Blogging Is Not A Competition

Friday at the French Artists' Salon
Jules-Alexandre Grün, 1911

I have been blogging for about four years, and this is one of the most difficult blog posts I will ever write. I have had conversations with other bloggers, and many of them have come to the same conclusion that I have, but they are hesitant to express their views. So, I have been mulling it over for a while, trying to find the right words. If I offend anyone, or make anyone cross with me -- which I undoubtedly will do -- it is not my intention, so I do apologize. However, I guess there is no right way to do this, except to just take a deep breath and dive in. So here goes...

... deep breath ...

Blogging is not a contest. All of you folks out there who have a blog, you get up in the morning, you put a lot of thought into your posts, often a lot of heart and effort, and every single one of you deserves to be given credit for doing just that. I feel very strongly about this. The blogging world should be a level playing field. I have been blogging for about four years altogether, and I am really disappointed at how it has turned into a huge "clubby clique". It is starting to feel like high school where one has to be "in with the in-crowd", and it creates a feeling of exclusivity. Why is it that whenever human beings get together and start any sort of enterprise -- such as blogging -- they automatically have to create some sort of a hierarchy -- good, better, best...?

In July 2006 Technorati counted its 50 millionth blog, and it is estimated there are 175,000 new ones created every day, and 18.6 posts per second. And that was almost four years ago. Blogging has grown exponentially since then. Some of the very best blogs I have read are ones on which almost no one comments. The blogs may be well-written, well-researched, heartfelt and just plain amazingly good, and week after week, no one responds. On the other hand, there are blogs out there that get dozens of comments every day, and after a while the blog posts become mundane, formulaic and repetitive. But ... I guess everyone's style is different.

A year ago I was astonished to discover that my boring-little-blog had been chosen by the Blogger Team as a Blog of Note. There are so many more interesting blogs than mine out there, I thought perhaps it was a mistake. But I had the good fortune to meet so many new people and read so many new blogs. It was wonderful. And when I visit their blogs, I like to take the time to read them, get to know them, and post a thoughtful comment. They deserve nothing less. I read recently where one blogger said the secret to blogging is to visit as many blogs as possible and just post a very brief comment. No, it's not. It's all about quality, not quantity. I am always thrilled to bits when people comment on my blog, and their comments are two or three paragraphs long. My goodness, that is a compliment to me, and I love it.

There are all sorts of new bloggers out there, and I know it can feel intimidating at times, trying to break into blogging. I know of a couple of recent bloggers who gave up after a few weeks, and yet their blogs were absolutely wonderful.

My advice would be this -- keep blogging, keep writing about what you feel, and don't try to imitate other people. Be yourself. If you have something to say, say it. Goodness knows, I do. And whatever happens, don't be discouraged. Blogging is not a competition.

Cheers,

Rowing Down Georgia Street

Noah's Ark
Edward Hicks, 1846

This is the new mode of transportation around Vancouver these days -- an ark. I can't remember when it has rained so much. I'm afraid the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics are going to be washed out, and rather than holding Olympic alpine events, they will have rowing and sculling meets down the middle of Georgia Street. Because of the barometric pressure, I have had a migraine headache for the past couple of days. But I wanted to thank everyone for their wonderful responses to my last post. I have more questions to ask all of you, my lovely blogging friends, and my next post will be along the same lines, but in an entirely different vein. Did I just mix a metaphor there? *heh* I don't know, I'm not a writer. In any case, I'm off to get rid of this #@!&^#*! headache, and I will visit with you all soon.

Cheers,

Are You A Brave Blogger...?

How brave are you? How comfortable do you feel commenting on new blogs you have never visited before? I often will click onto a new link from someone's blog whom I know, only to find someone extremely interesting, bright and witty. But ... I hesitate ... to comment or not to comment. And suddenly I feel shy, and I have the same feeling as if I were intruding on a private conversation at a cocktail party. Do I dive right in? Do I hang back until I am invited? Do I have spinach between my teeth?

What to do ... what to do ...

Do you ever feel that way? I have ventured forth and found some very interesting blogs lately, written by some wonderfully erudite people, and I would love to post comments. But then I think, will they find me silly and rude? Or will they think, "Who is this fascinating person?"

What to do ... what to do ...

Do you ever feel that way, or is it just me...?

Cheers,

Glamorous And Sexy...?

