When I was younger I thought I’d be living the life of the Jetson family by now.  I pictured living in my high (high high high) rise condo with flying cars and a robot maid to do my dishes, laundry and clean the floors.  Yeah, even then I knew I’d hate cleaning floors.  As a child growing up in a time when books, movies and even cartoons had a heavy sci-fi leaning I thought I was prepared for the future culture, but that wasn’t so.

My contemporaries and I were prepared for flying cars, teleportation, instant meals, robots, replicants, virtual reality and snazzy jumpsuits.  And while Star Trek may have touched on the moral gray area of the holodeck I don’t seem to recall my sci-fi upbringing touching on the etiquette and moral implications of instant mass communication.  There was no “How to behave on social networks” manual being passed around.  It seemed to sneak into our culture and then explode. Like any community, sites have laws, rules or codes of conduct.  But those are legal issues.  Technical issues.  There are trolls and hostile users and spammers.  But those are not the etiquette issues of which I’m writing.

I’m thinking of people finding out a loved one is dead because someone posted it on facebook.  Mothers learning they’ll become grandmothers because someone blogged about it.  Kids finding out their parent is in the hospital because a family member tweeted it in passing.  In this age of instant communication do we need a manners lesson?  How would I feel if I learned something life altering about my daughter, father, mother, sibling or loved one because of a status update?

Like shit.

Yet I see it over and over again.  My family is just as guilty as any other and I’ve seen hurt feelings running rampant.  And with good reason, people behave thoughtlessly and someone is bound to be wounded.

Is this an issue of navigating the future world we live in or just a matter of common decency?  While having a thick skin isn’t such a bad idea, I think it’s important that we find a way to navigate the world keeping others in mind and find a way to teach future generations to do the same.

Or we can all become part machine.   You know, whichever.

I remember starting this blog in November 2006.  I remember the following months.  How I learned as much about myself as I learned about others. I was able to reach out and interact with a giant community of people with whom I shared some common trait.  People throughout the world sharing their thoughts through words.  Some phrased things with painful elegance.  Some with sharp humor.  Others with precision or abruptness.

It went from a solitary pursuit to a community event.  I was able to laugh, cry and roll my eyes.  But I was also inspired.  Encouraged.  Connected.  And I reveled and thrived and wrote.  Then came the games, awards and politics.  They were time consuming and distracting, but part of the community as a whole.

After some time the ins and outs of my day began to change.  There was the natural ebb and flow of life and the digital ebb and flow of blogging.  I took on other projects and my time for community involvement, my time for others, shortened.  And I began to withdraw.  Many of the bloggers I read stopped posting or their tone changed and my interested faded.  I cut the number of blogs I read regularly in half.  Then in half again and again.

Today I read perhaps 3 of the blogs I read a few years ago.  I don’t even read them regularly.  I just catch up when I have the chance.  One of those blogs is written by a woman beautiful both inside and out.  A brave an amazing individual who shares her heart through her words with anyone willing to read.  When she hits post and her soul is there in black and white, that’s not where she stops.

Flutter.

She’s writing on a theme right now.  “30 Days of Truth” writing prompts.  I think it’s no secret that I’ve lost my words as of late. It’s not a lack of desire to write.  It’s a question of what it is I want to say and I find my rambling exploration of my inability to find my voice to unstimulating to post over and over again.  So for right now I’m going to follow her lead.  I don’t know that I’ll post all my answers but I know that I’ll have something to write on the next 30 time I sit down to lay my fingers on these keys.

Thanks, girlie, for the kick in the ass I needed.

***

Writing prompts for 30 Days of Truth:

Day 01 → Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 → Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 → Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 → Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 → Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 → Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 → Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 → Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 → Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 → Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 → Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 → Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 → A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 → A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 → Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 → Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 → A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 → Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 → What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 → Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 → (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 → Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 → Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 → Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 → The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 → Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 → What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 → What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 → Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 → A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

I used to post every day, come rain or shine, good days and bad.  There was a time that I was incredibly committed to ensuring that something new was here every day.  It wasn’t a commitment to you.  To the internets.  To this blog.  It was a commitment to me.  To take some time, even if it’s just a moment, each day.  To think things through.  To find something to express.  To have structure.

That structure?  That system of checking in with myself?

Fallen.

I’m hoping to pick it back up.

In July of last year a dear friend of mine decided to follow her bliss.  Her vision.  Her desire in life.  She decided to set aside so many other parts of her life and focus on a task that she found important to her soul, and also, to the future of on line publishing.

Michelle Anderson, known by the Portland tech scene as mediaChick, embarked on a bold new journey to write a deeply personal, heart wrenching and erotic tale, a fictionalized account of a part of her life that had great impact on her.

The Miracle in July

Almost a year later and she’s finished what I like to call her rough draft.  She’s got the entire story, sans epilogue, up for you and all the world to dive into.  But like I said.  It’s a rough draft.  She’s done amazing things by mixing online media with her heartfelt story but now she needs to take it to the next level.

