What, you were expecting something other than that I stole screws from the mounting hardware from the lock that was on my last [stolen] bike and got my bike rack back on? And found my sharpening stone and fixed my hippy-blade? Sorry.
On anonymous comments.
Are bloggers supposed to open their souls to people who leave anonymous comments which heave onto the blogger the responsibility of disclosing things they don’t want to? What responsibilities do we bloggers have to people who read our blogs? For that matter, what is due to the blogger from their readers, if anything? And if we owe nameless people who demand facts and explanations these things, where the hell does that come from? Or do they owe it to us to not insult us publicly and anonymously because we give them something to read, something which must be at least a little…enticing if they bother to read it and think about it and respond to it?
How…democratic should a blogger be? Should he or she publish asshole comments from people who know them but won’t leave their name, who don’t know them at all, or even comments from friends? Is a person’s blog a free speech forum, or their own space to censor as they choose? Are we obligated to publish comments which are belligerent, pointless, annoying, etc. just because someone took the time to write them? Or are people obligated to not do that in the first place, out of some sort of respect for the blogger whose blog they read?
I’m not saying that there is some blogger code or that there should be. But how does one respond to these sorts of things, and what goes through a commenter’s head when he or she hits “submit”?
When I used to run that high-traffic non-personal blog, people frequently acted like I owed them something for reading it, and I think this is common, from bloggers I’ve talked to. The way I thought of it, if someone owed anyone anything, they owed me for spending three hours a day on that thing. Not that I necessarily saw an obligation on either end.
(Yeah, and don’t bother responding anonymously.)
Photo Friday: Relaxation.
Progress.
So when I hate getting up in the morning to write my dissertation, I never feel like I’m getting enough done. But I hit the mark of being a fraction of a page shy of 50 today. The department guides say 150-250 pages, but my director said 120. I’m aiming at the lower number of around 150 all told, and I hope I stay there. I get wordy.
In other awesomeness, you know that Indigo girls song where they sing:
I spent four years prostrate
To the higher mind
Got my paper
And I was free
Well, I found a great Nietzsche quotation in Thus Spoke Zarathustra which has a better image:
For this is the truth: I have moved from the house of the scholars and I even banged the door behind me.
I ran into an old professor last week, and we were talking about my leaving academia. I was really at a loss for how to talk about my…position without being insulting in a way that I don’t mean to be or want to be.
This is, of course, why I’m usually silent about it here. Enough academics read it that I know I’d get crap for things that I don’t really mean but that seem plausibly my opinions from where I’m headed with my life and career.
Can I have my positions and opinions on what academia means to me without people universalizing them and saying that I did it?
New glasses.
Picked up my new glasses today, after mine broke on Valentine’s Day. My head is embarrassingly large, and I am embarrassingly lazy, so I never went to get new ones. No one ever sizes them correctly for my big old head. But a local place in the Rotunda fit the bill nicely.
So going from blurry to sharp is making me dizzy, and my depth perception is way off. I keep falling off curbs.
I don’t know why I look angry in this photo. I like my new frames, even though I look like a WWI pilot. Probably because I don’t like having my picture taken, even by myself.
Writing music is fun.
So my friends and I who used to play together in a band — we play every Monday night now. We used to play out, back in the day. We played at the Ottobar before it was cool and at Goucher’s club regularly (and for a lot of money, which was awesome) and some other places. Now we just jam, and we’re going to record an album just for fun and just for our friends. Hopefully, we’ll be utilizing Ubuntu Studio, or at least some tools available on Ubuntu.
It’s nice to be on bass again, and not playing mandolin by myself in Boston and Carbondale. We might put some MANDO on the album, but I generally do all my writing on bass. Yes, you can write a song on the bass. Hell, our drummer bucked that tired joke and wrote some damned good songs. So there.
Perhaps we will make it available for download, here or if we set up a site just for our awesome jamming. To get you excited, we’re working on a uber-cliche version of the Vaterunser in a death-metal style with your’s-truly screaming the vocals. DEIN REICH KOMME!!
Rode a lot today.
