(a martini always helps)

for those of you wondering what happened with martini...she left a note in the comments of lady luck's blog, copied here:

Hi y'all. It's Martini! It's funny that I started out this blogging journey a year and a half ago and thought I was the biggest dork to become a "blogger." And now, as I sit here reading what Lady Luck wrote, and reading the comments that you all have left, tears stream down my face at my desk. I am so flattered by the comments. I can honestly say I will miss all of you and the daily outlet that blogging provided for me. I wasn't ready to go, and I have a feeling I'll be back.

I didn't take my blog down so much because of Italy. You're right, the damage is done. I took it down because I was afraid whoever sent it to Italy also sent it to other people mentioned in my blog. I had no choice. And no time to save any of it.

I'm very sad to have hurt Italy, and to lose a good guy like him. But I am not ashamed of anything I wrote or did. I was completely honest about my life, and thus, completely honest in my writing. I just underestimated the power and skills some crazy people have to take down a complete stranger for their own sadistic enjoyment.

That being said, thank you all -- most of you complete strangers -- for helping me through a difficult year of navigating the single world. I don't know what I would have done without my blogging family!!

Please keep blogging because even if I have to take a hiatus from writing, nothing can stop me from reading. And don't you worry, just like herpes, when you least expect it, I'll be popping back up.

XOXO
martini


hers is the first blog i've had to delete from my "Crushing" google reader folder.


i wasn't happy about it.

(internet freaks)

hey internet freaks.

i don't mean the good kind of freaks.

i mean the kind that treat the internet like the back alley of a strip club* and set out to intentionally hurt or scare people who are willing to express themselves online in a way that has nothing to do with you.

nothing to do with you or your sad, delusional life.

YOU freaks.

get lost.
stop lurking like pedophiles around playgrounds.
go outside and meet some normal people and ask them things about themselves and eventually a few of them will ask you those questions back and you

WON'T HAVE TO TAKE YOUR LONELINESS OUT ON STRANGERS.

just stop forcing normal, healthy, talented bloggers off the internet.

because when you do that
you're fucking with ME.

and i'm not the girl who turned you down in highschool.

(dedicated to all the brilliant and fun writers who've had to leave blogging to feel safe)
(especially valley girl and martini)

*as martini so aptly put it.

(eight things about me)

a while back damsel tagged me for revealing little meme, which i'll do right this second.*

eight things.

eight things i'm passionate about.

1. friends. that's such a bullshit answer, i know, but my reality is one of constant social outreach. i truly don't give a shit about anything more than i'm interested in interesting and fun people, their ideas, and their quirks. there's evidence of this everywhere: i'm an avid social media addict, i blog and read about 200 blogs, i spend a lot of my money travelling to see college friends, and i don't think anyone who knows me could ever say i'm unable to pull together a pretty large crowd for a party. this isn't me being arrogant...in fact it's just the opposite...i spend a lot of time keeping track of other people.

2. art i haven't seen/heard/experienced before. the simplest way for me to explain this is that i like the experience of hearing a new song that i really dig on first listen MORE than i like the experience of listening to my very favorite songs EVER.

3. kissing. this list is in no particular order.

4. finance. but that's just offline talk.

5. detailed menus. show me a scotch list with detailed tasting notes and i'll show you a five finger discount.
6. microsoft. the hate runs deep. very, very deep. like, to unhealthy levels of distaste and shit-talking. you know how you probably hate a credit card company or your cell-phone company? i hate microsoft infinitely more, even if your credit card company stole your cell-phone and charged you for its replacement.

7. my tattoo.

8. sushi. if it's on a sushi menu, i'll try it. i usually eat enough sushi in one sitting to fill a fish tank.

eight things i want to do before i die.

1. own an island resort.

2. sell my company to fund a long retirement.

3. write a handful of books, both fiction and non-fiction.

4. have a son who revolutionizes american soccer despite my casual suggestion that he choose a more realistic endeavor.

5. train two pet wallabies to run security detail for me.

6. have a building on stanford's campus named after my old trainer, perry.

7. run more marathons than my father. or run a marathon, and come to terms with the fact that he ran six or seven.

8. get over the fact that i didn't win a national soccer championship in college. sometimes i think i'm over it, until i remember who beat us.

eight things i say often.

1. that's what she said.

2. what up? this is how i answer my phone.

3. branner, NO! the poor little guy probably hears NO more than anything else, but that's because when he's good i'm rubbing his face and giving him treats.

