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On
March 20th
2001 I posted my first attempt at
having a web page. I had been reading Willa
and I seen Justin
on TV talking about personal
web pages. I knew Willa had
a page for her journal
and another for her weblog
but I didn't really get that
I was blogging. In fact there
was a time when most of my posts
were about trying to understand
what blogging was. More than
one time. My only goal was to
write about myself and my life
in some kind of first
thought best thought manner.
As
time went on bloggers began
to try and define what they
were doing. Was it journalism?
Was it a diary?
And
I did time in an MFA gulag.
When
I read my first posts I get
that feeling of wonder and freedom.
I was casting about. Never sure
why. Now I worry about
the quality of the writing and
my falling stats and new readers
and why so and so took me off
their blog roll. And comments
and links and ... and I post
less and less often. I think
I should take it all down but
I never want to.
Once,
I was thinking about suicide.
I was trying to come up with
a plan so I wouldn't leave too
much of a mess. I was standing
in my kitchen thinking about
selling all of my things and
leaving the money to cover what
debt the money would cover.
I looked at one of my many salt
and pepper shakers. It was one
that came from my grandmother's
collection. It is a birthday
cake salt and a pepper present.
I couldn't bear the idea of
selling it. It has no real value.
It was just one of the things
I played with when I was a kid
in my grandmother's house. I
couldn't let it go.Now. If it
broke, or was stolen, or crushed
in an earthquake (something
you think about when you live
in San Francisco and own lots
of glass and ceramic figurines)
I'd hafta let it go. But I could't
sell it for change. It mattered
too much.
It's
that habit that I have of loving
the stories of my life and the
lives of others that keeps me
going. And blogging, for me,
is stories. Mine. And others.
Some people tell their stories
with art, others with opinion,
others just talk about their
kids and what they had for lunch.
I love it all.
And
then there's the writing. I
kept a journal when I was younger.
I slowed down as I got older.
And then I began to write on
line. Something about writing
on line keeps me thinking about
my life in terms of the story
I am telling. But writing in
public assumes a reader. I try
not to let that change what
I write but it does. And maybe
it should.
I'm
still trying for that first
thought best thought rough and
tumble straight from the heart
crazy wisdom writing. So I write
from where I am in any given
day. I make no promise of consistency
or value.
I
write about being fat because
I want to be part of changing
the way fat people are perceived.
I am not a person with a body
and some extra weight. I am
a person with a fat body. And
being fat has become a political
identity because we are pathologized
by the medical community, the
makers of public policy and
industry. So we have to understand
ourselves as a community of
people with a shared self interest.
I
didn't write an about page before
this because I figure it's either
clear what I'm about or it isn't.
These days I post erratically.
And I'm trying to organize the
site in a way that makes sense.
This may or may not be a kind
of hub page. Archives are on
the right. The stash page is
full of old links and pictures.
And this. My meandering attempt
to explain myself.
Did
it work?
Tish
2/1/2006
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