Tagged: blog

August 15, 2012

Bad Luck Blogger

Last night, Ben and I were talking about the curious situation where I downloaded the All in One SEO Pack, and started using the Google Keywords Tool to optimize my search engining, but instead of getting more hits from this, in the 5 days since I started using SEO, my readership has actually fallen by half. While I realize that 5 days is in no way representative of a substantial sample, the whole thing’s still a little bit Bad Luck Brian.

Anyway, guess who found out that the British Queer as Folk is on Netflix instant streaming? That’s a terrible guess, it was me. Netflix says it’s series 2, but it’s actually series 1 and 2, which is the entire run of the show since they only had 2 serieses, or seasons, or whatever stupid English nonsense stands for a unit of television programming.

The Brits don’t hold a candle to the American version, but watching it saves me having to go all the way to the living room to take my 2 seasons of American QAF off the shelf when I want to watch dudes dramatically gaying out with each other.

I know the prestigious sixmonth blogaversary was hardly a month ago, but that was mostly about my life and not really about the blog at all. Over the last 6+ months, I’ve gotten some feedback, and I do have some regular readers. (Although another 2 weeks of SEO will wipe them out completely at this rate.) And what I’ve learned from that is: I really want more interaction with my readership, I want to be a part of a community.

Writing is fulfilling in and of itself, even if I were typing these up and throwing them into a hole in the ground, it would be helpful. I can already feel like I have a written voice again, something I had basically abandoned when I started copyrighting (you don’t want to sound too interesting or creative in catalog copy). However, I want peers. I read blogs, but the majority of them are extremely popular, their comment sections overflow with comments and compliments. I feel like I’m just making more work for the blogger if I throw my small straw to that poor camel’s back.

It’s not even like there’s an iTunes for blogs like there is for podcasts, a medium I actually am familiar with. Every blog directory and forum I find is 2 years old and riddled with spam. Is this a dearth of information or a glut of it? Blog networks like Blogher overwhelm me, there seems to be no home for the small time blogger, only the excited newby who will be gone in 2 weeks, and the megablogger who already has 3 books in publication, and a TV show in the works.

So tonight at dinner with Big Ben and Carrie, B. Ben suggested that I start soliciting advice requests from my readers. I already give occasional advice in other venues across the Internet as well as real life. I am credited as giving excellent advice, and it’s something I really like to do. (A shocking admission from a know-it-all like myself, I’m sure.) I mean, I started this SEO shit so that I could get more readers and therefore more reader interaction, why not cut out the middle men? So, dear readers, comment or email me your troubles and I will blog a solution just for you. Tens of Interneters and personal friends can attest to my wisdom, join their well advised ranks!

And look what my fortune cookie had to say at dinner! This can’t possibly turn out bad!

Also, what blogs do you read, what’s your blog if you have one? I really want more bloggers in my life over here.

July 25, 2012

Sixmonth Blogaversary

Yesterday marked 6 months I’ve been blogging Monday through Friday. I don’t really have anything planned for my blogaversary, except that it’s something to write about, and since I have to produce one of these fuckers every weekday, I might as well cover it in addition to everything else I drop here.

I’m trying to think of how my life is different from six months ago. I feel like there are a few things going on at the same time, and I’m not sure if they’re all related. Readers from before I was a 5-day a week blogger may remember that last year I was diagnosed with depersonalization disorder. For months before that, I had been fairly depressed and conflicted about basically everything. Since I stopped talking to my mom, I’d pulled away from my entire family on both sides, not wanting to pressure them to choose. I also took on more and more responsibility at work, far above my pay grade. I learned a lot, but I began avoiding social situations, even as I was overspending and not saving. I seriously wondered what I was doing with my life.

Eventually, I went to therapy, then I went to good therapy. I got the depersonalization diagnosis, which really helped me. I started hanging out with people again, being a presence in my friends lives, and calling my family. Work stayed insane, and I sort of still felt like I was living in a fog. Now I realize that at least part of it was because I wasn’t feeding my artistic apatite, instead I used the opportunities I got at the office as a substitute for my own creative fulfillment.

I started this blog because I knew I wanted something else, I just didn’t know what exactly. Long term plans haven’t changed, we still want to get out of L.A., but other than that, and how that obscure goal relates to my daily blogging, I had no expectations for my new hobby.