In the film noirs of the 1940s and 1950s, everyone smoked. It was considered glamourous and sexy, even mysterious. Who can imagine Rita Hayworth as "Gilda" without her iconic cigarette holder? Or Bette Davis and Paul Henreid in the final scene of "Now Voyager" where Paul Henreid says, "Shall we just have a cigarette on it?" They each light a cigarette and Bette Davis says, "Let's don't ask for the moon, we have the stars." Does it even get any more romantic than that? Everyone smoked, everyone looked glamorous, and everyone wanted to emulate them. I remember my parents and all their friends smoked. My mother had a gold cigarette case that she carried everywhere with her and a gold cigarette holder. I thought she looked so beautiful and sophisticated, and I wanted to be just like her and her friends when I grew up. Smoking was part of being an adult, and it seemed that everyone who smoked was so much more witty and urbane.

Today we know the truth about smoking. Humphrey Bogart, a heavy smoker, died of cancer of the esophagus at the age of 57. We know now that smoking is not glamorous or sophisticated or even sexy. Smokers smell bad and they have raspy coughs. Smoking causes wrinkles, especially around the mouth. The smoke from a smoldering cigarette often contains higher concentrations of the toxins found in cigarette smoke than exhaled smoke does. There is enough nicotine in four or five cigarettes to kill an average adult if ingested whole. Cigarette smoke is a major source of benzene exposure, which is a known cause of acute myeloid leukemia. Secondhand smoke contains more than 50 cancer-causing chemical compounds, 11 of which are known to be Group 1 carcinogens. Every eight seconds, a human life is lost to tobacco use somewhere in the world -- in total, more than motor vehicle accidents, drunk driving, homicides, AIDS, illegal drugs and fires -- daily. Still sound glamorous and sexy?

If this sounds like a lecture, it's because it is. A friend of mine died a few days ago from lung cancer caused by cigarette smoking. I don't want that to happen to you. I like you and I want to keep you around for a long time yet. The good news is, here is what you can expect if you are a smoker and you quit today.

In 20 minutes:
• Blood pressure drops to normal, pulse rate drops to normal, body temperature of hands and feet increases to normal.
In 8 hours:
• Carbon monoxide level in blood drops to normal; oxygen level in blood increases to normal.
In 24 hours:
• Chance of heart attack decreases.
In 48 hours:
• Nerve endings start regrowing, ability to smell and taste is enhanced.
In 2 weeks to 3 months:
• Circulation improves, walking becomes easier, lung function increases up to 30%.
In 1 to 9 months:
• Coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue, and shortness of breath decrease; cilia regrow in lungs, increasing ability to clean the lungs, and reduce infection; body's overall energy increases.
In 1 year:
• Excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker.
In 5 years:
• Lung cancer death rate for average smoker decreases by almost half; stroke risk is reduced to that of a nonsmoker.
In 10 years:
• Lung cancer death rate similar to that of nonsmokers, precancerous cells are replaced; risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney and pancreas decreases.
In 15 years:
• Risk of coronary heart disease is that of a nonsmoker.



Cheers,

Time Travel

Ever since I was a little girl, and I read H.G. Wells' "Time Machine", I have been fascinated by the concept of time travel. In the movie "Somewhere in Time", Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) was able to travel back to 1912 in order to visit the young Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour), who had first visited him in as an elderly woman 1980. Confused? It was sort of a treacly movie, but it fascinated me because of the element of time travel. In a way, we are able to time travel now, using the method of episodic memory. We can sit quietly in a chair, close our eyes, and travel back to a place in time where other events are occurring and other people are in our lives. Episodic memory is not always reliable. Often we edit the episodes in our lives, sometimes to make them better or worse than what really occurred, but it's wonderful to visit there anyway.

Someone recently said something to me that "twigged" a memory that I had long forgotten. The memory was bittersweet, and I was able to take it out, visit it, and then put it back into the memory banks again. Perhaps that is the beauty of memory. We can turn it on or off at will. I have often been asked if there is a point in my life to which I would like to return, even for just a few moments. Oh, goodness, yes -- there are lots of them. I can think of dozens, perhaps hundreds of moments I would like to re-live. But I think it's fortunate that we are unable to do that, because where would that leave today -- or the memories of tomorrow? At the time we were living our lives in the past, were we aware we were making the memories of the future? Today is tomorrow's memory and one day we will revisit it. It is within our power to make it a good memory or a bad one. Today we are surrounded on both sides by our past and our future. We can reach out in either direction, but the only direction in which we can have any tangible effect is the future. We cannot change our past.

I hope you go out today, have some fun -- even for a few minutes -- and make some good memories. Take pleasure in everything you do and cherish the people in your lives. Today you are living in your future's past, and it is all fleeting. Live, laugh, love -- make tomorrow's memories.

