I did it!

Damn . . . one entire calendar year (plus) without posting!

I never thought of neglecting a blog as a way of measuring time, but looking and seeing that My last post was November of 2010 really kind of put 2011 into a totally different light.

Cliched as it might be, 2011 really did fly by . . . and I thought about the blog many times. There is a Lenora X story out there in need of an ending. There is Journey Down, which I intended to be a long, frequently-added-to story. Funny/stupid things still happen to Me . . . I want to share those things. And of course there are a lot of thoughts about D/s, music, politics, and life in general that constantly occur to Me and which deserve to live in print.

Why haven't I posted, then?

I honestly don't know. I'll go with the old standby that having a life is incompatible with blogging regularly.

No one can prove I don't have a life!

submissive vs. Dominant Blogs, Part 3

I concluded Part 2 of this (all RIGHT, yes, it was almost 7 months ago!) by stating My contention that "submission is inherently more interesting to write about" (than Dominance).

Certainly I've some time to think about that contention.

I still believe it to be true, but I do see the influence of personal experience and style.

I believe submission is more interesting to write about (and thus to read about, and thus, to experience) than Dominance because of the delicately balanced places that certainty and uncertainty occupy in the life and mind of a submissive.

Consider . . . the person in the submissive role ideally has a healthy measure of certainty and uncertainty in his or her life. s/he needs to feel confident in the love and care and concern that the Dominant will feel and exhibit. Without that, there is simply animal fear, and animal fear never taught anyone anything except how to behave like an animal. The submissive must be able to see, understand, and trust in his or her Owner. The degree to which s/he is able to feel that (that is, the degree to which the Dominant inspires it in him or her) is proportional to the depth of submission one can eventually feel.

But at the same time, the submissive needs to feel that excitement, that thrill of not knowing what is going to happen next. That is absolutely essential, and is probably the single most exciting thing about submission on a day to day basis. What will S/He think of next? Sometimes the thought, the imagining itself, wrapped as it is in the delicious state of not-knowingness, in and of itself enough to make submission deeper. Not to mention more fulfilling and more fun.

That heady mix, that living, breathing, daily paradox, the clashing balance of the known and the unknown, to Me, is the stuff of great novels, of lyrical epics.

This other thing . . . being the One to dream the stuff up? Being the one in charge? It's wonderfully fulfilling, as for writing, it's easy grist for the essay mill, but not Shakespearean the way submission is.

submissive vs. Dominant Blogs, Part 2

If I'm right, and there are a lot more blogs by submissives than by Dominants, and more than the generally accepted proportion of submissives to Dominants out there, the question is simply "why should that be so?"

I don't find any of the possibilities I suggested in part 1 very compelling, nor do I find any of the commenter's arguments highly persuasive. With the semi-exception that I do agree with the idea that women are more likely to write about their emotions and experiences than men are, and in my experience there are a lot more submissive women than submissive men (at least those admitting to it).

So then, why more blogs by subs than by Dom/mes?

I think it's pretty simple: submission is inherently more interesting to write about.

Why do I say that?

That's Part 3.

submissive vs. Dominant Blogs, Part 1

I was surfing the link list, looking for some inspiration, and clicking on links to links of links, and all of a sudden I came to the following realization, unspectacular though it may be:

There seem to be a lot more blogs by submissives than there are blogs by Dominants.

Part of this is that there are simply more submissives than Dominants. I have read, one place, that the number is something like seven subs for every 3 Dom/mes.

One might thus expect a baseline of 70% of D/s blogs to be by submissives, assuming that the blogging subset (!) exists in the same percentage as the D/s population at large. (And the much bigger assumption that the 7/3 ratio is accurate.)

By My anecdotal reckoning it's a lot closer to 90%.

Why should that be? Several possibilities:

1. submission is easier to write about than Dominance.

2. submission is more interesting to read about than Dominance.

3. submissives are naturally more introspective and analytical than Dom/mes.

4. submissives read more blogs, thus comment on more blogs, thus their blogs are better publicized and linked to.

5. A submissive can be ordered to do a blog, thus making submissive blogs more likely.

And any number of other possibilities.

I'm not sure I really put much faith in any of those I listed above.

If not those reasons, though . . . why?

