I, Too, Miss Blogging

Kathleen Fitzpatrick misses blogging because her means of getting immediate gratification through a regular writing practice has shifted in the past couple of years from blogs to Twitter.

I miss blogging because, well, I am dead and my typist is ridiculously busy teaching about blogging -- and falling in love with a new dog and building a more comfortable middle-aged body and tending to this, that, and a million other things. Oh, spring, you lovely, obnoxious season.

Go read Fitzpatrick's post, and be sure to check out the stream of marvelously thoughtful comments it elicited. She and her readers have smart things to say about different modes of online writing and relating and about responses distributed across a range of social-media platforms. We've had some experience of the latter around here, as we have noted patterns of commenting on the blog as compared to Facebook. Moose pimps posts on both Facebook and Twitter but rarely gets into extended conversations with the Twitterati, though they are a friendly bunch of folks. She often finds herself managing dual response streams, though, here on the blog and on Facebook. Are there differences between the two? Hmmm. Predictably, perhaps, Facebook responses tend to be more personal in nature, because they come from Real Life friends. Here in Roxie's World, though many commenters are also some of our nearest and dearest Real Life pals, responses tend to feel a little more public and, if you will, persona-fied, in keeping, I suppose, with this blog's dreadful habit of playing fast and loose with identity. Interestingly, last week's post, "On Broads," elicited about the same number of comments here and on Facebook, and the streams were very similar, as readers entered with gusto into the debate over whether "broad" was a term that could be reclaimed from its sexist origins and deployed as a way of honoring a strong, self-possessed woman. The consensus? Hells to the yeah, my beloved feminazis!

Funny, this question of who we are and how we engage with and present ourselves to others in different corners of the virtual universe seems to be getting a lot of attention right now. What a small, queer world it is, don't you think? Hope to "see" you in it again soon, darlings. April and all its professional cruelties can't last forever, after all. Just remember: No matter where we go and what we are doing, we would almost always rather be right here blogging with you. Peace out.