And...we're back.

I had to take a little blogging vacation, I was getting too paranoid about the over-exposure of personal information on the internet, the swarm and strange omniscient feeling of a thousand staring eyes.  Even if no one is watching at all, I installed a statcounter (wave, it can see you, too) and realized only my dear few read this thing anyway.  But, for a few months there, I really had to close up the slats and batten down the hatches.  Pardon the terrible metaphors.  But I missed blogging.  I'm back.

Back, and, then, to what?  What has changed?  It's January.   I last wrote in October.  Katie and I are still planning our wedding, which draws ever closer.  A few holidays happened...yes.  I grew a bit disillusioned with tumblr, which seems so image-based and less tolerant of lengthy text posts.  I separated my personal from my professional tumblr and found both to be less fun. I think part of the frission of disclosure, the glamour of vamping before the invisible eye of the computer, was that it was so scandalously labeled with my full name.  Heavens.  I'm unemployable for sure.  And, well, still unemployed.

It has been awhile since I've blogged.  I have transferred over most short form efforts to tumblr, but plan to keep this blog for longer form pieces.  If my little outbursts can be called pieces.  If blog management, in this abyss adjacent, can be called a worthwhile use of my time.  My time is not money.  My time is free and it lies on the ground in golden sprawls of lazy uselessness.  For this I am thankful.

New projects are emerging.  I have been working quite fervently on a photo project called Surveillance : LA.

In the wake of the facebook privacy scandals, and my discovery of spokeo and 123people, I've become a lot more aware of how much information about me/you/anyone is available and easily accessible to anyone with a credit card.  While this is disconcerting, I realize I've been gleefully hopping around like a small child scattering flowers throwing my personal information willy nilly on this blog.  And saying things like willy nilly, a crime in and of itself.

I just read this article on Jezebel, about an anonymous sex blogger being fired from her day job, due to her boss accidentally finding her blog.

While the magic 8-ball seems to be pointing to delete all, there are many reasons why I love blogging, why I love this humble little blog for the outlet its given me over the past 4 years.  I'm not shutting it down.

Worrying about disclosure and surveillance, worrying about the potentially malicious intent of these data aggregators...it may be like worrying about nuclear war, waiting forever for the slap that never comes.  There may never be a focused use for the data, and I may sit muddling mint leaves  into my yogurt and granola, peacefully, for hours.

I'm dying my hair right now, the scalp stinging.  Black, of course.

Every few weeks I go on a frenetic mind-blast of paranoia.  Late nights hearing voices yammering about what I may and may have not done or seen or be or become.  The knawing cruelty of unpaid student loan debt.  The general tizzy.

I suppose today is the anniversary of 9-11.  Well.  Enough has been said on this topic.

More exciting anniversaries to come - October 3rd is me and Katie's anniversary.    October is the release date of the book.  October is Halloween, for which I am going to be Ashley, and Katie is going to be Farrah, from Rock of Love Bus/Charm School.

October is also my 33rd birthday - jumping jesus on a pogo stick.

Really, though, the level of potential surveillance through facebook - blogs - internet - support group websites - the mind boggles.  How little privacy we really have, or do you really want.  My therapy records could be subpoenaed if necessary...nothing very interesting, though. I suppose it all could be written off to the submergent purrings of potential schizophrenia.

It's August, now, and I've spent the last month moving to a compound in Silverlake. We call it Waco. Intermittent internet access and many glorious changes: a slip n'slide in the grass, grass overrun into orange flowers and a lemon tree. I am very happy.

The problem of writing, the problem of writing again. I am going to try to use this blog to get myself to write again. Right before I moved...and it was a very sudden sort of "text message in the middle of the night about amazing property available" sort of thing. Right before this process began I was formulating an outline and thinking about a new project...another book, based on my paranoid delusions.

This might work, then again, it might be abandoned like so many other projects. Now that the major work of settling in is over, it might be worth a try.