She needs the ability to further follow her bliss, pursue her vision and solidify the writing and media that she’s worked so hard on.  This is where you come in.  Have you every dreamed of being a patron of the arts?  Helping out a struggling writer? And getting thank yous and accolades for it?

Now’s your chance.

Michelle is raising funds to finish her book with a research and media collection trip to Denmark (where much of her adventure took place) through a program called Kickstarter.  You can donate now to help her with her dream by handing over as little as $10 (and getting some fab thank you gifts in return) but as of this posting she has just over 30 hours to meet her funding goal.  What happens if she doesn’t meet her goal?  Oh babies, it’s an all or nothing kind of deal.  If she doesn’t raise the funds required we all keep our cash and she sits and stews on another way to make it happen.

Want to read more about Kickstarter and Michelle?  Check out a great article by another fantastic pal of mine, Shawn Levy, from Sunday’s Oregonian.

It isn’t.  I swear.  The theme of this post is NOT weather related.

But…

It would be unethical of me not to let you all know that it is really really really really really really really really really really really really really cold out there.  Like when I woke up, it was 19 degrees kind of cold.  Fahrenheit… cold.

Like so cold that I grabbed yoga pants and pulled them on before I even got all the way out of bed.  So cold that even though our house is heated I still know it’s cold so I couldn’t get myself to take off those pants to put on jeans to take K to school so I did the only logical thing…

I stole a pair of Mike’s jeans and put them on over the yoga pants.  I look ridiculous, but I was a little less cold.

Also, fair warning for all you Portland people, I pulled out my snow boots this morning.  And wore them.  Do you know what that means?  Remember all that snow last year? How the schools all closed the week before winter break?  That was my fault.  Me and my snow boots.  I wore them for a week before it snowed and it brought snow week down on us all.

Now the practical side of me tells me two different things:

1) Go ahead and wear your beloved snow boots Cami, you did not cause all that snow to fall.  It was mother nature, not you and your footwear choices

2) Cami, don’t you dare spend all week in those damn snow boots… you know Portland people turn into idiots in the snow, we don’t have time for snow until AFTER 30 Hour Day.

Do you see how those two items clash a little?  Like, butting heads.

So you see this post, is not about the weather at all but about my quest for truth.  I need to know if my warm snuggly snow boots cause the snow to fall, and if they do, how long do I have to wear them before it works?

Look out, the snow boots are staying on until alllllll week.

Except Friday when I’m on Live @ 7.  Oh.. and Sunday when I’m doing 7th Planet Picture Show with Will & Robert.

And when I sleep of course.

Did I ever tell you 7 is my favorite number?  It totally is…

I had this whole post planned for this morning involving why my blog was called Mommified Me when I first started it 3 years ago this month.  The short of it was that I didn’t know about mommy blogs and my blog wasn’t a mommy blog so that title made no sense which just goes to show that with the exception of my daughter, I can’t be trusted to name things.

But as I was walking home in the brilliant November sun, feeling the heat of it warm my back even as I was watching my breath expand in a chilly mist in front of me, my phone rang.

And when I say it rang what I mean is I heard the chorus to Blondie’s “Call Me” because that’s what plays when my husband calls.  I answered the phone sweetly, thinking loving thoughts about him already being on his way to work which would allow me to head home and take a nap in our big giant bed.

What?  I have a cold.  I like to have a whole King sized bed to myself to nap when I have a cold, it doesn’t mean I love him any less.

Anyway, I expected him to be all “Hi sweetie, I just wanted to call you now before I go into a bunch of meetings” and I would be all “Hi baby I love you.  I hope you have a good day and that your status report gets done without too much trouble”.

Instead he was all “Where are you?”  and I said “On the corner of 16th and Karen’s street”.  What?  I couldn’t remember the name of the street but it’s the one my friend Karen lives on.  Then he began to tell me that he was listening to PDXSucks (like you do… or at least you should) and he started congratulating us (us… like Mike and I and Strange Love Live) and then his signal cut out on the freeway and then he heard something about MSNBC.

So he wanted to know if I could please go home and look on MSNBC and see what Robert may have been talking about.

So I did.  And this is what it was.  Strange Love Live (that’s me… and him) has a little cameo in an NBC story about the Portland Food Carts Scene.  If you’re a Portland person you’ll probably recognize my guests in the clip as Dieselboi and Whiffies.

You just enjoy this brief video while I go find some breakfast.  All this talk of food has made me hungry.

It’s been a while since I spruced up around this place.  I was getting a little antsy and I wanted this place to be all shiny and new.  I think the blog remodel is my new hair cut and color.

Does that make any sense to you?

