* T h e * V i s u a l * V a m p *: Blog Milestone

Showing posts with label Blog Milestone. Show all posts

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Sblogging = Slog + Blog

An article on blogging done in the New York Times has been making the rounds. It's about blogger burnout.

All the usual poster children of the blog world are in the article, talking about how they have to take a break, or have moved onto posting less calling it slow blogging. Everything has a shelf life. Or life simply becomes more demanding. Boo-fucking-hoo. Okay that was snarky. But really, The New York Times deserves it sometimes.

From The New York Times

Remember when we all started blogging? We were in a fever to share and over share on a daily, if not hourly basis. I loved having other design geeks to communicate with. But sooner or later you run out of projects because you actually finish your house (for the moment). Or it takes too much time and money to produce those cute and crafty DIY posts. Or new and easier ways to photo share crop up like Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Or it gets to be a chore (like doing homework or having a deadline) to come up with posts. Or you start putting ads on your blog that have to be managed. Or your blog becomes a "brand" or a business marketing tool that needs to be constantly cultivated.

I have slowed down because I am in the thick of grief. Living without Alberto is a shadow life. I am still at the stage where getting up, getting dressed, and doing work is about all I can handle sometimes.

I don't have guilt about not blogging. My younger friends say blogs are dinosaurs. But then so am I. Some bloggers stopped because they got fed up with the cliques that wouldn't let them in. I never let my blog be the boss of me. I chose to keep it homey and personal. Wonderful things happened because of my blog in a fabulous hippie-dippie organic way: Friends, work, my book, learning things, etc. There was no master plan to take over the design world.

I am proud of my blog. I was "new" when I started in 2008. There were others that started in 2006 and 2007 who I looked up to. This blog is my life history, an archive, forever etched on the Internet. No one may care, or someone might. I care. We all want to leave our mark on the world. Blogs have enabled a zillion souls to leave a legacy. I am so thankful for the body of work that Alberto put out there via his many blogs, Youtube, Facebook, and our Planet Tango web site.

From the blog The Tango Life

What about you guys? Are you still reading blogs? Are you still posting on your blogs? I can still spend a happy day clicking around reading blogs I love. It's how I stay in touch. Every post doesn't have to be a masterpiece. Sometimes I go back in my own archive to read early posts, and I love the innocence and enthusiasm. I still feel that way.

I also think we have all become victims of the over share. Along with cameras on cell phones came the thrill of documenting everything with an ease that was so exciting and seductive. But while snapping pictures we missed the actual experience of what we were taking photos of. I had some girls over for dinner. These are some of the women who have been keeping me alive these past sad months. They check in on me, feed me, lend me money, take me out, and never, never weary of my tears or talking about Alberto. I asked them to please not take any pictures or post anything anywhere. I didn't know what reaction I would get, but all of them were relieved and delighted to truly be relaxed in the selfie-less moment.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Mourning

Those most affected by the loss of a loved one often observe a period of grieving, marked by withdrawal from social events and quiet, respectful behavior. Mourning. Hang in here with me.

Weeping Angel in a New Orleans cemetery - You can get this beautiful image photographed by Rod Broussard HERE

I have been getting some thoughtful, heartfelt cards, letters, and emails from you. Thank you thank you thank you. Many of you are asking me about getting back to blogging. I will. I want to. I need to. I just need a little more time.

My blog passed a milestone. I have had over one million visits. It may not seem like much considering the years I have been The Visual Vamp. But as you know, my blog is a bit pokey, personal, and non commercial. It's become kind of a quaint dinosaur in the accelerated age of social media.

Alberto would have been thrilled to see that million mark met and exceeded. He was the one who talked me into doing a blog.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Here I Am

Welcome to my new address!

All new places have glitches, so please let me know if you have any problems.

Please scroll down on old posts. The comments are now a part of the post, so it takes awhile to see the next one.

Thanks for coming along!

Friday, May 6, 2011

Google The Hacker

The Fickle Finger of Fate! Up yours Google!

What would you do if you got an email from an address you never saw, you didn't recognize, and it told you to click on a link, and if you didn't respond your user name would be automatically changed?

I have been schooled to delete things I don't know, because opening the unknown email or link can infect your computer with a hideous virus.

Or what would happen if this email arrived in your Spam box? Do you open Spam if you don't see that it's from someone you know and landed there by mistake? I think not.

Well I'm with you, and what happened to me was that since April 29 I have not been able to sign into my blog.

