So these mounds of traffic coming into my blog has kind of created a ripple effect. It seems over the last couple of weeks in particular, I’ve managed to generate about 2000 visits and hits to my blog, and as a result I am one of the most read blogs here on JS.
As a result, the erstwhile deiseltangerine decided to add me to a kind of review of the top ten blogs. I had no idea about this, and read in the comments to someone’s comments, buried in smotty’s blog.
So of course I went over there to see what she had to say. This days old post had managed to generate more than 100 comments, and some of it was quite virulent. After reading the post, I could see why. Ms Tangerine blasted most of what she deemed puerile writings of most of the people who are also high traffic blogs and hover in and around the top ten.
Many of these people got remarkably annoyed and well, the tone of Ms Tangerine’s comments was not complimentary in most cases. So although I understand why they got annoyed, I felt people’s overly emotional response had more to do with not being able to handle criticism, positive or otherwise.It was very, very ugly.
What she said about my blog was not a very informed comment, and it was not very nice. The thing is, I did not save the comment to hard drive and, well read on, I’ll tell you what happened in a bit.
The point is, I felt I had to at least mention that her comment was uninformed.
In response (and added at something like comment number 123 or some such number) :
Who is this Cleophas dude? Is he missing neurons, synapses misfiring? Shit buddy, smoke some weed, chill out.
I wrote this whole long comment, addressing what you said about my blog, but in the end I decided, “Why throw pearls, before swine?” It’s a wasted effort to try and point anything out, make any sage observations about why I blog, since I don’t have to justify myself to you, or anyone else for that matter. Pay my rent for six months, we’ll sit down and have another conversation, negotiate maybe, until then, nothing for you.
However I will say is this:
I know you’ve only ever passed through my blog once or twice, so you’ll forgive me if I take your comment with a pinch (or pound) of salt. I suppose you exercised the right we all have. In your case, don’t want to hear what I’m listening to, what I feel, what gets me off? Don’t click, and well you haven’t, so it’s no skin off my nose.
Besides, your taste in blogs in clearly evident, and well I’m not Eurocentric enough in my perspective, or a Los Angeles native for that matter, or snide or sarcastic enough.
Like you, I can count the number of times, I’ve come to read your blog on one hand. I can only handle smotlock’s sarcasm and bitterness, no one else has a chance with me.
Blessings and Good Things.
P.S. Did you find a ‘turn you into a frog’ spell on my blog? Do you want to be a frog, in some small recess of your heart? I can’t help you buddy, I and I magic nah run dat course!
I also added:
Hey smotty, regarding the number of SoCal blogs in the top ten, hey, I noticed I’m like one of the few BLACK, FEMALE-WRITTEN blogs to hit the top ten around here, so that in itself is enormously rewarding. Shit, the first day I started this blog I had two visits.
Hell I’d also like to point out, I’m one of the few Caribbean writers to hit the top ten around here as well.
It seems, what I wrote, not expecting a response, caused Sister Tangerine to actually reconsider her position, and her initial flippant drive by comment.
She comments to my comment.
Sungoddess-
In all the ensuing hogwash, I’d almost forgot that there were some people whom I had critiqued who hadn’t responded to my original post.
To learn about Cleophas, go to Peddiewolf’s journal, and read the comments from about a month ago, when she was a featured journal. I believe your estimation of him to be kind, and just about the most tame thing one could say about him. If you’d like to read another version of the Cleo-pus story, Peddie wrote an entry about it starring a nasty little man named “Dwight” (not to be confused with my cat of the same name).
You’re right, you don’t have to justify yourself to me. Your comment showed me that I misjudged you. The people who took such umbrage above, I believe I nailed. I went back and read a few of your featured entries and then I read my quick observation I’d made of a general skim of your journal, which was based on only one or two visits.
My taste in blogs is not represented entirely by the people who regularly appear in the Top Ten, but more by my Favorites list. I enjoy reading Alex’s and Shockland’s and TheCowSaysMu’s blogs the most of all, because I know them. I think Californians are engaged in a vast west coast conspiracy to take over Journalspace, and thus I’m suspicious of their ubiquitousness on the Top Ten, but we mustn’t speak further of this, or they’ll blast the San Andreas fault and secede from the ‘States – and then everyone would have to rely on Arizona and Nevada for their In-N-Out burgers.
What I meant about the spells wasn’t to imply anything about your skill with them, but rather to say that there are a lot of dumbasses out there who neither respect that sort of thing nor know how to handle it, and if they had access to magic, there would be a lot of people being turned into marmots in the middle of gym class because they looked at someone funny.
I think there is some small recess of my heart where I want to be a frog, but it is overpowered by the bigger part of me that wants to be an otter. Or a fruit bat. Or a piece of chalk.
Your response to my criticism was, by far, more well thought-out than the original criticism, which has been removed, not in shame of what I wrote, but rather because, upon further reading of your journal, it just didn’t fit.
It is refreshing to see that there are still adults on this site.
Ta,
Ptitza OdelayAs a result, Sister Tangerine took down her comment, so I cannot quote it here for our eddification, brothers and sisters.
At any rate, it seems that unlike everyone else she made a negative comment about, she and I are not now mortal enemies. I respect her for her opinion, and told her I appreciated her right to express it.
I was seriously tempted to type one of those acronyms for laughing out loud, but I know how you hate that, and would not want to tip the new found respect it seems you’ve found for me. :smiling:
When I came back to check and see if you’d replied to my comments, see ya girl, digging to find your original comment and for a moment thinking I had dreamt the whole thing yesterday afternoon. I’d like to thank you for being big enough to change, based on a simply made observation and comment on my part.
You think the SoCals are taking over JS…. shit man, I thought is was the West Indian posse. There are a ridiculous amount of former-809ers around here. I have noticed though, that the SoCals are the one getting all the play. Hmmmmmm…….