My out-of-shape DUNKA rode almost 8 miles today. With Baltimore’s hills and traffic. My rack came off after almost a mile, so I had to come back. Then I got a piece of metal stuck in my front brake coming down a hill, which did some minor damage to my rim, though nothing like two pieces that my old bike picked up before — once in Carbondale and once right when I got to Baltimore. I had to take it and get it sanded then. This is not so bad, and I fixed and checked the bad, so it’s all good.
I did not get very tired, though my heavy bag from Whole Foods made my back sweaty, all over my cool new “What Would Nietzsche Do?” shirt. My riding companion starting ringing her bell on the last hill before my apartment. I turned around to see her walking her bike, and I felt a little awesome, which I told her. She said I just have stronger legs (which is true — my leg muscles are weirdly-large compared to my tiny arms and beer belly), but I contend that I weigh a lot more than she does, so I have to work harder, and that is a cop-out. I’m just more awesome. That’s all.
Seriously, though. All that exercise (plus the walk to the coffeeshop for breakfast) on only a bagel was not a good idea. I’m ravenous waiting for the Chinese food to show up, chugging a nice little Red Stripe.
Me go out.
Finally, we have a few days of very nice weather in Baltimore to look forward to, so I’m not going to sit here blogging much. Nor did I this week, when I got a lot of work on the diss finished and even wrote more than fifteen pages, with taking off today to go to the eye doctor and post office and some other errands. Thinned out some of my herbs this morning. Some basil for sharing with my green thumb buddy. My herbs are not for cooking yet, but they are starting to smell very good! I’m am walking and biking today like mad. I don’t think I have left the building since Monday, maybe Tuesday. Damn.
Photos by Dan and Paulie.
I did not take these, but I liked them and thought I’d post them anyway.
[Larger at Flickr.]
Baltimore most under-rated US city.
Saw this on the news twice tonight. Baltimore is the most under-rated US city. Walking around Harbor Place in the summer, I wouldn’t think it was under-rated. I love my town so much I guess I assume everyone does. I can see a city on the list that I thought was largely over-rated, but I’ll shut up since a friend of mine is stuck there for a few weeks for work.
Who is the babymama?
I love living in the city. My neighor is fighting with her boyfriend right now because, evidentally, he lied about who he has kids with. She sounds very ariticulate, so I think she’s drunk — because the things coming out of her mouth sound like someone less intelligent being very artful with words, grammar and pronunciation. I think I feel bad for her situation because she says she loves the guy and that the situation is not fair. I even want to feel sorry for her taste in men, although I usually don’t feel badly for people who have no people-sense. But I can’t have much sympathy, empathy or pity with/on her at this hour when my head hurts and I want to go to bed. Maybe she needs a hug, but I’m too cranky right now to go give her one.
I know I complain a lot about people, but I’d lose it in the country — who would I pay attention to and talk about? Maybe when I finish the disseration, get employed and stop being home so much, I won’t care.
Got my rack on.
After my bike got stolen from the bike room in the fall, we keep our bikes in our apartment. When we moved in February, we thought to leave space in our large bedroom for the bikes, so they sit in the corner behind some big Gorms from Ikea.
Seat clamp.
My new rack, which I bought a few hours before I bought my new bike in October but never got on because there are no holes in my seatstay like the 2005 (mine got stolen, remember?). I saw a hole in the fork of the seatstay, but it turned out to not be threaded when I took the wheel off. However, it dawned on me to use the mount from the rear reflector, since I had to take that off to put on the back of the rack anyway. I had to switch out screws for the standard connectors because they were about 1 mm too short to work. I am stoked to have a rack again, though bummed that I can’t get my cheap fenders on. I get to hit the P.O. today with a package to get use my new rack, too. I also get to use my cool new cargo net. To boot, the hardware was all black, like my trim, so I think it looks nice.
F’s bike with the cheap Giant fenders I picked up the other day. She does not like her rack, which makes her bike heavier. We live on the fourth/top floor, so I don’t blame her. With how small her frame is with the 700cc wheels, I got nervous by how the rack obscured her blinker anyway. Now she has two blinkers, too!
Photo Friday: The Blues.
