I normally reserve this kind of post for Not an Activist, but I had a lot of fun making this video. This is just one week’s efforts toward a greener life. There is still a lot to do and to learn! If you want more, please visit Not an Activist. Thanks!

I love the things that happen on IRC. (Click to see the full-sized image.)

I think the real reason we tweet, blog and compulsively update our status is that we are looking for a response. We crave even the simple acknowledgment of people “LOL”ing at a link or a throwaway comment. And we need to complain, too. We need to vent. The internet lets us say “out loud” things for which we have no conversational context in regular old analog life.

Right now, I am sitting at my desk, and the office is silent except for the sound of my typing and the faint mumble of newscasters coming from the TV in the break room. It would be awkward, at best, to start spouting all the things on my mind: I’m kindof hungry. I just talked to my mom, and she told me my dad is in the hospital, but she says not to worry. I really like the way NPR is reporting on the Wikileaks story. I have mixed feelings about Julian Assange. I’m worried about my dad, now. Last week was really hard, and I want this week to be better. Yesterday, I totally cried in my boss’s office because I was overwhelmed. I felt stupid. I’m excited about the goat cheese I found at the farmers’ market this weekend. Really looking forward to freezing some local summer produce to save for this winter.

Perhaps this is not what the internet was meant to be, but I do believe it gives us a context for reaching out to people, making connections, and sharing thoughts that sometimes weigh on us or overwhelm us or excite us. Some people will say that our fast-paced, high-tech lifestyle leaves us less connected than ever before, yet I feel more connected in many ways.

Right now, I am really grateful for that connection.

Photo Credit: "Tweet up" by Toni Barros

I just read this post by Sarah Wilson in which she speculates that Deep (deep conversations, deep thought, etc.) is making a comeback. Boy howdy, do I hope she’s right. Or do I?

I don’t wanna flatter myself too much, but back in high school, I actually had a very cool girl tell me how she had wanted to hang out with me but was afraid I wouldn’t like her because I seemed really deep. In fact, I did like her and really wanted to hang out with her, but I was shy and bad at small talk. I think a lot of people didn’t know what to do with me because I would skip right over normal conversations like “How’s life?” and start in on, “So what’s your stance on abortion?” or “Do you think animals have souls? If not, why do you care so much about your pets? If so, do you think eating meat is wrong?” I was not an easy person to get to know.

Since then, I’ve pretty much abandoned most forms of small talk. In friendly situations, I tend to talk about whatever is on my mind, and in business situations where it’s not a great idea to bare your soul over lunch, I just ask questions and try to keep it professional.

Still, I find myself in awkward situations sometimes because I really crave “deep” conversations, and sometimes I jump into personal conversations, topics that I find meaningful or important, and my friends get a politely frightened expression as though I’ve done or said something awful.

I wonder if this resurgence of depth is going to work out in my favor or if I’ll find myself telling people more awkward and inappropriately personal things than ever.

This morning, I was wishing people appreciated how hard I work. This afternoon, I’ve gotten three messages from different clients thanking me for being flexible and helpful when they were in a tough position.

It’s so easy to get caught up in drama and nonsense, but sometimes you get a “thank you” from someone, and you know you’ve just made their day easier, helped them dodge some hassle or avoid a managerial brow-beating, and it feels pretty nice.

Photo Credit: ausiegall

Sit Illustrated: A charming little book about the struggles and benefits of meditation.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Leroy Stick of @BPglobalPR

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

The Book Inscriptions Project: This makes me want to go buy copies of my favorite books to give to everyone I know and write little inscriptions to tell them each why they got their particular book.

John Lacey is vlogging every day in July. Go cheer him on. Why? Because it’s an exercise in creativity, and we support that. Also, he’s giving me fun ideas for my own videos.

Ellie Di aka Jaka Merriman explains her long-time internet alias. As someone who’s still wielding dual identities from my life growing up online, I love this story and feel like it’s increasingly common as those of us who grew up online come of age. It’s also a rather beautifully written post.