4. can i see your scotch list? this is often followed with a look that says, sir, this isn't that kind of place.

5. where the fuck did i park my car? happened this morning.

6. he's a vizsla. do you know what a weimaraner is? he's like that, but red. sometimes repeated three or four times during our walks around the neighborhood.

7. i really wish XRT would quit playing the talking heads. (and/or U2.) i usually say this to myself in the car, but i'm not afraid to say it in the presence of either band's fans. sorry...just not my cup of tea.

8. new social media! i'm in! social. media. hizzzz-or. (whore.)

eight books i've read lately.

if you haven't read this previously...every time i take a flight, i buy a book in the airport. i write the trip's destination inside the book cover, as well as the date. funny that this section this meme makes me think of vacations.

1. lamb: the gospel according the biff, christ's childhood pal - ever feel like maybe a guy who is regarded as the savior at age 33 might have had an awkward, normal-ish childhood? biff tells it like it was...which is why, according to him, we've never heard of him. hilarious.

2. the subtle knife - the second book in the golden compass trilogy. i'm a sucker for science-fiction...what can i say? ender's game is one of my favorite books!

3. leaving microsoft to change the world; an entrepreneur's odyssey to educate the world's children - one of the most inspirational things i've laid my eyes on in as long as i can remember. i could. not. put. this. down.

4. half asleep in frog pajamas - tom robbins rocks and i've read almost all of his books.

5. a man without a country - kurt vonnegut makes me feel like every word i write during my whole life should be interesting. somehow that challenge makes writing more fun.

6. eldest - second book in the inheritance trilogy, a science fiction series written by christopher paolini, who was 17 years old when the first book came out. i started it purely out of curiousity to such a young writer, and have been thus far engaged.

7. what got you here, won't get you there - a super book if you're into this sort of thing...the sort of thing being ideas about success and achieving your goals.

8. kafka on the shore - murakami is another brilliant living author, like vonnegut (until he, you know, died), that i feel fortunate to participate in. this particular book's being produced on steppenwolf's stage next season.

eight movies i've seen eight times.

1. the big lebowski. "Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback."

2. waking life. "On really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion."

3. usual suspects. i named a pet lizard soce in college.

4. dazed and confused.

5. caddyshack. during fraternity initiation, we had to watch this 24 hours a day for a week. shifts were 4 hours at a time, 2 viewings each time. i've seen this a lot, needless to say.

6. high fidelity. "Oh, that's not obvious enough Rob. How about the Beatles? Or fucking... fucking Beethoven? Side one, Track one of the Fifth Symphony... How can someone with no interest in music own a record store?"

7. fight club. "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

8. twelve monkeys. i always seem to catch this on television and i never seem to turn it off.

i'm not going to tag eight people, because i think everyone on earth has done this meme.

*i think the worst thing about memes is explaining them, so i didn't.

(not interested)

this is so me.

(via xkcd)

(invite them all)

as an avid blog reader i've come to care about certain people around the world that i have never met, may never meet, and quite honestly, may not exist. these people are people i respect. people i find intriguing. people i want to drink coffee with, people i want to impress, people i think are crazy, and people i want to make out with. people i'd buy a beer.

if you're thinking it's weird that i'd do any of those things with people i've never met in person, i'll remind you of two things;

a) i once flew to california, picked up a mini-van and drove it to chicago for a guy i first met once i'd arrived in chicago, and

b) the aforementioned people might not exist...so all those expressed feelings are feelings in effect directed at pixels, jpegs, and bitmaps...

so it is weird.

take a moment to congratulate yourself for being right.

that being said, i have things on my mind that are things related to these people (er, pixels), much like you have things on your agenda.

maybe you have to take your parents out to eat, like brady does tomorrow. maybe you have to move, like pb&razz.

maybe you have a wedding to plan for.

i have those things too. lord do i.

but i also contemplate these pixelated rockstars. i think about the fact that i owe The Ex a postcard. i worry about Tink's internal battles.

and i feel like any member of 20somethingbloggers has passed some social screening that makes them someone i'd go out of my way to meet. i would throw a party and invite them all.

i would throw a party and invite all of you.

i would throw a party in the afternoon sun on the strip of division street between ashland and damen and you'd come with your friends and your lovers and your sunglasses.

you could drink hess or stag's leap vino, local microbrews or the liquor you showed up with.

you would dine on chicago-style dawgs and burgers, bar-b-que'd ribs, or veggie bites.

the scotch selection would impress james bond.

we'd play cornhole and chess and beirut.

we'd talk blogger platforms and geek news.

we'd share reading lists and reader feedback.

a band would play until the sun set and it'd be funky mellow stuff to allow for conversation and when the sun went down a rock band would take over to really get the party started. most of us would enjoy the bands and some of us wouldn't, but we'd all probably blog about it.

we'd become quick friends, just like we are now.

i would.
i would throw a party and invite you all.

