Today is the 1st anniversary of this humble little blog. 

My 1st post was "So, what is this about, and for?" on Saturday, 29 January 1995 2005.  A couple weeks ago I wrote a sort of pre-anniversary post, "Bloggy happiness," with some early reflections.  I said most of what I wanted to in the "Bloggy happiness" post,  but I’d like to add a few things.

I have written along these lines once before ("Blogging as Metaphor"), but here is another take on why I blog and a connection to the title of my blog from a book I am currently reading:

Ong used a particularly appropriate metaphor in describing oral patterns of communication when he commented ‘Oral discourse has commonly been thought of even in oral milieus as weaving or stitching’ (Ong 1982: 13). A particularly important aspect of orality and oral discourse is it s reliance on memory and repetition (its weaving together of information in particular, recognizable patterns), for in order to retain knowledge, information has to be passed on orally in repetitious manner until the listener has internalized and retained its meaning (32).

Finkelstein, D. and  A. McCleary.  An Introduction to Book History.  New York: Routledge, 2005.

Ong, Walter J.  Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.  London: Metheun, 1982, reprinted 2002.

From the "Blogging as Metaphor" piece:

I think my blog has become a sort of sewing kit
for my life and my narrative.  I am literally stitching the fragmented and compartmentalized pieces of my life back together.  Some stitches are tight, some are loose, some may again ravel, and some may or may not get restitched.

So, why am I writing about blogging using oral metaphors?  Because I think of much of this blog in particular, and of blogging generally, as a form of oral discourse.  Or, at least, as an attempt to recreate oral discourse as much as possible in a written form.  That, at least, is what I am trying to do.  I do realize that, in the end, it is impossible.  But, nonetheless, I will continue the attempt at real conversation via my blog as I continue to stitch my own life together and to stitch the lives of others to mine. 

By the way, I highly recommend the Ong book.

On a different note, it seems like a fine time to show some of the recent search strings that found my blog:

what is the hypothesis of a broken family? (Google) – Well, I’m sure I don’t know, even if I have experienced a few.

urbana skinny (Google) – This is NOT my nickname!  But maybe it should be.

agony "they enjoyed her" (Google) – I don’t think I want to know.

numbers of filipino citizens unemployed and employed last 2005 by spreadsheet (my Sep 05 archive page was the #1 result on Yahoo for this key word search) – I am sure that I am not an expert on this topic.

john seely brown is an asshole  (#5 hit on Google for this page) – I’m really sorry to hear this.  Maybe I should remove his book from my reading list.

indexer woman sex (Google) – Clearly my favorite seeing as I’m taking an Indexing class this semester.  Maybe I’ll have to run this search myself….

Please help me continue the conversation.  Feel free to comment or lurk, but comments will move the conversation along in a much more productive manner.

Peace.  Love.  Happy New Year and here’s to the Year of the Dog. 

From the CNN.com page: "The Lunar New Year, also called the Spring Festival, is the most
important holiday for ethnic Chinese and a time when many of China’s
1.3 billion people traditionally head to their hometowns to be with
family." 

In that case, I guess it was appropriate that I did go home this weekend for my Dad’s 70th birthday and to hang out with my childhood best friend, Dave, who found me just 2 weeks ago after almost 30 years.  My sister and her family were able to fly in from DC, and my brother David made it home from Monterrey, CA too.  Here’s to a wonderful Year of the Dog.