All kinds of conspiracy theories floated around. Alberto thought Google was behind it. And he was right. Of course customer service for Google blogspot users sucks, so no answer or help was readily available.

Why is Google changing the user name and email to sign into my blog? Has this happened to any of you using blogspot?

Finally after days of sending countless reports to the robots at Google, I got one today instructing me to sign in with this weird email address they assigned me. I did, and had to reset my password, and now I have access again. I tried to change the email address back to my own, and of course they want to send all communication to the weird email they hacked into my blog to give me. Since that is not my email, it is useless, and I certainly am not sending any password info to some random email.

So Google is a stinking hacker. And I give them the huge finger. They caused alot of us some grief this week. I thank Jenny, Erica, Carollynn, and Nicole for all the support, tech and otherwise, and I thank Alberto for always keeping a logical cool head.

We already started migrating my blog to Word Press.

In the meantime, I'll keep posting here and hope that Google is done fucking with me.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Front Page News ~ Your Blog Is Passed Its Expiration Date

This made the front page of The New York Times today HERE

Basically it reports that young people say blogs are out and pretty much useless. And we all seem to go the way of the younger regarding tech stuff.

Remember when we all felt so hip and happening when we figured out how to blog?

Your thoughts please.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

A Surprise Blog Birthday Party - Who Is It For????

Who is this darling little girl?
It's her 40th birthday today!

She grew up to be this glamor girl!

She's an actress

And loves to wear wigs

She's the wife of Mikey and the mom of Fiona

She's a pirate queen with a pirate princess

She loves to cook and I'm told she's pretty good

This looks yummy!

She is a decor addict and bloginista and I love her for painting her kitchen black!

Her house is a small rental and she works tirelessly to turn it into a little gem

She tries DIY projects like painting this vintage buffet a beautiful Farrow and Ball color

Her latest project is trying to decorate her dining room, a daunting task because the water cooler has to stay in the tiny room, & she has a tiny budget and big dreams of Lee Jofa fabrics.

Through all her trials and tribulations she always keeps her sense of humor. She's a super trouper for sure!

She is a true blue loyal friend, and she loves her family almost as much as she loves her blog and her blog buddies. Look at this cute room she did for her daughter.

She loves her fat pussy cat, and shares her home with us in all its unstyled glory.

Her darling husband Mike wrote to dozens of her blog friends to arrange this surprise blog birthday party for her.

He writes this:

In her home life Jenny is Jenny Andrews Anderson.

In her professional life (actor, personality, etc.) she's Jenny Andrews (or as I announce as she enters the bathroom "The fabulous and beautiful Jenny Andrews").

Jenny has been an actress most of her life - since high school. She went to college to study theater, and was the founding member of a very popular theater company in Atlanta called Whole World Theater where she was truly a stand out.

Whole World Theater is like SNL (Saturday Night Live). The show has all of it's great players but, say, John Belushi is the blinking light....that's how it was with Jenny in the female role.

The male stand out and Jenny's counter part, Lance Krall, as well as a few others from the original show moved to LA and now have a TV show called Free Radio that was on VH1, but is now going to be in a prime time slot after The Colbert Report on Comedy Central.

Free Radio

This itself I'm sure is a sense of both pride for her friends and sadness, because Jenny did not go to Los Angeles.

To do my best to summarize the why we too didn't go: I was also in the film business and trying to do my own thing, etc. In 1999, Jenny was diagnosed with type-one diabetes - it runs in her family but she had skirted it. We continued to press on with our "dreams" until the impact of two free lance artists with no insurance became a little overwhelming. I had connections with people in Atlanta that could give me a job with insurance - we were pregnant that year and here we are.

I hope that doesn't read as a sad story because it certainly isn't. We all are moving along in life and things happen the way they do for a reason. Our family is bigger than 1000 stars on the walk of fame.

The Whole World Theater folks did a pilot show for FOX back in 2000 with one of the creators of Pee Wees Playhouse (I actually wrote for it as well) but it was put in a terrible slot and didn't get picked up.

Jenny primarily does commercials now. She has been in a few movies. She had a great role in a Lifetime movie that still plays all the time called 'The Price of a Broken Heart".

She missed out on MANY roles because she is the category of being "too pretty" to play "the friend", but not well known enough to play the lead - but she continues to get to final call backs so it's only a matter of time.

She's obviously found a new passion to expend some of this artistic energy in her blog. I guess people like us....you, Jenny, me, etc - MUST do something expressive.