(dooceTV)

it's a dooce kinda morning. a venti pike place coffee and televised interviews of bloggers = goodness.

somehow i managed to be the first person to stumbleupon dooce's nightline interview last night, so here's my stumbleupon homepage/resulting shameless self-promotion.

also, here she is on good morning america:



also, abc needs to let us bloggers post their content on our websites. the addthis functionality is great, but let me embed your damn video, old media goons.

(rss awareness day)

today is RSS Awareness Day, and as such i'm making you wonderful freaks aware of Real Simple Syndication.

because d-blogged dot com is the after-school activities to your pre-school life.

you bloggers all know what RSS is and the ways it can make the internet a lot easier to navigate. what i think a lot of people who don't follow blogs or just read their friend's blogs may not realize is how powerful these feeds can be.

it's quite simply a way to follow all your favorite sites without having to surf the internet.

you bring the internet to you.

tame the beast.

be aware.

(charming and single)

charming, but single, a blog i've been reading for quite a long time, wrote this jem and i felt like a lot of you would enjoy it.

it's a bit long, so go grab a coffee first.

“Look, you’re intelligent and funny and I love your company and talking to you,” he said. “But, you know, you just weren’t it and I knew that all along.”

He stammered over the last part. And as much as it hurt to hear and as ashamed as I was, I finally got the break up speech he never bothered to deliver two years ago. And for better or for worse, I finally knew.

He held onto me for a little longer and continued apologizing and stroking my back. I was struck by how calm he was. He said he was upset and hurt and taken aback. And I’m sure he was – no matter how horrible he was to me, he didn’t deserve my mid-coitus emotional breakdown. He just never seemed to show it. He gave me this pained, pitiful look, which I’ve seen only once before, on the face of the only other guy whose face I ever cried to. Both faces bore the same, “Oh God, I made a woman cry” emotion. Neither reflected the pain that I’d expect to see from someone who made a woman they cared about cry.

We got dressed and as he was getting ready to leave, I sat on the back of my couch in my nightgown. He walked over to give me a hug and I pulled him in for a kiss.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Just one,” I pleaded.

And I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and tugged his hair with my fingers and pulled his body into mine. I could feel his body respond to me and his breath shorten. He pulled away twice but came back to kiss me.

The third time, he stopped me and told me no, that we weren’t doing this, that he wasn’t going to keep on hurting me.

“I’m going to disappear for awhile,” he said. “But I would like to be your friend.”

beautifully written.

(dreams on elm street)

couch just posted this little tidbit of wonderful:



my comment to her post:

"someone please show me where freddie krueger in a flick with jenna jamison called "zombie strippers" doesn't count as Murder by Awesomeness.

these are the kinds of things i might, by chance, dream up in my head and then brush away with the realization that even thinking such amazing thoughts could spontaneously end the world (on a high note, it should be noted).

this may get reposted on my own blog."

and it did!

(excellent)

below is a little nod of appreciation i received from angelaboration.



head on over to her blog and thank her profusely for me? please?

she didn't only hit up our good blog-buddy nilsa on a day when some positive feedback was needed; i'm in that same boat today. being a superhero is a thankless job, if no one's warned you.

i'm going to give this award to dan mega*, for a few reasons.

his blog's hilarious.

he's concise and to the point.

he's got me in his blogroll as "d- not big d".

his style's being mimicked all over the blogs i read; i know i've been guilty of it.

and also he's nabbed himself a girlfriend, which i think is the right of every Excellent Blogger.**

rock on mr. mega.



*mega, if you already got it; my bad.

**excluding yours truly, apparently.

(how many people are you?)

lane becker, who is a part of the team over at a cool startup called Get Satisfaction, wrote this astute observation about online and offline life:

"here's my problem with most social systems: i am forced into the realization that, like the man says, i contain multitudes. or, at least a good number of mes. i am the person i am @ work versus the person i am @ home. the person i am @ a party versus the person i am @ a conference. the person i am in the morning versus the person i am @ night. i am a hell of a lot of different people, depending on time, depending on context, depending on mood, depending on expectation, and i switch between these constantly. but here's the kicker: i usually *don't have to think about it*.

we are all many people, and we have many faces, and we present them to the world @ the right times in every context -- except online, where we either are expected to be just one person, or are expected to "manage" who we are in relationship to other people in a clunky, boxy, one size fits all kind of way. so bizarre that the same place that allows so much of us out into the world in so many respects, that allows for such a dynamic presentation of self in general, in this one more socially explicit context we utterly obliterate our nuanced sense of being."

so my question to you is this:

how many Yous are there?