That's Part 2.

Everybody Is A Star (Ummmm, Actually . . . )

"Look into my eyes, what do you see? 
Cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
Ive been everything you want to be
I'm the cult of personality
Like Mussolini and Kennedy
I'm the cult of personality"

--Living Colour, "Cult of Personality"

A visitor to the channel the other night said something along the lines that he was "glad I was paying attention to the blog again."  Well, hold yer horses there, Pilgrim . . . a few posts does not "attention" make, but thank you . . . and I do hope to keep this up.

But paying attention to the blog isn't all fun and games.  When I was ignoring this blog, I was able to also ignore the fact that I have like, nine readers, three of whom are collared to Me and kinda have to read it. Paying attention means being reminded that some girl posts a photo of her cellulite for Half Naked Thursday Afternoon or whatever it's called and it gets 24 comments.   Or a post about random promiscuity will garner readership and comments like crazy (extra points for bareback).

OK, I get it.  I really do.  This might not be a sex blog, but it's "competing" in that marketplace.  And a sex blog has got to have some sex in it.  Or embarrassing personal details and revelations.  My dry little insights are clearly not cutting it in this hyper-exposed hyper-sexualized circus that blogging has become.  If you want to be a blog star you have to give the people what they want!

I just have to find My voice . . . perhaps something like . . . 

"I was trying for the eleventh time to fix My panty wedgie, and getting wet thinking about the grocery bagger at SavMart, when I realized something very important about the nature of Dominance and submission . .. "

Hrmph.  Clearly this isn't going to be easy. 

The Prospect of Housecleaning

When I decided to pay attention to the blog again, I wasn't thinking about one unpleasant chore.

I refer to the link list over there to your right. It's been close to a year since I've really looked at it. I must have loads of dozens of dead or stale links.

I see that saratoga is going strong. The thoughtful and considerate swan commented on yesterday's post, so she's around, obviously . . . I look forward to going over there and catching up. What's become of nina? Geisha, if you're out there, send Me a message on yahoo.

I am going to go through the link list . . . doing so is not only good blog management and good manners, but going through it after a long hiatus isn't unlike dumping out a shoebox full of snapshots on the floor and touching on the memories and emotions, recalling what inspired Me in the first place to add that link.

Time to start the cleanup . . . I'm dressed for it!

Serves Me Right (No Pun Intended)

I, of all people, should've known better.

Should've known better than to title My last post "Back."

If you look, you'll see that post dates from August 2008. So clearly, I wasn't "back."

And I really should know that while the road to hell might not really be paved with good intentions, it's at the very least littered with them.

It reinforces for Me how important it is to battle the seduction of intentions, and trust only the reality of actions.

The cart goes before the horse, always. Actions lead to what we seek when we talk about "change"; intentions lull us into thinking we are changing.

So ridiculously simple, despite the surface nonsensical sound, but so insidiously difficult to apply.

I am not "back" until I am.

One step, here.

Present!

(Waving) Over here!

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. But I have obviously neglected the blog for a little while.

I've dropped YouTube Tuesday as an every-week thing . . . it began to feel like real work, it was beginning to distort what I felt this blog should be about, and judging from the response it won't be missed anyway.

It's one of those phases of life when all creative energy seems to simply vanish, and that more than anything is the reason thata there's been so little posted here lately.

"Stuff Happens" is the operating principle of the universe. Stuff is happening. But along with that principle comes the related one, "It will pass."

There you have it.

Snow Day Musings

The predicted snowstorm actually came to pass, and is actually a bit worse than the forecasters predicted (which is rare -- the trend these days is for weather forecasters to irresponsibly overpredict snow amounts and storm severity, leading to the moron in the checkout line in front of Me having her cart stuffed with nine gallons of milk and 22 pounds of ground beef).

Anyway, I took the opportunity for a well-deserved, totally justified, cosmically-mandated snow day!

I've been visiting blogs on My link list. I'm making an effort to keep it clean, removing dead links, moving inactive blogs to the "Emeritus" section, etc. There is more work to do, however.

1. When you make your blog invite only, bear in mind that you are leaving no way for readers to reconnect with you. Is that really the intent? The net result is that I have to remove all these blogs from the list.