Dear Hacker: Letters to the Editor of 2600 is a book I must have. I love reading the letters in each issue, but I don’t have anything older than about 2000, so I’m really looking forward to seeing some of the old letters and the conversations that carry on from one issue to the next. I also really want to read The Best of 2600: A Hacker Odyssey. This stuff is just so compelling to me!

The Inspiration Pad is a twisted little notebook that made my heart leap disconcertingly at first look. If you are one of those writers who’s strongly affected by tangibles (like the way I relate to music while writing), this book could be powerful for getting out of a rut, or it could make you completely insane.

Finally, yesterday, I had sushi at this great little place in Annapolis called Yama. It was a totally peaceful and soothing experience — exactly what I needed. My cold sake came in this perfect little bamboo pitcher.

So there you have it. Peace.

This is my favorite technique for getting something down on paper. It has never ever failed me. I’m not promising it’ll work for you, but you may find it worth a try. If you’ve ever heard of automatic writing, it’s a lot like that, except … it’s not.

It starts like this: I have a really strong connection to certain music. I’m sure a lot of people do. I often find myself making soundtracks in my head for my writing projects, the books I read, and even the everyday scenes of my life. I love to find the song that perfectly suits the mood or situation.

So, when I want to write about something but I don’t know how to approach the topic, I find a song that seems to echo the way I feel about that topic. Today, for example, I wanted to write about technology in a way that’s not “sciency.” I believe the human aspects of technology (how and why we use it, make it, and relate to it) is essential and really says a lot about human nature. So, I picked a song that I think relates to that feeling: “Digital Ghost” by Tori Amos.

Then, I put my headphones on, put that song on repeat, turned the volume up, and started writing. Quick tip: the volume should be just shy of that level where it starts to hurt your ears. This is probably bad for your ears, but it’s good for the thought process. It drowns out any external sounds but also weird internal sounds like the spit in your mouth, your own breathing, and yes, even some of your own thoughts. I find this allows me to turn off my inner critics for a while.

Some people may find this to be the hard part. The next thing is that you have to tap into it. What’s that mean? Well, this is another reason your music needs to be loud. You have to physically get into the music. Let your mind slip in between the notes. You are not listening to the music, but you’re letting it surround you and using it as a tool to pull up the particular set of feelings that you want to get into words. This probably won’t work with a subject you really don’t care about because you’ll find it harder to make the visceral connection between the sound and the idea, but I guess you could try it.

Once you tap into it, start writing. I like to do this by actually writing the words “tap into it” because this sends my brain the message that we’re going into writing mode now. After that, the first couple sentences sometimes come out a little wonky, but I just tell myself to keep going and let it all out. Edit later, etc. Just write until you feel the words tapering off. It’s like emptying a glass of water onto the ground. You’ll know when it’s done because there’s just nothing else coming out of the glass, and nothing else hitting the ground.

Don’t judge it. Don’t re-read it. Don’t go post it online immediately. Just let it sit a while, and come back to it later. I don’t promise that what you write using this technique will be useable every time, but I do think it’s a great way to get past some of your little blocks in order to get something on paper.

I hope you’ll try it. If you do, let me know how it turns out.

Ok. So, pretty soon I’m going to develop a reputation for being a real pain in the ass reviewer since I always start with what irritates me about a book. I will try to preempt that by explaining that I really enjoyed Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, but I just finished reading it a few minutes ago, and I truly loved everything about it except the ending.

Well, the ending and one line of dialogue.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead. If you don’t want to know how it ends, go away now.

So, lets just start with a nice orderly list. This seems to be a good way to approach a book when you are enraged by it.