(you gotta love progress)

the internet's obviously amazing.

totally marriage material.

and lately i've been playing around with lots of different tools that are floating around in the social network and web 2.0 space, hoping to find some of them useful, efficient, and/or fun.

on top of that, i'm launching little side project blogs and i've even consulted with some programmers in india about putting together a little network of my own.

the nerd level is at an all-time high, i'll admit.

but when you essentially start poking your head around a long list of blogs and watching (from afar) the goings on of events like south by southwest interactive (or blogher08, for that matter), a guy like me* i think is kind of destined for this kind of exploration.

sidenote: this exploration results in many usernames and passwords, which for a guy like me means many forgotten usernames and passwords. annoy. ing.

what i am finding, alongside very useful tools and some truly exciting exposure to exciting new ideas, is the inevitable downsides to all this nosing around and digital stumbling.

the google reader is like mount everest. i miss you guys and your writing, and can't seem to catch up.

the inspirations are overwhelming and the feeling that one possiblity after another is right there for the taking actually stresses me out sometimes. yes...i do think this is just an internal character flaw; i feel like every great idea needs nurturing, and have trouble focusing sometimes.

and trying out new things on the web naturally lends itself to de-centralizing your web presence. this is very tangible, because i want my offline friends to be able to find me (which is why i invited all you bozos onto twitter, which has been completely wonderful and hilarious), and i don't want to sit on a computer all day trying to figure out where i'm at or what i'm doing on an endless list of cyber locales.

here's a fact, though: the nerdiness and habits won't stop.

this i know.

so i think i just need to stop worrying about it in any real way.

how are the internets treating you?




*who has an unrelentless curiousity, background in human computer interaction, an overly social nature and NO GIRLFRIEND (surprised? me neither).

(blog carnival)

so 20SB had it's first blog carnival, hosted by sequined over at sequins and glitter.

the theme of the first carnival was (appropriately) "FIRSTS":

it was a resounding success. as she put it:

The response was overwhelming, with almost 70 entries! Here are the most interesting, most well written, most enjoyable, most insightful, most sincere posts of the lot!

she proceeds to feature a handful of the submissions, and guess who was featured?

my ex-girlfriend.

okay not really it was me being featured for writing a story about the day i met kate.

so i'm super flattered.

thank you, sequined, and everyone involved.

now chalise and i have to go catch the bulls game so we can boo ben wallace.

(iFriends)

as you may remember, i was witty enough to win a blog tagline contest over at ex-everything. i suggested her tagline be "The Ex to Your Why" and her readers picked that as their favorite.

but i'd forgotten there was a prize involved!

i just got home to find a package in my mailbox from Ex, which included this $25 gift card and A STOCKING CAP SHE MADE FOR ME!



fucking awesome, right?

i don't look sick in this picture, do i? well...i'm fighting hard, and the stocking hat is still on my head fighting it with me.

...

so while we're skipping through blogdom, i thought i'd share the chicago blogger meetup pictures i've got, with a disclaimer: we were talking so damn much i only took a few photos.

here's pbrazz, tokissthecook, and nilsa.
nilsa can smell cameras pointed at her...i challenge you to get her looking away.


myself and cheryl.
or me trying to look down cheryl's shirt.


jenn and angela.


apparently their meetup was in the 1920's.

so...what are you gonna take a picture of this weekend?


oh...i forgot to mention that i didn't put up the pics i have with big time fancy in them, cuz she's rather anonymous online.