Visual Vamp here:

By now you have guessed correctly that the surprise blog birthday party is for the blogger known as My Favorite and My Best.

I found this blog a few months ago, and was attracted to it for it's honesty and humor and intelligence and a pretty great selection of images. At first the author Jenny said she couldn't write, but as the months went on and she found her voice and confidence, and it became very clear that not only can she write, she is brilliant!
She started her blog in January 2009 with 6 posts, and now she can post over 50 a month!

Jenny is one of the special ones. She is an original. She is a talent. She is a lover of life.

So Happy Birthday dear Jenny.

I'm waiting on the porch with these virtual gifts, so we can toast each other!

Mine

Yours

And thank you adorable Mike for arranging all this and sharing your life with Jenny with all of us.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Death Of A Blog

I think of bloggers as angels. They come into your life by chance, and then become a part of it by choice. Bloggers hover like angels just a click away waiting to fill a special space in your life. I depend on my daily reads as if checking in with old friends, tried and true and always there. Sometimes I'm a bad friend and I don't get back to a blog I love for weeks at a time, secure that it will be there when I have time to read it again.

Why does a blog die?

Who wants to kill off a blog?

You know how it's done. Cliques form. People are left out or ignored. Gossip girl (and boy) private e-mails are exchanged about a lesser "loser" blog. Friendly overtures are ignored. Anon comments that are mean are sent. Creepy anon stalkers emerge always watching, always ready to disparage. Personality cults emerge and if you don't gel, you're out. And if you have a popular blog, you poo poo all the high school hi jinks, just wanting to be left alone with your goodness.
The poor blogger who wants to be a part of the community, a part of the fun finally feels so left out and bad, he/she stops blogging.

Maybe the stronger ones keep blogging, and they usually find their own readers who appreciate them. But there is always that nagging sense of not being a part of the group of alleged super star bloggers, the ones who get the press, the adoration, the huge amount of hits of the site meter, the ones who get lots of comments, the ones who get featured on other blogs, or asked on radio shows, the ones who get a photo shoot of their work. Sure they work hard for it, but no less than anyone else really.
I'm not saying it's totally this mean girl/boy interaction going on in the blogging world. There's alot of good and generous souls out there too. But to negate the buzz kill bloggers is one way to be in denial.

What makes someone pull the plug on their own blog? So much work goes into a blog. Just go into an archive of any blogger and see the body of work that includes writing and image gathering. Why would someone not only kill their own blog, but wipe out their archive too? All that work gone in a click! It hurts me to think of it.

So now another blog is mysteriously gone. A really great one. A very original one.

It's Paul Pincus. His blog was one of an aesthete. It covered art, architecture, historical preservation, and photography, and all media, and home decor, and hunky guys, and glam woman, and all things interesting that you wouldn't see churned out on the "j'dore" girl blogs (and worst yet by the guys who write in sugary chatty third person), that massive circuit of chick lit decor writers.

So I saw this on my blog list yesterday, and my heart sank:

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Paul Pincus Blog, R.I.P.

Paul Pincus who is Roddy Gonsalves who is Paul Pincus, where are you? My e-mail to you has gone unanswered.

Your second to last post says you are bound for Tokyo. Is that true? Did you find a great job? A new love? Are you off on a grand adventure? On the lam?

And why oh why won't you share it with us who love you?

Paul Pincus R.I.P. indeed! I'm calling the Psychic Friends Network, getting out the Ouija board, contacting a medium, gathering a posse, getting a search party together! Your blog may be gone, but your spirit hovers my friend.

We're missing an angel in the blogosphere. His name is Paul Pincus.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Two Hundred

So many words are bandied about on the subject of why we blog.

Whether it's because we like the sound of our own voice, we're bored, we're inspired, we want to make friends, we want to make business connections, we like to do something fun and creative, well, we all have our reasons.

Among those reasons, are the readers of the blogs. Without them the sound of one hand clapping would be all the fun we would have.

Visual Vamp had a milestone of sorts today. A tiny one, but an important one to me. My followers list hit 200! Now I see other blogs that have 900, 1000, 5000, a zillion followers, and I think that's incredible. For me, a little guy just blogging for all of the above reasons, it means a great deal to me, and touches me, to have people identify themselves as regular readers.

I have clicked onto many of the links of the fab followers, and there is a great cross section of you.

I'm posting all of my fab followers so everyone can find you, and you can find each other, and to salute you all, and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your intrepid reading.

Followers (200)