2. Some blogs I just have to get rid of. Their authors are either so clueless, so self-absorbed, so ridiculously full of themselves, or just so immensely self-important that deleting them from the link list seems the only reasonable choice.

Part of Me wants to call these people out, and in fact, I've come very close to leaving comments on those blogs from time to time, and I've started and then trashed several posts here addressing the topic. But confrontation serves no purpose -- the on-line universe is already too plagued with rants, call-outs, threats, and simple obnoxious stupidity for Me to add even one direct drop of venom to. Does anyone remember restraint? Self-editing? Simple manners?

The saddest part is that these delusional bloggers are all women. I'm sensing the world was better off when men had the monopoly on crass egotism. One more item to file under "Unintended Horrible Consequences of Feminism." Yikes, that file is getting gigantic! Oh well.

It's still snowing. Yay.

Roadside Flare

One day so easily blends into the next. Before I know it I'm staring at the fact that the last three posts on this blog have been Youtube Tuesday entries. YTT is supposed to be weekly fun filler, not the entree here.

It's difficult not to feel guilty. I tend to think of Myself as someone with plenty to say and, well, no one would have a blog if she truly thought that what she had to say was totally worthless, would she?

So, plenty to say. It's worth saying. So . . . where's all the posts?

There is no simple answer. I start 4-5 non-YTT posts for every one that eventually gets published. (You will have to be the judge of whether the fact that what you see here is the product of intense scrutiny/selection is heartening, or depressing.)

There is work. There is the rest of life. There's all the usual other reasons. In the end I fall back on what I always say, rendered no less true for being familiar: I'm working on it. When the posts and stories are ready, they'll pour out. In the meantime, I'm reading you all, even if you don't see Me, thanks to the feed reader, and following your adventures avidly.

More soon. Really. KAHTATUS.

On Delurking, Feed Readers, and The Big Gap

Recently there was a "mass delurking" day in the sex blog world, a day when those who regularly read but never comment were supposed to leave a comment, letting the author(s) know they existed. It's a great idea . . . I know how many visits I get a day (100 or so, typically) and I know how many comments I get (one or two a week); it would be nice for more readers to make their existence known.

I didn't know about this particular delurking day and if I had I'd have made a "please delurk" post, but frankly, I wouldn't have expected much; I've asked people to delurk before and the response has been, shall we say, underwhleming in the extreme.

That got Me to thinking about My own lurking. We all (or just about all) read a lot more blogs than we comment upon. But I've found in My case, and I suspect the experience of others might be similar, since I started using a feed reader, I lurk even more and comment even less.

For those not totally familiar, a feed reader "pushes" new posts from each blog (or site) you subscribe to, so that you see the post in your feed reader screen (Google Reader, in My case), as opposed to having to visit (and remember to visit) every blog on My link list.

It's very convenient -- one never "leaves home," as it were, and automatically stays current with all the blogs one wants to.

But it has its drawbacks.

One, I think it encourages lurking. There is no way to comment upon the pushed post without navigating to the post in its original environment,. It's just an extra step and extra steps always limit use, at least to some degree.

Two, one can not see the comments left by others, only the original post. To see them means, again, going to the original post. See above.

Three, one doesn't see the layout of the original page. I enjoy seeing who has changed layouts and how often/why. There are many blogs on My link list for which I've read every post made the last three months but for which I have not landed on the actual site once since setting up the feed.

Three-A, not seeing the layout means not seeing the link list either. Some of My best finds were from the link lists of blogs I link to. As blogs appear and disappear, I miss that source of new inspirations.

So, the reader environment is convenient in the extreme, but limited and sterile.

The other differing aspect of using a reader is that I am not recording any "visits" to the linked-to blogs and thus not being shown in their counters for visits, page reads, etc. I assume that there are some stats being kept somewhere regarding how many "reads" there are via the feed, but it's not the same. By using the reader I have ceased to be part of that constantly-aggregating number at the bottom of the screen. And something about that I don't like.

So, if your blog is on My link list . . . I am reading, actually more faithfully than I was prior to setting up the feed reader (Piper -- set up a feed! yours is the only blog on My list I can't find a feed for!) . . . and I'll make a more concerted effort to jump over and comment more, and/or just to poke around and see what's new, graphically and link-list wise.

