the blog about blogging

so, i never really know what to think about the concept of blogging. thanks to the inquisitive mind of some friends, it's on my mind again lately. I've sat down to decide where i think things fall on the topic for me a number of times now and still, I don't have much to show. I love letters. This alone makes me a prime canidate to hate blogging. I love sending and receiving letters and I love reading collections of letters with my heart. (Emily Dickinson "Selected Letters" is a fav) I don't want this tradition to be lost and in advance I refuse to ever read a book of emails. ever. I almost never send a package without sending a letter with it, but other than that, i'm not doing much to keep this alive. i need to get on that. For me, blogging is an interesting phenomenon too because i don't edit them and i almost never re-read them before i post. this is dangerous, but i find if i do, i start thinking too much about it. Most writing that is presented in an accessible, public way seeks a specific purpose and as a result is endlessly edited. Not that this is a bad thing, just a fact. Even in the most benign scenario, this process subtly distorts journalism, poetry, or whatever the medium is. You find yourself almost unconsciously writing to please a handful of people. It would be naive to say that I could write completely unaffected and unconcerned by and for whoever may happen to read this. But my intention is to try my best to avoid such.

It's really interesting to read friends' blogs. They are always thoroughly imbued with the temper of their writer. Some blogs read just as the author speaks. Some blogs are considerably more serious or somber than the author ever seems in person, and some are endlessly positive despite the author's general disposition in person. Some blogs fill in details of stories you have heard only the frame-work for. There's something to blogging that offers you a skape-goat. It says, "if you get bored out of your mind, you can just stop reading" where conversation frowns on leaving mid-sentence. This can be dangerous and threatens to work against real friendship and deep community.

Now if you know me well, or even at all, you probably know I love technology. You probably also know I love being outside ... saaay... in the woods. I love both, but need to be more aware and honest about the role of technology in my life and culture. I do think technology leads to an excessive need to be constantly stimulated. This is something I've thought about in raising children. I grew up in a rural area where i didn't have any friends who lived nearby. This rarely bothered me not because I had anything figured out, but b/c i didn't know anything else, thus when I saw my friends it was always a sweet time. We have DVD players on in the headrests during the 10 min drive home from school. It boggles the mind. Now, Don't think I don't think this is simultaneously really super cool, b/c i do... it just necessitates a wisdom in using these things wisely. I'm scared of a generation who with just a moment of silence says they're bored. Humo Kais said "They aren't bored enough yet. If they get bored enough, they'll imagine something to do." buuuut seriously folks.

Marva Dawn champions, "If you have technology, and it keeps escalating, you will have a corresponding decrease in intimacy." You want intimacy, but you know technology, so you reverse the poles and you technologize your intimacy and intimize your technology. So, that's why we have to advertise cars with a cozy scene of a family going on a picnic, phone commercials that show family and friends talking with warm backgrounds trying to convince us that it's just like being there. But we know it is not. Oh how we know.

I'm still thinking this through, so we're going sans-concluding paragraph on this day. sorry, kids.

Forgive us for our attempts to restore balance in our lives.
Fill us with an eagerness to pour out ourselves b/c you have poured out yourself first.

Don't go chasin' waterfalls

i know it's been a few days since this happened, but i went to fall creek falls over the weekend and meant to post about it. i did not. i'm sorry. however, his mercies are new in the morning.

It snowed quite a bit (for TN) and I even took off on, what turned out to be, a 6 mile hike to the falls. I went by myself and it was so great. I took off kind of late but kept saying to myself "well, i've come this far..." so, i ended up walking the last 1 1/2 miles in the dark on an ice/snow covered path. it was so quiet the whole way. for some reason, the last stretch i decided to pull out the ole ipod and listen to death cab's "transatlaticism". it turned out to be a good decision. those last tracks are just killer. i'm working on a little collage of the falls, but here's a normal one. :)



In other really sweet news, Charissa got engaged the friday we arrived at the falls. sooooooo awesome. :) congrats, kids.

ah the dream machine makes it hard to see.

i feel like i could post a great deal about what i saw and heard last night, but tonight i just don't think i can do it. i saw daniel lanois play at the belcourt last night and it was amazing. best asserted, i believe, by sandra when she described it as "lessons on "how to play live music"". i posted some pictures on my flickr site of danny and the boys and of course "emmy" (who i still maintain should be called "lou"). www.flickr.com/photos/jordanbrooke/sets

happy valentine's day.

if you can't be with the one you hug, honey, hug the one your with.

i really don't know life at all.

praise Him for party shuffle. the party shuffle on my itunes today has brought joni mitchell back into my ears. (though she never left my heart. :) ) if you don't have blue, go and get it. it's crazy that i remember a time when i heard joni mitchell and thought she sounded weird and just didn't get it. now i do. forgive me, joni. i didn't know anything at all. it's really amazing to listen to the record "Both Sides Now" after hearing records like "Blue". It gives the song 'both sides now' a whole new hue. It always makes me realize what side of that song i'm on, and think of the day when i will be old and it will come on and i will remember this time.

sometimes it feels like you're watching things in slow motion. relationships changing, the people around you (and you yourself) becoming different people. for this moment, i recommend the latter of the "both sides now" versions.

"now old friends are acting strange. they shake their head, they say i've changed.
well, something's lost, but something's gained in living every day."

these things that circle round today

Thoughts on this day....

Working out at the Y today, I was wondering a thought I frequent.... with all of these people working out on stair machines and rowing thingys and treadmills, can't we power the rest of the building? can't we run the lights of this building using the energy we're creating here? I don't know if it's possible, but it seems logical.

I've always thought a lot about working on records or art or.... anything, really... that you don't think is good, or you don't believe in. (pay no attention to the punctuation or syntax in the previous sentence) I thought for years that if I thought a record sucked, i shouldn't work on it and perpetuate bad art. You give your name to something and say it's worth all that goes with that, right? There are more than a few things in life that when the "rubber met the road" so to speak, I found myself unsure of what I once was sure of. This is one. I'm currently in the muck of this. Am I giving in? Am I using my empty bank account as an unjustified excuse? Do I not trust I'll be provided for? I can answer that last one, but it still needs to be asked.

just know you're doomed from the start if you audition to be in a band for a girl described as a "one woman band".
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5187870

i deleted 1,386 emails this weekend. i love plane rides.

may i never forget, (or more realistically be constantly reminded each time i forget) of my context and purpose in this world. i live in a town where i pay to go to building and run in place. there are people who have to walk miles to get unclean water to keep them alive.

there are people like Fred Phelps http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5192571
i hope i can realize that and be moved to act, not merely moved to despair.
there are people like Coretta Scott King and Judy Whitten.
i hope i can realize that and be moved to increase the good, not merely moved to despair that i am not .