Saturday, June 13, 2009

FOAMING FRIENDSHIP, PART 1 OF 5

• SETTING THE STAGE FOR ENCOUNTERS •

The Husband has never liked that I blog. He’s less than enthused that I craft paragraphs built of my details and recklessly leave them on the internet for every-flavor freaks to lap up and utilize. He’s more cautious than that, preferring to keep his ideas, opinions, experiences, and embarrassments in the private realm.

He’s also a bit paranoid.

For he isn’t okay with me using his name on my blog. (Which is a little strange, because though I appreciate the notion of using nicknames for your kids online as protection, I am convinced that should a stranger with candy approach The Husband and call him by name (having learned it from my blog), my spouse is not going to follow the sweets into the stranger's car, later prompting the first-ever Amber Alert for a 32-year-old man.) So I recently went through the mind-numbing hassle of removing all mentions of his first name. I sure do love the guy.

For myself, as a general rule in the past, I was protective of my particulars, but I’ve discovered that the hefty personal payback of my blog deftly outweighs its risks. What I’ve fashioned here serves as the journal I’ve never been any good at keeping—a store of reminders, rememberings, and so very many revisions. My beloved vomitorium.

To the chagrin of my spouse, I’ve embraced blogging with the voracity I award most things I do, not being a halfway kind of gal. I post frequently. I post very honestly. I have given the world a reasonably accurate portrait if this Sparkler. When a visitor lands at remarksfromsparks.com, who they find isn’t a contrived caricature of a someone in Sparks; it’s the authentic her, made up of what she thinks, likes, feels, sees, and says.

Throughout the nascent existence of my online persona (a darn good reflection of the offline one), cohabitants of the Blogosphere have stumbled into this space, and some of them have stayed, becoming a part of the community that we’ve made.

Being the curious, analytical thing that I am, I use a tracker to see who comes from where, how long they stayed, and where the went when they left. Most of the time I forget the tracker's there, but if I’m making one of my enthusiastic efforts at avoiding devoting attention to the truly vital stuff of my life, I find it’s easy to fall into my SiteMeter, getting lost in the dig. I find thrills in implementing the tools of information for what they’re for: gathering up data of all sorts, the whatnot itching to be mined.

So because of this, I know that most folks who come across this blog don’t stick around, instead moving on. Sometimes they even tell me why. (I’m offensive.) (And I use parentheses too often.) (Okay, no one has accused me employing parentheses too much; but I think that someone should, for they’d be right.) (Have I yet told you that I’m one who sees words when listening and speaking? I see the actual letters. But I also see the punctuation. So there are times that I see parts of my paragraphs in parenthesis. And those are the times when you’ll hear my voice change to match the in-between-nature of the parenthetical pause.) But the readers who do stay, despite offense and parentheses, are treasures.

(Yes, of course, I do mean you.)

10 comments:

rabidrunner said...

Vomitorium?! Oh, that's a good one. Will add to my list of good ones. Will also start calling you the Sparkler. Fits well.

Julie said...

Were you an English major? Most English majors I know have some weird visual or weird narrative thing that rolls around their brain. You "see words," I narrate in my head when no one is speaking, other people do far weirder things.

I appreciate your authenticity. It is pretty dang awesome.

Megan and Keli'i said...

My thoughts were just like rabid...Vomitorium! And I'm a parenthesis whore too. It's an English major thing, I think. Maybe it's a Megan thing.

lindsey v said...

I love using parentheses. (I use them all the time.) I swear I use them at least once in every post that I write. (I can't help it.) And I hear them when I talk as well. (Just like you.) I need them.

And I feel the same as you about my blog. It's been my best kept journal for all of my 30+ years of attempts.

Megan said...

Yup, Julie, an English Major. So was our Megan Naihe above. A weird breed indeed.

[Morgan] said...

skim every post for your husband? that is love.

on the site meter note - i would say 99% of my visitors stay for "zero seconds"
i'm that awesome.

[Morgan] said...

ps sitemeter also thinks i'm in utica new york.

j. said...

i love parenthesis.

oh, and hello from a lurker...

Signe said...

Well. I like your blog, I don't leave quickly, mostly because I wait a week to read and then have to read every post! And I love parenthesis. So, you're golden in my book.

Rachel Mae said...

I too overuse parentheses (and m-dashes.) And I see words too--for instance, almost every time I say someone's name, I'm seeing it at the same time, which accounts for why I'm a little freaked out when I find out someone has what you might refer to as a "Utah spelling." I never get those ones right.