Soap Opera

1. Finally I've caught up with My reading and, while everything's different of course, everything's the same, or at least similar. More on that below.

2. I've removed the dead blogs and the gone blogs by the link list . . . sadly, I see that Brazen Brunette either was hacked or deleted her blog and gave the account away -- a single post in a foreign language now sits where Brazen's riveting, wrenching entries used to reside. Last I had read she seemed to be doing better -- I sincerely hope that she still is doing well and that losing the blog was a natural step in her progress and not a sign of something having gone wrong.

3. Using a feed reader made catching up convenient and and at the same time slightly horrifying . . . all that, all at once, from so many different sources.

But in the end it all works out . . . the big soap opera that is the blogosphere rolls on. Things do change, as they must, but the bigger thing, the community that no one will admit to belonging to, remains. Pieces slide in, pieces drop off, or change their shape, their frequency of appearance, but the whole morphs in tiny increments, just like the "real thing."

And when I say "soap opera," don't get Me wrong -- there is not a hint of negativity or condescension in that phrase. It's a soap opera, and that's a truly wonderful thing, because unlike an actual soap opera it's not only an escape, but entertaining and informative as well. It is something we create, out of whole cloth, out of the fabric of our lives and experience, and maintain. We learn from it, grow with it, change it or kill it when it no longer works.

It is . . . alive, and we make it live. Sometimes it's healthy to stop and not take for granted how amazingly cool that is.

Update

1. I finally got around to going through the link list and removing the dead entries.

So the link list to-do list now looks like this:

Check link list for dead links
Remove dead links
Subscribe to feeds from linked blogs
Catch up on linked blogs
Look for new links
Leave comments/Link-whore

2. As you may have seen, I posted the first part of a new Lenora X story last week. More soon.

3. My health issue continues to remain manageable/good, so that's a huge plus.

4. The thought occurred to Me yesterday that it's seven months since I last smoked. I don't necessarily feel tremendously better physically as a result but it does feel very good to have accomplished quitting.

5. Some significant events coming up in Lenora-land soon: tasha's birthday and iris' third anniversary. As always, iris, storm, and tasha are My inspiration, My pride, and My joy. I love them so much.

6. I hope everyone is well and happy. KAHTATUS.

End Of The (Sitemeter) Era

I don't know all the gory details and background, but it's come to My attention (a few months late apparently) that sitemeter, the hit counter you (used to) see at the bottom of the page, has been allowing the placement of spy tracking cookies in the sitemeter code.

Apparently, sitemeter will move users to a special server if they don't wish this to happen, or I could revert to the non-Javascript version of the counter.

The easier solution for Me is to just use a different counter.

Not that I think that third-party marketers are necessarily clamoring for My meager readership, and certainly I'm not selling anything. But on principle it seems to Me the right thing to do is to dump sitemeter.

The counter that now appears at the bottom of the page is spy-cookie free.

This/That

1. I hope everyone's summer is gearing up nicely. Summer here in the Northeast seems to flash by so quickly . . . I try hard to savor it.

2. I've not been a great blogworld citizen lately. I haven't been reading My link list a whole lot, and I know there are some now-dead links there. And a couple of once-regular reads have gone invite-only. Please, I need invites. If I can't see your blog I can't see your profile and that means I can't e-mail you to ask for said invite.

I will get caught up on My reading and get the link list in order. It is also time for a fresh round of link-whoring so I'll have to work that in at some point, too.

3. The writing projects are creeping along. The motivation is fairly low right now; it will return.

4. Tiggr, I have not ignored/discarded the interview questions you sent Me. I just haven't yet given Myself the time to sit down and address them in the thoughtful manner they deserve. I also will see what I can do about writing another Fantasy Friday story one of these days.

5. I hope everyone is doing really well, and getting what you each want/need out of life. I may not be reading as often as I should, but I'm thinking about you . . .

KAHTATUS.

The End of the Beginning?

It's a couple of months later and still so little inspires Me in the way of "essay" material.

A big part of it, I know, is My reluctance to re-address topics Ive already written about. On the important topics in this lifestyle, My views haven't changed. And I've written them here. In situations where My view has changed, I've written about that.

