secret 24 - devaluation

it's no secret that a few years ago i had a fulbright scholarship to study in the balkans. i've written about that several times here on the blog, mostly because it's where i met husband and if i hadn't gotten it, i don't know how we would ever have met (shudders and blood runs cold thinking of that one).

but here's the kicker. getting a fulbright totally devalued the fulbright in my eyes. because i figured if even i could get one, it must be easy. the mystique was totally gone. it must be that they hand them out like candy. (frankly i feel a little bit that way about Blog of Note now that i got it too, tho' i'm not as ready to say that out loud, so please just whisper it to yourself.)

links and connections

i love the blogosphere. i've said it before. i'll no doubt say it again. but today, the thing i'm loving about it is that whole connection thing. and how connections happen and you can actually see them--in the comments, in links, on people's blogrolls, in the form of blog crushes, in sidebars...connections are visible all around us.

back in late april, when my blog became Blog of Note, a hilarious blogger who calls herself extranjera found me. i was so taken with her blog, that i used the small window of opportunity blogger had open at that time to nominate blogs for blog of note to nominate hers. for a couple of months, nothing happened, but then a week ago, what will i ever do with my life? was named blog of note. a very deserved honor. and i have found myself just as delighted watching her followers numbers rise (and even surpass my own!) as i was watching my own rise in those heady early days of BoN. yay extranjera and yay blogger!! it's stuff like this that makes me feel like the fairyblogmother™. 

while we were waiting for it to happen, a whole lot of other connections happened. and other blogs were created - collaborations in cyberspace - trans-atlantic learning adventures, hermit book club, siamese sisters, the idea of blog camp was born (thank you husband!) and the first one happened and several others have been planned, members were added to the balderdash collaboration and this week the ARWP project was launched (for all of us who battle against Real World People and would like to join a sorority support group cult). because this is what it's really all about, this blogging thing (it took me awhile to get that - for along time i thought it was about my sanity)--it's about connections.

the very best connections for me are resulting in real-life, in-person friendships--of the kind that blog camp represents. meeting B, extranjera, kristina, polly and seaside girl in person was such a great experience that i find it difficult to adequately describe it. that we're all (minus extranjera, who will be galavanting off to the US) going to get together next month near london at Bee's house and also meet spudballoo at BC 1.5 is something i'm so excited about. and it's all made possible through the wonder of the interweb. and although all of these people seem to be just ephemeral links here on my blog, those links enable them to be connected to all of you who are reading this. they're just a click away. and when i think of the multiplicity of connections that represents, it boggles my mind.

and i started thinking about all of this because dutchbaby told me this morning that she and tangobaby, who both live in SF, are getting together with other blog friends, who i also know and love--relyn and robin--and having a blog camp of sorts in SF. blog camp 1.1, we're calling it, in case there ends up being others before 1.5 near london, then we save a few numbers for those. how marvelous is that? i really wish i was there to join in the fun (and the photo walks)! i hope you fabulous women have a great time!

these connections just make me so happy. thank odin for hyperlinks! you never know what new adventures they'll take you on.

and speaking of connections, be watching this space for an announcement of a new project--one joining denmark and sweden as they haven't been joined in several hundred years...coming soon, right here on blogger.

blogger gets it right again!

yay for extranjera whose hilarious and noteworthy blog was yesterday's blogger blog of note! safe travels, dahling! can't wait to see your follower numbers rising. that's just fabulous! and totally deserved!

* * *

stay tuned for Secret 3 later today.

you can learn a lot from BoN

ok, it's been ten crazy days since MPC was named blog of note (still thanking you, gods of google) and i've been overwhelmed--more than 15,000 folks have come and had a look.  that's crazy, man! don't get me wrong, i love it and i'm very grateful that so many have stopped by to see what randomness came out my brain and onto the screen. i've also learned a few things...

things i've learned checking my site meter:

• someone posted my post on the new new world order to a website called conspirama: the best of conspiracy and the paranormal. kinda cool, but frankly, that post doesn't pose all that many conspiracy theories. i can write one that does, however. :-) i read ALL of those books on kennedy and marilyn monroe...
  
• someone from Nilai, Negeri Sembilan is looking at my blog right now as i write this. i don't even know where that is! somewhere in africa? indonesia? myanmar? i really don't know!
• people do a lot of blog surfing from work on monday...there's a big jump on mondays after the weekend. i can only assume that it's when people get back to the computer at work!

things i've learned from comments:

• my snow white story was viewed as a whole lot sadder than i meant it.
• my musings on the zone, which i found a little navel gazing myself, were something people could really relate to and which generated some really great comments. that makes me really happy because everyone should experience the zone. 
• lots of you guys are funny.

things i've learned from the follower thing:

• lots of people follow without commenting.
• this might be a good thing in light of how many are now following. i'm already using 29% of my gmail inbox and am notoriously bad about deleting things after i've read them.
• it's way fun.
• i remember that it wasn't that long ago i was offering a prize to my 50th follower. seriously, it wasn't even two months ago. 
• i thought i would do a shout-out to #300 when it reached that. and then suddenly it was 400 and last night, before i went to bed, i saw it become 500. i've clearly got to get quicker about these shout-outs. 
• i love you guys.