New bike stuff.
I played hooky this morning and went shopping with my friend. Scored the cheap Giant fenders I wanted for my bike, and I figured out that I can get my back-rack on. When Giant redesigned my bike for 2006 (here is the 2007, in a much less awesome color than my dark silver fade with black hardware but also $10 cheaper rather than the $10 yearly hike on the DX), they made the seatstay cleaner-looking and took out all the extra holes for other types of brakes and accessories. The guy at another bike shop last Friday told me that I needed one of the racks that mount directly onto the seatpost, and I was less than thrilled. Plus, I already replaced my old-school-looking rack before I bought the bike in the fall, right after someone stole my black Giant. It’s not returnable, and I really like it and wanted to use it. It’s been in the closet since I found a black kickstand and put in on December. I thought I’d have to give it away until today when I found a cleverly-hidden hole that I can use to mount either my rack or my new fenders (hopefully). I already put F’s on and am looking around online for ways to get both my weirdly-mountable fenders and my old-fashioned rack to peacefully co-exist on my bike. Which is named The Duke.
Catnip.
Paulie and some catnip. We tried to sell it to teenagers for beer money, but the beer store was closed, and some kid who smoked some bit Paulie on the leg and really took some skin off. Kidding. No one would buy it:)
Map beer.
Golden West Cafe’ in Hampden. Late celebrating of a friend’s homecoming over dinner, retiring to the couches in the bar afterward, more celebrating later. Didn’t help me to not get fully sick, though.
Organic Domino Sugar.
Growing up in Hampden, I could see the red Domino Sugar sign from my bedroom because we lived on a hill that looked all the way to Key Bridge. While living far away from Baltimore, I always bought Domino, at times paying a premium to get it. Lately, just when I started looking around for organic sugar, my favorite makers of the sweet stuff come out rocking.
Photo Friday: Blessing.
Sick tea.
The Mrs. was sick all last week, and I was determined to not catch it, lest we relive the late fall and early winter wherein we traded sicknesses and lived on tea and hankies. I mean, one sick day can be kind of fun, but snotting all over for a week is not. French press coffee is not very throat-friendly, but I can live on tea just fine. Well, the Mrs. was well for a few days, and then I felt that little tickle yesterday.
You know that little feeling like you are an oyster with a little piece of sand in the back of your throat that you cannot get out, no matter how much you try to couch, and that you can’t get used to no matter how much juice you drink? It’s the feeling which indicates that you are going to get sick, are getting sick, and that there is nothing you can do about it.
I was at my friend’s house jamming a bit last night when the tickle got worse. He was not feeling very well either, so we had tea and honey and sat outside to get some cold air. It made my throat feel wonderful, so I scored some organic green tea and organic honey today, which I am looking forward to getting into.
Jamming was fun, but I am, frankly, not good enough at the mandolin to do the kind of improvisation that we like to do. So next time, I am bringing my bass. And Hampden/Roland Park will shake.
In other news, my childhood friend Chris is coming to town this weekend. I’d promise drunken blogging, but we are known to buy beer and leave it in the fridge while we have caffeine and talk for hours. This weekend, it might have to be tea, rather than the multiple cups of coffee we usually suck down. Watch Flickr for photos, though:)
Papa and Fidel.
We all know that Hemingway spent a large part of his adult life at a house he loved in Cuba. Radio Habana has a neat little story about Hemingway and his long-time home of Cuba, in the form of an interview with his former secretary:
“Valerie Hemingway, secretary of Nobel Prize for Literature Ernest Hemingway, visited Cuba last week to write an article on the author’s legacy on the island. She also gave a lecture at the Jose Marti International Institute of Journalism in Havana where she told Cuban writers, reporters and other arts professionals about what Ernest taught her about journalism.
She also recalled the life and work of the famous US writer and said that he always thought of returning to Cuba because his books, his friends, his house, his boat and his animals were here. Shortly after the lecture
Valery spoke with ACN on aspects of her time alongside Ernest Hemingway.”
I wonder if Papa gave Fidel a Moleskine, lol. Fidel did get one of his rifles, but he donated it to the museum there.