not show up. We’ll see. A pseudonym was used for this comment.

2) Next stop, also culled from the WordPress front page was 1000 Awesome Things and a post entitled “#883 Ugly actors“

It was hard to resist a title like that. I looked at their list, and I observed that, Paris Hilton notwithstanding, there are some damn fine, albeit, visually challenging, actors on that list.

The bad news is…my browser seized up on my first attempt to comment…so I made the newbie error of double posting.

Ah well. Redfaced, I’ll move quickly from that blog…

3) Ok, I’m in the swing now. On the hunt for a next stop, I scanned the comment list on the original Blog Comment Day 2008 post. I figured these are good people, in on the game, so I’ll hit them up.

The one that caught my eye was called Cuppajavawithfriends.com which I found to be an inviting name.

First post on the blog was “100 Things – Some of which I have done”.

The blogger has done a LOT of the items in the list. I’m impressed. Going to have to look closer at the list to see how I’ve done in my years.

This seemed like a good blog with good people, so I went ahead and put my blog link in my comment. Have a made a new blogging friend?

4) Ok, so commenting and blogging about it at the same time is taking a lot of time! Work is starting to interfere! My email keeps chiming and people are stopping by my office. This is where, in the marathon, I start thinking about stopping…resting…having a nice glass of water and calling it quits.

But I cannot. I made a promise. To myself. To the blogosphere.

I carry on. Battered, but spirit intact.

I’ve now commented on THREE blogs that I’ve never hit before. I consider taking the easy road home and hitting up friends to complete the journey. Even though that’s allowed under the rules, I’m going to take the road less traveled and find two more blogs that are new to me.

Back to the list of folks participating in the Blog Comment Day and I found a great, exuberant response from Lanie Petersen. I like her style. So I visited her page.

And while there found a link to another of her blogs, Lainie Sips, where the blogger reviews teas.

Well. Now, I’m a huge fan of tea, so I HAD to pop over.

I commented on her post Trader Joe’s Pomegranate White Tea (review). As I struggle with my blood pressure, I have to watch caffeine and I find that white tea can zing me up. So I posted a question.

And I also bookmarked a new page that I’ll find my way back to.

Nicely done, Lainie!

5) Ok, we’re close to the end. The last mile. Rounding third headed for home. And a bunch of other euphemisms I can’t think of right now.

I need to find one last blog and I need to make it good. It’s been an epic journey thus far.

I go back to the place where this very blog is hosted, Blogspot, and look at their “Blogs of Note”. I ping a couple, but they are not my style. A knitting site, a gorgeous food site, and an artist’s site, but none so far really stick with me. And as they are “blogs of note” they have a LOT of commenters.

I’m looking for someone like me, who would love an extra comment or two here and there.

Nothing is really popping. So I go to Google to do a blog search and put in “New Mexico” in the search box. I found a lot of “the ones you know already” but undeterred, I drilled down on the list.

A post titled “Good eats New Mexico” of course caught my eye. But I read it and disagreed with the whole list. You KNOW how I am about my food, especially New Mexico food, so no, this is not the place for my dramatic finish.

I’m starting to worry. Will I pull this one off? Will I get so close I can *see* the finish line, but not get across it? Am I that person?

Wait, what’s this?

A blog post about moving to New Mexico. It is a Malaysian woman and her husband raising their five children in the US, homeschooling them, and it looks like her family will soon be moving to New Mexico.

It’s a blog for her friends and family mostly, to talk about homeschooling and about life, so I don’t want to be a pest. I don’t want to alarm her. I just want to let her know that it’s ok.

Out of respect, I’ll not link to her blog. But in my comment, I let her know that while New Mexico may seem odd or strange, that it really is a lovely place to live. I wish her only the best that New Mexico has to offer.

I now find myself worrying about this woman. How she’ll fare in the move. How New Mexico will seem to her. It seems intrusive to bookmark her blog and peek in, but I find I must.

I want to check her progress. Hear her thoughts. I love New Mexico so much, I sometimes wish I could have that fresh perspective on going there. I love when friends visit (as one recently did) and share with me their first impressions.

And so, with this last thoughtful and meaningful experience, I have found conclusion to Blog Comment Day 2008.

I thought it would be really easy, but proved to be a bit tougher than I thought. I have visited five new-to-me blogs and left my thoughts behind. I’ve made some new destinations to visit and found I’m not as web savvy as I’d like to think (still can’t believe I double posted, *sigh*).

In all, a meaningful experience. Thanks to John Smulo for the idea!