1. There’s not even a make out scene between Hiro and Juanita (two consenting adults who really have it bad for each other), but there is a full sex scene between Y.T. and Raven (a 15 year old skater girl and a cyber-terrorist of indeterminate age).
2. Uncle Enzo has a skateboard for Y.T. in the last scene and we don’t find out whether he gets to give it to her. What’s worse, it’s not even clear whether Enzo lives through the scene or if Y.T. knows about what happened to him.
3. Chapters 56 and 57 are 100% exposition of the sort that is really interesting to linguistics geeks, mythology fetishists and imaginative programmers but does very little to move the plot forward since it’s a synthesis of the information we’ve already gathered in chapters 30 and 33 and a few other spots in the book.
4. The one line of unforgivable dialogue, page 432, “If we get out of this, will you be my girl?” Two reasons it’s unforgivable: 1) Nobody fucking says that without getting punched. 2) He asks the question, she says yes, and then they never have another proper conversation before the end of the book.
5. It doesn’t say what happens to Raven after he limps off into the distance. Nor does it say why he was peddling snow crash to begin with or why he was working with Rife. (One of my irc friends, Ravenfish, says I do know the answer to this one. I may have missed a key point somewhere.)
6. We don’t find out what happens with Y.T.’s mom, but for some reason, she’s totally cool with picking Y.T. up from the airport like nothing happened. (How long has she been on the Raft, anyway? Definitely too long to pretend she was just sleeping at a pal’s house.)
7. Page 462. A character we don’t know much about and don’t care about shouts, “Al is down. My God, he’s dead!” This is six pages from the end of the book, and I don’t know who Al is. That’s just annoying.

On the other hand, none of these things would bother me if the book hadn’t hooked me hard from the start. I really got into this story and sincerely wanted to know how it would end for all the characters — from Hiro Protagonist all the way down to the Rat Things — and yes, I even liked Raven in a way. That sort of thing is not accomplished through bad writing. I have been known to put down a book half way through just because the plot got too weird or the writing bothered me too much. Those things didn’t happen. I was hooked for the entire ride.

Until the end.

What am I to make of this? Lots of books are truly bad, ok? Tons of them. They get printed, bought and read anyway. A few books are really amazingly good and satisfying in every way. This book had the potential to be one of the latter, and seriously, once I’ve read 468 pages, I will go along for another 100 to get a satisfying ending, but Stephenson didn’t go there. Why? Why Why Why?

This is a problem that could have been solved with the aid of a good editor. Trust me, I know good editors. They spot these problems and help resolve them. They’re lovely like that. Even if not every lose end gets tied up, a good editor could’ve helped smooth out the edges so the jagged drop off of an ending wouldn’t hurt quite so much.

But the true miracle of this book, the part that baffles me the most, is that despite all that, I’m going to recommend it. The concepts in it, the characters, and even the outrageously complex plot are the kind of thing you just can’t miss.

“Home?” Mom says.
“Yeah, home seems about right.”

What? That’s it? Yeah. End.

So, Team,

Things going on right now…

It turns out I’m writing a book, and it’s not associated with any of the projects I’ve already discussed here. That blue notebook? The five subjects? Yes. That.

The notebook and I had a little heart-to-heart, and here is what it said:

You have wanted to write a book for a long time. You have a particular subject in which you are immensely interested. You have a reasonable level of knowledge to start with and lots of people who would be happy to help you with their information and guidance. This is your project. Run with it. In the event that you find you don’t know what you’re doing, just take a deep breath and let the subject guide you. You will get there.

You can’t argue with a notebook, mostly because it looks crazy as shit. So, I am writing a book now. However, that doesn’t negate all the pre-existing projects, including one that has completely taken me by surprise.

Apparently, I’m going to help write a game. A flash game. It’s early in the project, yet, and I don’t like to reveal too much to start, but this is the most interesting way I’ve stumbled into a project to date. Basically, a guy who creates flash games was Googling his name (a reasonable thing to do), and he came across my site because we happen to have the same last name. On discovering that I’m interested in games and writing, he decided to contact me and see if we could work together. My response? Basically: This is bizarre and surreal. Let’s do it!

In addition, I’ve got some web writing to do for Blackstar Group, something you’ll all learn more about in the near future. And to balance all the tech-related stuff, I’ve got this incredible artistic project going on with my sister (the amazing artist). Think “Exquisite Corpse.” And finally, I’ve got my two beloved blogs.

Suffice it to say, I’m extremely busy lately but also incredibly happy. In addition, I’m leaving for Chautauqua in two days. I’m not sure what the internet situation will be like when I’m out there, nor am I sure if I’ll have any energy to spare for blogging. But rest assured, I am well and happy.

Sending you all much love!

xoxo

dirt

I bought a new notebook.

You know what that means.

I am SO excited.