In the last 6 months, I’ve discovered a lot of resources that I didn’t know were available to me. A parallel I can draw to something recent is The Edible Front Lawn Tour. The people on the tour started their gardening alone, but as their projects went along, they discovered a community of neighbors and fellow gardeners they wouldn’t have known was there if they hadn’t set out to create something for themselves in the first place. I started blogging Monday through Friday in order to create something for my own benefit now and in the future, and in doing that, I found all of you guys.

I mentioned before that the blog doesn’t have a very large readership, and I’m not sure how much I want to care about that kind of stuff. On any given day, there’s about ~~40 to 60~~ 25-50 of you reading this, and that’s more people than I could get to do anything else with me in it. The last party I threw had 2 attendees (which is good, because more than that couldn’t have fit in my living room.) I do look at the analytics and pay attention to the comments here and on facebook and twitter. I try to remember what you guys like the most, and if I like it too, I focus on producing more of that. As much as my approval-seeking personality allows, I try to keep follower-grubbing to a minimum, and I think that’s a good thing. Blogs that try to pander to the widest possible margin seem to lose a lot of what makes a blog great in the first place.

I recently told a friend that the last year and a half of my life have been a wash, but that wasn’t really the correct way to phrase it. More like the last year and a half of my life is probably one of the few times where I’ve been treading water, expending all the energy I usually use to advance just to stay where I am. I learned a lot, and grew emotionally; especially in regard to my relationship with my mother and her impact on me. But while I was figuring all this out, there were days where all my effort went towards maintaining the status quo: not fucking up at my job, not overtaxing personal relationships. It was exhausting. I did a lot of crying in odd places. Once, at dinner with the same friend I just mentioned, I burst into tears for no reason. I was just so tired it was all I could do.

Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m coming out of the fog of exhaustion and stress. Starting with changing the frequency of the blog, I was able to have a creative outlet that was 100% mine. Then there was a major positive change in my working situation. I feel like I have energy again, like there’s direction to my life, like I know what I want and I’m reasonably sure how to get it. I’ve started to see what’s really important.

A year ago I would have definitely told you that my career was the most important thing to me. Now, I’d say that my connections to my loved ones, and my ability to do work that I’m proud of, more than the title I hold or the pay rate I’m at, are priorities for me. I could just be saying that because I finally (through no effort of mine) got the title I had been gunning for since last year, and I also (again, not by my doing) am at a place where my contributions to my savings account are where I think they should be without taking anything away from my budget, but I’m pretty sure it’s thanks to the lessons I’ve learned.

I don’t know how long I’ll be blogging Monday through Friday, hopefully for a long time. Now that Ben’s back on a regular schedule at work, there are sometimes conflicts when he wants to go to bed and I have “one more thing” I want to get down before I’m done. I’ve started a ‘production hour’ policy, wherein the first hour after we get home from work we spend on personal projects like the blog, or our websites or other things. Hopefully this will stop situations like tonight where Ben is in bed right now and I’m still typing this up.

June 28, 2012

A survey from 5 Years Ago: Part 1

So I’ve recently discovered and became obsessed with the Vlogbrothers, who are Hank and John Green, two brothers that embarked on a project in 2007 to exclusively communicate via daily vlogs for an entire year. That turned into a sort of Internet empire that, to be honest, I’m a little bit afraid to interact with. So, naturally, I have opted for the path of least awkwardness: research. In that vein, I’m watching as much of their back catalog as I can possibly stand. Between yesterday and today I’ve watched from Jan 1, 2007 to Feb. 20, 2007 (which is playing in the background as I type this.)

I’ve realized that watching videos while I do other work doesn’t actually save any time at all, rather it takes just as long to watch a video and write a blog simultaneously as it would to do both consecutively. The only real difference is that I feel like I’m being extra productive.

Anyway, I’m watching these videos (I’m up to Feb. 22 at this point) It’s kind of hilarious watching Hank get excited for 53 comments, seeing as how the most current Vlogbrothers video has received over 2,000 comments in the last 24 hours. Another cute thing is when, in answering this survey (oh yeah, I’m about to take a survey from a 5 year old Vlogbrothers video because why not?) Hank says that his perfect day would be to wake up and check his email and find out that he’s become famous for something that he did that’s really cool and that he’s really proud of. It’s kind of great when you can actually watch someone become who they want to be right before your very eyes. I’m used to this process taking years, and not working for most people, and having backslides and upsets and interminably long periods of stagnation. But thanks to the power of the Internet, I can watch Hank Green talk about wanting to be something, and then I can watch him be it in front of my very eyes!

On a purely self-centered note, that’s kind of what I want this blog to be for me. Actually, I just realized that I’ve been blogging since 2005. Not Monday through Friday like I’ve been doing lately, but still, I have a record of myself preserved in blog form since 2005. At some point, I’m going to have to go back and see how embarrassing that is.