Cheers,

Delicate Embarrassment

Delicate Embarrassment
George Morland

Did you ever have one of those days that just seem to go from bad to worse as the day goes on? Thursday was one of those days for me. It all started when I got up in the morning and discovered that my refrigerator had shut down during the night. Luckily I managed to salvage the food and store it in a neighbor's refrigerator. Of course, I was late for work, so I rushed off in a taxi, jumped out of the cab, dashed across the street and tripped. In slow motion I could feel myself falling forward, and then I heard -- and felt -- an audible pop in my back. It was the most incredible pain I had ever felt, and I had visions of fainting in the middle of the street and being run over by oncoming traffic. I managed to pull myself together, a little shakey but no worse for the wear. Once I sat down at my desk, the pain subsided.

For lunch I had a bean and corn burrito. I never eat bean and corn burritos, but for some reason I decided that would be the day to have one.

*sigh*

The workday was more hectic than usual, and at around 3:00 in the afternoon I took a break and went into the coffee room, which I was pleased to find I had all to myself. I had a cold drink and sat quietly doing the crossword puzzle. I find crossword puzzles calming, and I could feel myself becoming relaxed. However, my body had other ideas, and it decided to involuntarily emit -- ever so delicately, mind you -- what my daughter used to call a "bum burp". Oh, come on now, don't tell me this has never happened to you. We're all human beings, right? Sometimes our bodies have a mind of their own whether we like it or not. Anyway, just at that moment my boss walked into the room to fill his glass from the water cooler. Seeing me on my own reading the paper, he decided to engage me in conversation.

"Did you have a nice Christmas? What did you get for Christmas? Belated Happy Birthday...! I heard you telling someone you got a crock pot and you were really excited to try it out. I have one too. I have a wonderful recipe for ... blah, blah, blah ..."

I sat there silently praying for the floor to open up and swallow me ... right away. After what seemed like an eternity, my boss left me in peace to finish my crossword. I looked down at the next clue ... 14 across ... "Emit air".

They could hear me laughing on the other side of the office. God has a sense of humor.

As You Gaze Into Your Crystal Ball...

It seems like just last week that we were on the threshold of a new millennium. The biggest prediction for the new decade was that the world would end when all the computers crashed at the stroke of midnight, taking humanity with them. At 12:01 a.m., the world continued on as before, and we all heaved a collective sigh of relief. Little did we know what was to come -- some good, and some not so good -- 9/11 and the rise of terrorism, Katrina, the Boxing Day tsunami, globalization, Twitter, iPOD, the resurgence of the Beatles, the death of Michael Jackson, reality TV, PlayStation and Wii, Ugg boots and Crocs, blogging, Vladimir Putin, the Euro, SARS and H1N1, Pope Benedict XVI, Barack Obama, Taylor Swift, the cloying music of Josh Brogan, Andrea Bocelli and Susan Boyle (*shudder*), Brangelina, the Gosselins, the Biggest Loser, Space Shuttle Columbia, Harry Potter, Sarah Palin, the Pakistan earthquake, Beyonce, Tina Fey, Pixar, The Sopranos, wardrobe malfunctions, cougars, "whazzup", "thinking outside the box", YouTube, bling, "it is what it is", "just sayin'", American Idol, the web generation, the Osbournes, the Human Genome Project, Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, Space Shuttle Columbia, the Large Haldron Collider, face transplants, Ardipithecus ramidus, hybrid cars, Anderson Cooper, High School Musical, Paris Hilton, "that's hot", Wikipedia, metrosexuals, Hannah Montana, low carbs, ADHD, The Da Vinci Code, Jared the Subway guy, Craigslist, Bratz, botox, Sudoku, bluetooth, bleached teeth.

We didn't cure the common cold or baldness, as was predicted at the beginning of the decade, but we did learn how to make embryonic stem cells from adult stems cells, thereby potentially curing Parkinson's Disease and spinal cord injuries.

Phinnaeus and Marigold were born into a world where the Internet and all the other advancing technology is part of their lives, and they don't know a world without it. Ask any 12 year-old kid, and you will find out what is on the horizon as far as the latest gadgets and gizmos, and I love it. I think it's wonderful.

As you look back at the past decade, what do you remember the most, and what do you predict for the coming decade?

Cheers,

The Dramas and Scandals...!

When I was a little girl, all I wanted to be was a figure skater. I remember my first pair of ice skates, when I was eight years old, and they were the most wonderful gift I had ever received. I felt as if they had opened a door for me to a magical world. I expected to lace up my skates and fly across the ice just like the figure skaters I had watched on TV. To my shock, I spent most of my first day week month holding on to the sideboards at the skating rink, nursing bruised knees and elbows. This skating business wasn't going to be as easy as I had thought. Eventually I got the hang of it, though, and it became almost an obsession. I skated every opportunity I could get. My parents signed me up for figure skating lessons, but it turned out I really wasn't going to be Olympic material, so I skated just for fun. However, I continued to follow the figure skaters at the Olympics and the most amazing performance I ever saw at an Olympic skating championship was Peggy Fleming in 1968 in Grenoble, France. You could actually hear the whole world collectively holding its breath, and when she was finished she won a standing ovation. I may be wrong, but I don't think that had ever happened until then. Her performance was beautiful.