(baseball and crack)

chicagoans have spent most of this morning and early afternoon clamoring for cubs tickets, which went on sale at 10am this morning.

this annual event is probably the world's best example of an internet clusterfuck.*

chicago business screeches to a halt and every man, woman, child, and puppy sits on the internet hitting refresh and emailing each other about how many windows they have open at once and what technique just GOT THEM IN OH MY GOD I HAVE FOUR TICKETS TO THE WHITE SOX SERIES blah blah blah.

somehow the ticket brokers always seem to skip the virtual waiting room, which is a concept i'm not sure i ever envisioned the internet to include.

a waiting room?

online?

i gave it a five minute try and then i promptly gave up, secure in the assumption that the odds of me wasting my morning trying to get baseball tickets were far less than the odds of the cubs actually having a decent season before i'm using a walker to get to the cafeteria of whatever retirement home my ungrateful children stick me in.

i jest.

my children will be wonderful.

instead i got distracted by StumbleUpon, a digital tool that until now was (and still now is, sorta) confusing to me.

the concept of falling around the internet drunk wasn't lost on me (having surfed the internet drunk many times already), but how it worked, why it worked, and what it meant were all really murky concepts to me.

but now...

a.
ddict.
ed.

addicted.

get over there and sign up. especially if you're friends with me.

TSK band members in particular. bloggers in particular.

befriend me.

i still don't completely understand it all, but it's basically a big orgy of website sharing...with the funniest or weirdest rising to the top. it's crazy new websites and youtube videos without all the not-funny and not-interesting stuff in between.

it's like the top-watched videos on youtube ON CRACK.






*although it sounds like lyndsay lohan's nude pictures on the new yorker mag site caused quite a stir earlier this week.

(pama martinis and chocolate yummies)

there's really nothing like unfamiliar faces in familiar places.

last night's chicago blogger meetup at the waterhouse in lakeview was a resounding success.

a killer time.

a reminder that reading the things someone else writes isn't an act of duty. it's not a lonely endeavor. it's an engagement, and the real people behind all that literary crafting are just as interesting and funny and quirky as their words are.

pbrazz.
somi.
to kiss the cook.
big time fancy.
angelaboration.
places never planned.
free and flawed.


oh, and they're all women, apparently.

as somi and pb razz and cheryl said, the get together was really great.

these women are vibrant and funny and beautiful.

they tell stories the way they write, and they tell great stories.

and later into the night, when chalise showed up and i nearly tore her in half with a hug (as it was the first time i'd seen her) all of my new blogging friends understood my excitement.

i'll say more later, but i wanted to make sure that everyone who i was lucky enough to meet last night knew this:

you are all truly wonderful people. i feel very lucky to have met you.




tomorrow i'll have pictures from last night, and, of course...

a pretty big announcement.

(martinis for dinner)

good morning.

come to the chicago blogger meetup tonight around 5:30.

at waterhouse in lakeview right under the brown line stop at paulina.

there will be martinis.

and, of course, some bloggers.

now i'm going to go run even though i really want to make and eat an omelet.

okay that's not true.

i want someone to make me an omelet.

with veggies and bacon, please.

(monk email)

for those of you bloggers for whom i was able to track down an email,

the valentine's monkey i sent to your inbox was supposed to convey a message of adoration for your blogging skills.

apparently it didn't work for some of you.

which means that monkey i hired,

is a bad monkey.

BAD MONKEY!

happy valentine's day, ya'll.

love,
d(blogged).

(bloggers and meetups)

you didn't think you'd get through this week without one or two reminders of the Chicago Blogger Meetup this saturday, right?

when i graduated from arguably the most tech-conscious university in the world back in 2002, i had never met anyone that i'd already gotten to know (in any capacity) online.

we didn't have facebook.

we didn't have myspace.

and we weren't blogging yet.

google was still a private company and the googleplex didn't exist.

okay, i'd used craigslist in college to acquire furniture, and thus met a few people who were strangers to me, but it doesn't really count when your making financial transactions. that's no different than the girl behind the checkout at ikea, really.

now's a different story.

now i've met lots of people that i'd only previously known online, and nearly every one of them has turned out to be great.

and every time i've gotten together with someone like that, it's been a good time...fun, friendly, and filled with 'reunion'-ish overtones...you meet someone you know for the first time.

sure, it can be a little weird at first.

but only as weird as you let it be, and that really only lasts a minute or two.

which make saturday's get-together exciting...

...because of all the ways i've met people from the internet (and no, i've never met anyone through a dating site), meeting bloggers is by far the most fun.

they're the most fun.

they're the one's that actually know something about you.

read your diary.

invest time into learning about your life and your experiences.

leave funny comments and react to your stories in their own blog posts.

and they're the ones

that will be writing about

meeting you

sometime during the following week.

so if you're thinking twice about coming to The Waterhouse on saturday, i highly recommend you come and join us.

have a cocktail.

meet some local bloggers.

oh, and did i mention that i've got a surprise in store?

i don't think i had!



ps. that is a 'normal' picture of alexis, who was nice enough to do an interview for me posted here & here.