Editor’s note: This turned out to be amazingly long, so I’m splitting it up across two days. Stay tuned tomorrow for the dramatic conclusion of the Vlogbrothers/Hank Green survey from 2007.

March 20, 2012

What’s Up with the Blog? – Part 2

In part 1, I talked about what’s going on with me, and how Ben and I are quickly becoming tired of living in LA, but not seeing a lot of solutions from where we are right now. We know we love what we do, but we also realize that if we want to live the way we want to in Los Angeles, we’re going to need a lot higher incomes than we have. However, all the money in the world isn’t going to make up for the traffic and the pollution.

Through talking, we’ve decided (well, I’ve decided, Ben was always on board with leaving LA) that we’re probably going to be leaving Los Angeles at some point in the future. My phrasing is that “it’s in our five year plan.” Because that sounds like a thing that mature adults would say. In reality, we have no plans nor any intent to make them at the moment.

We both have great jobs that we like, we are surrounded by good friends. We make enough money to enjoy our lives and to not worry about finances, even though we don’t make so much money that we can take vacations or live in a house. LA isn’t treating us badly at all, which is probably why our plans are somewhat amorphous.

So far what we’ve come up with is that we want to live in a smaller community, where we can walk or ride our bikes safely to work, to the store or for an evening out. We want lower prices on better houses. We want to be able to make our own hours, and have more control over which projects we work on. I heard somewhere that working for yourself means that you get to choose which of 12 hours of the day you work, and we’re both okay with that idea. I like hard work, I find personal fulfillment in it. But it is difficult to balance that principal with the modern workplace as it is.

I constantly find myself having to de-invest in my projects at work. Even though work makes me feel fulfilled, I can’t rely on work to fulfill all my needs, that’s why I have a real life. I frequently break my back for, lets be honest, a product that will never carry my name, and an employer that, while great, can replace me in an instant. Not putting livelihood in front of life is a lesson every worker should learn, no matter who their employer is. And I can’t emphasis enough how much I like my job, but I can’t be a cog forever. Eventually I’m going to need something else. When and what that is, I do not know.

Which is basically what’s up with the blog. After our talk about being able to do what we love from anywhere we want to go, Ben and I started putting more effort into developing our marketable skillets. One thing I don’t do at work is write. And one thing I could really benefit from in the future is a website with some Google-ability. Whatever I end up selling, I’m going to need visibility to make sure someone out there is buying.

So, now you know as much about my plans as I do. Have you ever done anything like this? Do you have any advice? I’m reading different things online, and I’m starting to get a feeling for a few things I want to avoid, but I’m not sure what’s in store for us.

October 27, 2010

Twitter Tells Me: Break-ups and Dying

I asked Twitter what I should blog about, and this is what I got:

diamondmanaphy: @marinaisgo Have you ever gone through a break up without first having the relationship?

Not that I know of, but I think I know what you’re talking about. I’ve been through friend break-ups that might as well have been romantic break ups, and I’ve been through romantic breakups that might has well have been a lunch order. I remember a guy I had been hooking up with for several months told me some dramatic crap about how I was going to be great someday and left my house in a sulk. I didn’t know until I heard he was getting married to someone else that he’d broken up with me that day. But I’ve been through friend break-ups with girls that dragged on, involved crying, late nights and comfort eating. Basically every sick convention of young romance has happened to me, except with female BFFs that weren’t really FF, if you know what I mean. Ultimately I think that was probably safer for me because if I had all that drama along with a sexual relationship, I think I would be a basket-case. Well, more of a basket-case at any rate

ThereminJelly @Marinaisgo Ways you wouldn’t want to die?

Sometimes I think I want to go fast so I won’t have to suffer. Other times I think I’d like to be able to prepare and get my things in order, make peace and say goodbye. I haven’t had a lot of people dye in my life, so I’m not familiar with death. I wouldn’t want to die in a hospital, and I wouldn’t want to die suffering or in a panic. Obviously I wouldn’t want to die at the hands of another person, and I don’t want to die young. My definition of “”young” changes with every birthday I have. I’ll probably be 90 and still worried about dying young.

Having spent a lot of time trying to ‘swim’ as a very young child, I know that drowning is really pleasant at a certain point. At first, you’re panicked, but then as the brain starts to be deprived of oxygen, everything seems really beautiful and comfortable. I have a distinct memory of being surrounded by water and light thinking “this is so nice.”