Figure skating is an interesting sport, filled with scandal -- for some stange reason. In 1994 Tonya Harding was banned from figure skating for life for allegedly being involved in a plot to debilitate Nancy Kerrigan. And then -- out of nowhere -- Oksana Baiul, the 16 year-old from the Ukraine, swept onto the ice like a little pink, fluffy bird, and stole the gold medal from everyone. Following that, in 2002 the Russian skaters Anton Sikharulidze and Elena Berezhnaya were awarded the gold medal because the French judge Marie Reine Le Gougne made a deal with the Russians, trading votes for the French team. The Canadians David Pelletier and Jamie Salé had been the clear winners, skating a nearly perfect performance. Later, the Canadians were awarded a gold medal in a special ceremony, and the system of judging for figure skating has been changed. Who knew such a clean-cut sport could be fraught with such deception and intrigue?

Next month the 2010 Winter Olympics will be held here in Vancouver, and I suppose once again there will be some sort of drama, but I'll have to watch it from my living room. Getting tickets to any Olympic event was almost impossible. But it will be exciting to know that whatever is going on, it is happening just minutes from my house. And maybe there will be an unexpected upset, and people will say, "Remember in Vancouver when....?"

If you're fortunate enough to be attending any of the Olympic events, my friends, have fun...!

Cheers,

How On Earth Do You Do It?

What's your secret? How do you do it? I can hardly keep up with you -- any of you. I barely have time to keep up with my own boring-little-blog. When I come home from work at the end of the day, almost the last thing I want to do is to sit down in front of a computer again, and yet it seems to be where all the action is these days. Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, you guys are everywhere...! How on earth do you do it? And you all manage to create such wonderful blog posts, and as soon as you have published, et voila! you have 50 comments. It's incredible...! I wish I had the time to visit all your fabulous blogs, but I have been venturing further and further away from my computer lately. For Christmas I was given eight absolutely fabulous books from my family and friends, plus a year's subscription to the New Yorker Magazine from my lovely friend Russell. I get lost in my books, and often wake up at 4:00 in the morning with my light still on, and my book lying next to me.

Computer? What's a computer...?

So I do apologize for my absence, and I will be back to visit you soon, and hopefully my books and New Yorker will give me more topics for blog posts, because goodness knows, my life is not as interesting as yours...!

In the meantime, while everyone in North American is freezing their butts off, here is a little video of the sunrise in balmy Vancouver this morning. Have a great day, everyone!



Cheers,

Future World

When you were a little kid, did you ever wonder what the world of the future would look like? People zipped around on jet packs, and electric highways were high above the city, with noiseless electric cars flying smoothly along them. The world would be free of disease and war, because we had finally learned how to conquer these things. Did you ever imagine it would actually turn out the way it has? Last night I was watching a program about body scanners that are being implemented in airports. In other words, every time someone gets on an airplane, they will be visually strip searched. Has anyone questioned that this may be an infrigement of civil liberties? Why are body scanners necessary? Because there is a group of militant nut-cases in the world who feel it is their duty to kill anyone who doesn't belong to their particular cultural group. Could you have even imagined this a decade or two ago?

Soon Vancouver will be hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, and the CDC is recommending that everyone who will be involved, or attending any event, should get a flu vaccination. Well, yes, that makes sense. I sometimes think, though, that we are becoming overly-anxious about contagious infections. The best way to prevent them is by washing our hands. But, how much damage are we doing by using so-called "antibacterial" soaps? Bacteria are sneaky little buggers. We can't really kill them, they just learn to mutate and adapt. So we are effectively creating super-bugs -- ones that we will not be able to fight off. Our worse enemy won't be the fellow with the explosive powder in his underwear, but the teeny tiny microbe we can't see.

Can we collectively control the direction in which our future is going? Can we change the trajectory it is on right now, which seems to be heading more towards a "Mad Max" 21st Century than a more gentle "Jetsons". We are guided by a collective paranoia about perceived threats, but the way I see it, the real threat is ourselves. We are creating a world of over-reaction. We're using machine guns to kill mosquitoes. It used to be that full-body scanners were used only in prisons. Now the family is required to go through one as they board the plane on the way to their vacation at Disneyland. Do they still have Future World at Disneyland? Is it anything like the world we are creating? I sure hope not.

Cheers,