As for the spells and magic and stuff, just last week I lost a good friend over posting them, and over my spiritual perspective on life, so I am well aware that there are people who do not understand or want to understand magic. That said, in itself that isn’t a bad thing, for exactly the reason you named above. People can be very selfish and self absorbed.
So, just a quick little note to thank you for being willing to look again, and thank you for removing the comment, although you didn’t have to. As I said, you’re quite entitled to your opinion, and I support your right to express it, even if I don’t agree with it.
I’d like to see you come by my blog again, and feel free to offer commentary if you feel some of it coming on. I for one, am going to make an effort to pass by here and read, if only to see what the fuck you’re going to say next, and who else you planning to piss off. :laughing:
Blessings and Good Things,
Big MamiSo now, here’s the thing. Since reading her paragraph long commentary on my blog, and my actual first negative comment unless you count The Terrible Two of my Crazy Bitch Files, post.
When I was counting down my one year Blogiversary, I had started this kind of retrospective on how I started blogging and why. So this morning I pulled it out, and started working on it again.
Not by way of justification, but because dieseltangerine got me thinking about why I blog, and what keeping this journal has meant to me on a personal and spiritual level.
In the last year, I’ve written a lot. In fact, I think I’ve written more in the last year, than I have in the last five years. This blog has been a great excuse to write. It’s a great excuse for me to work on honing my craft. For me, I haven’t felt that kind of impulse since my early twenties, working as a cub reporter and knocking about between Barbados and Trinidad.
Back then, I wrote and wrote and wrote. When I look back through my archives of that time, I realise that one, I was prolific during that period, and two, I was really raw. My writing had these shiny moments, where I could see where I was going, but you know the enemy of all young writers, punctuation and carelessness, still makes re-reading those stories and articles a painful experience.
However, I’ve found bits of my life there. Re-reading those works now, often shock the shit out of me. I used my freelance gig to get paid for writing little anecdotes about life and growing up, and I buried memories in there. I used the newspaper as a kind of ‘last century’ blog, and even then, as raw as I was, I’d get letters, comments and positive feedback. A good few of my readers letters to me, was published in the paper, and I was ever so proud of being able to invoke responses in people.
There is a part of all writers, artists et al, who value feedback. I marvel at the ripples writing can cause, and how my expression of ideas and self, inspire others to express their own ideas and themselves. I get that, people come up to me and tell me what I write moves them, and I am so thankful for that talent. I am glad I can ask people to think and rethink how they act and treat themselves and one another, and hence in the greater world. I think it’s probably what I’m going to spend my life doing.
It’s funny, because when I am here, labouring in my room, writing and rewriting sentences, I always feel a little obscure and isolated. I don’t get the sensation I am writing for or to effect the whole world, I’m just expressing my own ideas and opinions on things, and putting to good use all those verbal and language skills, and independent thinking my mother and father invested in me, (even to their own chagrin later.) Nah, when I am in here, I’m just getting these things out of my mind and into some other form.
When I started this blog, on multiple levels, I was just vomiting up my emotional distress over PHG. I was still very much in the middle of this thing with him–and her too I suppose, even then. It wasn’t pretty. When I go back and read some of the things I wrote, although it sounds good, reads well, and were my authentic feelings almost embarrassed to say I felt that way, and that I expressed it all in this blog.
Thing is, I go back and read these things from time to time, and as much as I wince internally over my errors in judgement where that situation was concerned, I see the growth between here and there. I see my journey from one place to the next, and I cherish my ability to express it all, and hence purge it all.
I still wince when I read my journal from age 15; my writings of 19, my writings of age 25. Mostly because as long as I have kept journals, I avoid lying to myself in them. I can also see how I was thinking about certain things, and track how my thinking changed over the course of time. It’s a valuable tool for introspection, learning and developing self knowledge.
It’s important to me at least, to keep a record of my emotional life, my day-to-day life, and adventures, because it will give me an opportunity to reflect on what happened, and to continually cull lessons and wisdom from the experiences.
Then, after all that drama subsided, the blog began to change. It started to do more than just whimper and whine, in the throes of a nasty love jones, or put on flagrant displays of bravado. It started to mine these dark and dank places; burning camphor and sprinkling bay rum and Florida Water to chase away the negativity.
Spots of negativity did indeed exist. The last year has been an extraordinary blessing in allowing my voice to just run free. To say what was in my heart, on my mind. I’ve learnt so much in the process, that I can only be grateful for the experience.
A year in, I am far more selective about what I post in here. It’s not precisely self censorship, it’s more like I just can’t write purely about the mundane, and feel a need to really be authentic in what I express, rather than just regurgitating up my anger, frustration and such. Nah, I want to be about something, have something meaningful to say.
And boy have I ever. I’ve never written so much!! My daily life now is filled with the things I make mental notes about, things I want to write about in my blog, as well as reading other people’s blogs. Oh yeah, in between I do some work.
For me, as much as I write for what appears to be a growing audience, I am and have always kept my journals for my children. I want them to have a picture of me, and wrap that up as part of the legacy I continue to prepare for them.
I want them to know me all the way through, and to get understanding from what I write here. So when you hear me call myself Big Mami, I’m their Big Mami, and it as much an address to them, as it is to my online audience.
So, here I am, trying to blog meaningfully if there is such a thing.
I get these comments from people who read, who say they are moved by what I write, and I smile secretly, feeling validated by people’s feedback, but at the same time, hoping what I write moves my children and grandchildren the same way. I hope that in keeping and maintaining my journals, I move them to find whatever wisdom or knowledge they can in what I am willing to share in this process, and to forgive me my humanity, and love me for my angel soul.
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