It used to be when I craved a sense of change I would dye my hair some other color.  Or you know… shave half of it off.  I’ve gotten way too vain for that though and my daughter already has to deal with the tattooed mommy with a podcast, I figure she shouldn’t also have the mommy with multi-colored half shaved hair.  It’s my way of giving back.  So instead I’m fucking with my blog.

Plus?  I really missed my little toonlet me.

One more thing before I go lay in bed and cough and watch potentially really horribly bad new old Sci-Fi.  See those little squares over there on the side?  The ones under the header?  The square “ads” were a part of the theme I’m using and I was all good with replacing the images.  I’m fancy that way.  I can track down a little piece of code and replace a file no problem.  I do THAT all the time.  But for some reason they were only set up to display an image not to link to anything…  So I did what any kind of geeky girl with limited skills but a hankering for functionality would do.  I said “Help me please” on twitter and Dane came to the rescue.  Thanks Dane for making my links work!

Now seriously, I’m going to go watch lizard aliens in hot human skin suits while I eat a cupcake and zone out on NyQuil.

xoxo

In the drafts folder of this blog sit so many unfinished posts…  Some are heavy and laden with meaning.  Sleep, life, love, marriage, friendship, parenting, the years passing by, vegetable gardens.  Even one about an email from a friend that suddenly found herself going through something I’d suffered through in the past.

There’s a post in there about taking K to Jimmy Mak’s to see a friend play.  A post about Ignite Portland 5 that I never finished.  One about a beautiful Spring day and one called “When Cats Cry”

I don’t have any idea what that’s about…  I’m afraid to read it really.

There’s even a long lost post from the Consumer Whore Cami series.  I really miss that series… maybe I should bring it back.

I’m torn between forcing myself to finish all those tidbits, all those pieces that I can’t seem to complete, just as they are, finding some bullshit conclusion for them or just hitting that magic delete button.

What would you do?

I just made it through 100+ blog posts in my google reader.

So some of them were pictures of cats and I didn’t have to read more than a sentence…

And who cares if I just deleted a few after glancing at them and realizing how long they were…

So what if I only left a comment on one of them?

I still made it through a ton of posts including but not limited to: COOKIES of all kinds, an adorable little girl at a wedding being very tired, benches, shaved heads, blog destinations, cute cats, someone feeling poorly, Portland tech happenings, my own posts, purchased houses, Oscar parties, someone near turning 39, a movie review, a vibrator related injury, rainbows (one on a wall and one in the road), girl scouts, Muppets, super heroes and so many other things that if I try to recount them all I’m sure to go crazy trying to ensure I don’t leave anyone out.

I know I’ve been a big slacker in the blog world as of late (both writing and reading) but I feel like all that blog reading in such a short time totally makes up for it.  I now consider the blogosphere and I even.

For now.

I’m going to save the grumblings on how I’ve been the victim of theft not just once, but twice already this year for another day, and instead talk about something wonderful.  Something glorious.  Something downright helpful that happened right here in the city I call my home.

Community.

Oh yes, I know I’ve said a thing or two about it in the past, I’ve sung the praises of the Portland tech community and the twittersphere… so try not to be surprised, but I’m going to do it again.

On Saturday Cube Space played host to an awesome event called End Bloglessness.  It was put on by the good people at Beer & Blog and was staffed by some wonderful volunteers, there are too many for me to name (especially since I didn’t make note of who all was there, sorry… my bad).  You may find yourself wondering what goes on at an event called “End Bloglessness”.  I bet you can’t guess.

They weren’t teaching children not to pick their noses in public (though humanity could certainly benefit from that).

They weren’t teaching people how to bake sough dough bread (though a friend brought me a sour dough starter that I may have already killed).

They weren’t training cats to fly tiny airplanes (and for that I’m thankful).

They were helping people set up and upgrade their blogs.  For free.  With beer.  That was free.

I headed over about an hour after the event started.  I didn’t go for the beer as I’m not much of a beer drinker and I already have a blog so you may be asking “Why?  Why did you go to End Bloglessness Cami?”

I went because I wondered if somehow I might be able to help someone and I was hoping that someone there would be able to help me implement a blog for Dr Normal within the pages of the Strange Love Live site.  Plus it was a Saturday and I had no other plans so I wanted to go and ogle some fellow geek girls.  It’s just something I like to do.

In one respect I think I was pretty much a failure.  I don’t recall helping anyone.  I showed someone where the kitchen was, forced a friend to eat dinner with me, ate some wonderful alienveggie bread and looked at semi naked pictures of the bread’s baker…  Those things may have been helpful in some regard but I don’t think I actually helped anyone with a blog.  But by not helping anyone, I’ve also ensured that I didn’t steer anyone in the wrong direction.

My other aims, setting up a blog page for Dr Normal off the Strange Love Live main page and checking out the geek girlies, let’s just say those went very well.