But I need to bear in mind that in this rolling medium what's not on the front page is basically non-existent and make more of an effort to re-address certain important themes.

It is more that that, though. It feels like a more significant shift in My focus.

This is not the end of the blog. I love writing and publishing the fiction and this is as good a medium as any. That is why this post wasn't titled "The Beginning of the End?"; I have no intention of terminating this blog any time soon. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning in that the blog might become almost totally focused on the stories.

Of course, this could all be silly stuff. . . tomorrow I might hear some totally innocuous remark and spin a long think piece from it. And perhaps that changes My outlook on everything and essays start pouring out.

So maybe it's the middle of the beginning. Um, the early middle.

The Thinking Blogger Award

Tagged!

The wonderful taylor tagged Me by awarding Me with a "Thinking Blogger Award." taylor wrote of Me: "Another absolutely fabulous writer, Lenora's blog is an addiction for me as well. Whether she's writing about lifestyle topics, or naughty fiction, or random articles about life, or even her critique of various music videos, she always has something intriguing to say. It's been an absolute pleasure to have found her blog in its early days and been able to follow it all along." Thank you so much, taylor . . . I'm honored.

The rules of the Thinking Blogger meme go like this:


"Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging. I thought it would be appropriate to include them with the meme. The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,

3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog)."

As you might imagine (or maybe you might not), the issue with these multi-branching memes is that one quickly runs out of suitable places to branch to. Four bloggers I would've given serious consideratoin to for this award have already been tagged, and their selections each have wiped out a big chunk of My pool of potential awardees. Subtract a few that are good candidates but currently on hiatus, and the field rapidly narrows.

So here goes. I am only going to tag two, to do My part to combat MEES (Meme Early Expiration Syndrome). In memes, less is more when it comes to tagging. Think of it as the "catch and release" of meme-ing.

1. desiree. So difficult to describe or classify, desiree's blog is an addiction that I can't put down. Even when I stay away for a while I'm always drawn back to her brutally honest depiction of herself, her circle, her life. And it's done with humor, wit, and insight.

2. Dirty Prom Queen. WryGirl's journey through marriage/separation/starting over. She manages in so few words to convey so much. Great reading that illustrates that so often, just life itself is the most compelling story.

Happy Easter, all. KAHTATUS.

Two Items

1. If you click on the Lenora's Fiction link over on the sidebar, you'll see a new Index page, from which you can navigate to either the Lenora X detective stories or the category loosely termed "erotic fiction," where currently The Taking Of anni and the mini-erotica stories reside. Eventually the Planet of the Blondes story posts will find their way there too. (I know to this point that Planet of the Blondes isn't showing much in the way of "erotic," but trust Me, it's getting there.)

The new pages, as always, are the work of the lovely and talented tasha, who does a wonderful job, always. And it's not an easy job, trying to figure out what I actually mean by My vague statements about what I want, patiently explaining what can and can't work in a given graphical space, and somehow translating it all into the perfect visual representation of what I was thinking. Beautiful job, tasha . . . thank you again.

2. That two episodes of Planet of the Blondes have been posted without registering a single comment to this point touches on a point that is an ongoing source of frustration for Me.

Certainly I understand not leaving comments here there and everywhere -- I've written here, despite My joking (joking, really!) about link-whoring, about how I often write out a comment, edit it, then reconsider and end up not leaving it, feeling it was somehow unnecessary.

I am beginning to reconsider that stance, honestly. While I'm not looking for universal and total acceptance and agreement and appreciation of everything I write here, it can get to feeling lonely, sometimes. So, as a public service, start leaving more comments. And I promise to do the same, worrying less about how "necessary" it is and a little more about letting the author know that what I read inspired Me to say something. I very well might have been wrong in my previous stance . . . now, if I could just find the time to read all the blogs I want to read.

It's Just A Blog . . . Right?

Surfing the link list tonight I came upon a post wherein a blogger gets a phone call from an ex-boyfriend (who I'll call Waldo and to whom she gave another pseudonym). He tells the blogger that he's been reading her blog. She has written extensively about this ex, apparently, and according to her, "I have not been kind to Waldo in my writing."

