So, I find myself in a completely new place, and as usual, I’m lost.
And I’m not just talking about the fact that I just moved from Colorado to Pennsylvania and I feel so damned disoriented because I don’t know where WEST is anymore when I’m driving around. In Colorado Springs, you ALWAYS knew which way was West. The Peak was RIGHT THERE and Voila! That was West.
No, I’m not talking about that, although I’m sure I will, at some point.
I’m talking about being lost on the Internet. And feeling my ‘age’. I’ve spent a good year wondering if I should start a blog, and I didn’t for a long time because
1. I barely have time to do everything else I need to do every day.
2. What the hell do I really have to say, and who the hell would care enough to read it?
3. It just seemed so…complicated. The intricacies of it all, the linking, the commenting, the fucking RSS feed thing that I still don’t really understand, all that shit.
I used to be a graphic designer. I used to design interfaces and button schemes for websites involving GIS technology. And even though I did all that, it wasn’t nearly as technical and glamorous as it sounds. Even with all that, I was still low on the scale in terms of technical knowledge. There was probably a 15-minute period about 7 years ago when I was technically savvy enough to say that I really understood the Internet. That was it, my 15 minutes. Then I had babies and lived in a sleepless, breastfeeding fog for a few years, and that seems to be when blogging really took off.
I just figured I’d sit it out, wait for the next thing to come along, maybe get in on that. But then I moved from Colorado to Pennsylvania, and found myself lost in my physical world, so I did the next logical thing. I started a blog.
I don’t mind being lost. I don’t mind learning new things. But if I screw it up and do something inappropriate with linking to other blogs, I’ll feel pretty bad. I don’t want to be a ‘bad’ blogger. Or a rude one.
So, having said all that, I’d like to call your attention to the following article: Say Everything, by Emily Nussbaum. I found it on Arts & Letters Daily, but the article seems to be located at New York magazine. It’s a long article, but it speaks so well of what I can’t seem to articulate about coming late to the blogging scene, and the endless worries about blogging and being so public online, worries, it seems, that date me and show my ‘age’. Young kids today don’t worry about the Internet the way I do, the way we do, those of us who grew up without cable TV and AOL.
It’s a long article, but it’s definitely worth reading. I hope my links work and that they’re done right.
When I moved from NY to Colorado, I found myself confused in quite the opposite way. When I asked for directions, instead of the usual helpful “turn left at the third light” I’d been accustomed to, I was getting directions like, “go west three blocks.” I thought, “west? which way is that?” It was months before someone pointed out the constant reference point I had been ignoring. Until I realized that shamefully obvious mountain was the cause, I thought maybe every one in Colorado had been a Boy Scout.
Hi hootandflutter!
I’m originally from NJ, and I went through a similar thing when I had moved out to Colorado all those years ago. And I also had enormous difficulties and anxiety when I suddenly had to learn to pump my own gas, since in NJ it was illegal to do that, and I had never, ever worked a gasoline pump. Ever. My husband used to get so irritated, because I constantly left our car with no gas in it rather than pump gas the whole first year I lived out there.
And thanks for stopping by and reading. :o)
We moved from CO (Denver area) to KC, KS just over a year ago, and I still can’t figure out how these people find their way around without knowing which way is West!
Hey Deanna,
I never realized you were from CO. Are you a CO native?
As for direction, here at my little rented farm house, some of the trees have moss growing on them, so that helps. At least, at home, I know which way North is. But, checking which side the moss grows on isn’t quite as dramatic as, oh, I don’t know, Pikes Peak looming in the western sky. (sigh)
Sorta. I grew up spending my summers in CO and moved there full time in 1997. We moved out here to KS late 2005.
If my van didn’t have a compass, I think I’d constantly be lost without the mountains. No moss here either
Your little farm house sounds absolutely lovely though!