this whole thing has opened up a whole new world to me and for that, i am very grateful on this friday. thank you for stopping by!

note:  if you comment with an email address behind your comment, rather than one of those "no-reply blogger" addresses, then you will quite likely get a response. :-)

blog crush: cuttings on a blog

please forgive crappy quality of iPhone photo

the latte is for you, B 

i know you do coffee, not tea

yes, dahlings, it's time once again, for an official blog crush. i hereby give you cuttings on a blog--a witty and well-read, well-traveled, belly dancing spanish girl in oxford. what more could one ask? she's learning dressmaking, she had the computer skills to merge several of her multiple blogs into one (some of us would do well to do the same...ahem, ahem). she blogs in two languages...check her spanish language blog here. i'll admit that i can't really read much of it unless she mentions menu items since that's as far as my spanish extends (not that i'm saying she does)--guacamole anyone? she makes lists...like this one of her five rules for life. she's inspiring people from belize to zambia with her thoughts on home. she does beautiful posts on the covers of books.

do i really need to go on? why are you still here? go read her! you won't be sorry.

blog crush: ohfortheloveofblog

it was so much fun indulging yesterday in the whole concept of outwardly declaring my blog crushes (instead of just stalking them in silence), that i have to give you another one for the weekend!  and yes, it's another south africa-based blog.  i have a bit of a thing for cape town and have been a faithful reader of molly's ohfortheloveofblog since she found me last summer (after i bought heather moore's fabulous patchwork and went all giddy about it).

so molly, since it's the weekend and who the hell cares whether it's 5 p.m. yet (it must be 5 somewhere), this glass of crisp cold chardonnay is for you. i hope you like it, i bought it in norway, so it was $45.

i recently gave molly a blog award, but i really can't stress enough how cool and funny and smart i think she is.

1. she's the one who has me counting all my creativity during 2009 (we're both trying to reach 100 things created and we may have gotten a little creative in our counting--hey, does that count?). 
2. she has the cleverest titles to her posts. like this. and this.
   
3. she loves murakami. 
4. she rants and swears. 
5. she makes lists. (sigh) oh, how i adore lists.
   
6. she devises clever plots against her avocodo-hoarding neighbors. 

and except for the camping, she's pretty much me living in cape town. or so i feel sometimes (and i realize she may find that deeply disturbing). there are a few people i've found here in the blogosphere who i feel are my long-lost sisters and molly is definitely one of them.

so please go check her out, if we all do it, she'll have to change her tagline which today reads: "blog like nobody's reading." 

happy weekend!

blog crush: what will i ever do with my life?

i will not go on and on today about how happy i am to have been named BoN on tuesday because i realize that i'm fast becoming insufferable, but there is something really, really cool about it that i must share. and that's new people finding me as a result of it, which results in the even better bit in which i find them.

this red velvet cupcake is for you, extranjera 

so i hereby give you my very first official blog crush: what will i ever do with my life? 

if you need a laugh (or perhaps just a cocktail), you must go here. hilarious finnish girl in africa. i've had tears running down my cheeks (and it wasn't just the pollen) and i completely scared the cat out of a sound sleep because i was laughing so hard. just now. right here. in front of the internet.

and all of my previous unofficial blog crushes, like you and you and you and you, oh, and you. i promise this will be a regular feature and you will be officially acknowledged. but you will all love extranjera, so run along and read her now. but don't do it for my sake, do it for your own. :-)

just a little fish

in the giddy first hours after learning that little old MPC had become tuesday's Blog of Note, i was bouncing off the walls. i had to go sit and behave like a grown parent at a parents' meeting at sabin's school, but i kept sneaking checks of my mail on my iPhone. i couldn't help it. call me shallow, but i just think it's so cool!  and my mind was definitely not on all those things i had vowed to take up at the meeting, so i actually let them slide. which was probably for the best anyway, so it's yet another thing for which to thank the good folks at blogger.

i don't know what it really means or if it means anything at all in the Grand Scheme, but i am totally, utterly delighted. just to have a few minutes of standing out in that giant bloggy blogosphere, where i normally swim as a little bitty fish in a gigantic ocean simply feels fantastic. i've seen several bloggers that i regularly read become BoN--willow, tangobaby--and i'll admit i totally had BoN envy.

i wondered what one had to do to achieve it. i had actually written "become BoN" in my list of things to do before i turn thirty-thirteen, even tho' i had no idea how to go about it. the mysteries of BoN remain...well...mysteries, as i have no idea how my blog was chosen. i found it out when my google alerts sent me the news that there was a new link to MPC and that it was the BoN page! i can only say (again and again ad nauseam) that it's wonderful.

a very big thank you to the gods of google. and thanks as well for the great weather you've sent to us of late here in denmark, since i know you're also controlling the weather. :-)

a big hello to all of the new people stopping by, please do look around, i don't always rant. ok, well, i do pretty often, but there's sometimes something funny as well.

maybe NOW martha will call.

made my day!!!

thank you blogger!!! please accept these strawberries dipped in chocolate! you totally made my day and prior to this it was a pretty shitty day, but now it's awesome!!!

i wonder if this is because i mentioned sex yesterday?