Needless to say, Waldo wasn't happy about some of the ways he'd been written about. And he goes on to tell her that what really bothers him is "how mutual acquaintances have been calling me ‘Waldo’ in my presence and laughing."

There is a break between conversations, and the blogger has some time to think all this over. She comes to some conclusions that, frankly, confound Me.

1. She thinks it's strange that Waldo has been reading her blog. "it was deeply odd for him to have been reading my blog for a year. " She goes on to list all the exciting things going in Waldo's life currently and how those should mean that he'd have no interest in reading her blog.

2. All the news, fit to print or not. "For a variety of reasons, I feel very adamantly that I’m not going to be bullied into taking down posts, and so that wasn’t even a topic I would consider discussing."

3. Somehow it's Waldo's problem that she wrote about his and her love/sex life. "I felt that if people are referring to him as “Waldo” in his presence, the man here known as “Waldo” should take it up with them, not me."

As to #1, the author is way too smart to actually believe that an ex isn't going to find a blog written by his or her ex and not read it. It has nothing to do with life circumstances -- it's human nature. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that anyone who claims to know about the existence of a blog by someone they used to sleep with and claims not to have read it at least once is categorically, 100%, no doubt about it, lying. No exceptions.

The second point, ok. I can understand and endorse in the abstract the concept that one should never be bullied into taking a post down. One should never do anything in response to being bullied, really. But the fact is there are plenty of posts that should be taken down . . . I read at least one a week.

I am not talking about any form of censorship; heaven forbid that this medium functions as anything other than a gigantic litter box for everyone with an Internet connection -- America and the world would be damaged in some vague but I am assured very real way, otherwise. I am talking instead about My (very naive) desire that we could all be a little more thoughtful, a little less the worst we can be simply because (more or less) no one's going to know who we are or remember what we did. I least I know it's naive.

Her third point honestly is beneath someone of her obvious intelligence. And really, this gets at the reason for this post.

Is everyone in our lives fair game? Is everyone who comes into contact with us potential blog fodder?

My answer to those questions is an unequivocal "no."

I realize that there are no "standards" in this medium, and I don't know if it's been tested in court, but My guess is that if you slander, libel, defame, etc., someone in a blog that's going to be admissible if, as in the case we're discussing here, it's obvious to third parties who is being written about.

But My feelings about it go deeper than the legalities. Don't we do enough offline to make each other's lives miserable? Don't we already cause enough in-person pain to others in pursuit of our own self-esteem without putting the cyber-cherry on top?

In the end, the conversation with Waldo leaves the blogger realizing that there were things she could have done differently, some things she might have handled better. That is not the most horrible ending, but really . . . should it ever have been necessary?

Some Wells Temporaily Dry; Others Flowing Abundantly

Lately I haven't had a lot of "essay" material present itself to Me.

While D/s as a topic is more or less inexhaustible, for Me there are just times when there is nothing compelling to write about. A stroll down the now pretty long link list didn't prvide any inspiration -- which is a comment on how uninspired I feel, on the the content in those blogs.

It comes and goes. Lately, I'm more inspired to write fiction. When I'm in the "essay" frame of mind, sometimes one sentence, one part of a sentence, even, can inspire an entire post. But when it's not there, it's just not.

And I make it harder on Myself in some ways.

1. I feel as though things I've written before I don't need to write again . . . but that ignores a stark reality of most people's blog-reading habits: If it's not on the top half of the current page, it pretty much doesn't exist. I'd do well to bear that in mind more often and perhaps not reject certain post ideas on the basis that I've "done that."

2. I'm picky. I'd say that for every non-fiction post that ends up published, I think of 12 and actually start 6. That's partially because of 1., above, but mostly because in the non-fiction area I really do strive for a certain economy. The goal being to preserve the power of each individual idea by keeping them relatively "scarce."

3. I need to stay in this arena. I could write all sorts of posts about politics, technology, etc., but again I want/need this blog to be about sex, Dominance, submission, etc.

I wrote last week that I wanted the three main "features" -- essays, fiction, and slices of life -- to be in more or less equal proportion. I'm beginning to understand that while it might end up that way over the long haul, in the shorter term one or two of those is going to predominate over the other(s), until it changes around again.