It's a new year. So much is new. So much needs to be renewed.
I'm married now. I've spent the past month traveling in three countries halfway around the world. My world has changed. I've changed. Everything changes. All things big and small.
I want to start blogging again. I want to find a way to make it fun, meaningful and engaging again, like it used to be with Vox. Facebook works to fulfill some of that need, but it's not deep enough and all too fleeting. It worsens ADD I fear. Can I go back and see all of last years Wall posts? Is there some archive of the ever-moving "life stream"? There may be, but it doesn't appear like that's a priority for the platform. And clearly, Facebook doesn't "need" it to capture the short attention span and engagement capacity of me and half a billion other people.
I need an easy to use, media rich digital journal, one that I can share with a select few of you and not the whole wide world. Would it be so hard to create those Vox/Live Journal privacy features on TypePad or Wordpress? I guess it is because what other reason would there be not to do it? I'm not a "blogger", just a person who wants to share her random thoughts, sporadic observances and "life stream" of images, links and whatnot with people she cares about and who, from time to time, care enough to sit by the stream and watch it go by.
I've seen people using Tumblr. I have an account, maybe I should try to use that, but I lack the energy to take the time to figure out something new. Have a stopped finding it fun to play with new digital toys? God I hope not.
Maybe I'll just suck it up and write anything I want here for all to see.
But I know I won't. There are some things you don't want to share with (potentially) half a billion people. I'm censoring myself now, wondering who might stumble upon this.What might they think? Should I change the title of this blog if I'm going to start using it again? Is the design too trivial? Maybe this post should have yet another title?
All conversations aren't appropriate for all people. That's a pretty basic and agreed upon tenant of human communication. So why do these tools designed to recreate our social life offline online not understand that?
Last night I made a loaf of bread. I think it was the first time I've ever made bread. Without too much forethought I took a picture of it with my phone; I wanted to share it with someone, like I used to do on Vox.
Yet, in an moment after taking the photo, I was stumped and starting rattling questions around in my head. Do I send it to Amin? I wanted him to see it because I used his our bread machine.
Do I send it to Twitter, a place I rarely frequent anymore, but used to be good for those "I made/ate/saw/laughed at this" kind of day-to-day trivia.
But Amin's not on Twitter.
Facebook? Did all 600 people I'm connected to there care about my pumpernickel loaf experiment? Should I create subgroups of people on Facebook? What would I call them, how would I group them? No, post it to everyone, friends of friends even! Isn't it even more fun to see a comment from someone who you would not expect to care? But what if no one comments? Will they all be clicking on "Hide Patty" because I clearly have nothing interesting to say?
Shit. Why is this loaf of bread something I even cared to share with anyone? But I wanted to. Like I used to. And it wasn't so easy as it once was.
So I just said, screw it and posted the picture of the brown bread from my Blackberry on Twitter and tagged it to Facebook. But it didn't seem right. And it wasn't so fun anymore because I thought too much about it.
A silly little loaf of bread, hot from the oven. A moment. There and then gone.
For today at least, I've added another layer on the top of this pile of words, pictures and comments.
We'll see if tomorrow, or the next day or the next, I find, or make, reasons to come back.
