Lion and Magic Boy

You might have noticed there’ve been some changes around here. Yes! Dropdown sidebar thingies! (Which, I might add, I’m still not used to because I still find myself scrolling way way down like I used to whenever I want to read one of my favorite writers or something, and why hello, yes, I could be using my Bloglines or Google Reader but for some reason I insist on doing some things Old School, because, you know, I like to waste time and all. Take yesterday, when the Craigslist guy showed up to take my 1997 Cuisinart off my hands, the Cuisinart I bought because It Would Change My Life, the one I hardly used except about once a year to make hummous or something because the damn thing weighs about 90 pounds and takes up valuable countertop real estate that I was not willing to give up, and besides I do have KNIVES for that sort of thing, but this guy said he was a cucina, which translates to “kitchen”, and although he was on the larger side I certainly wouldn’t think of referring to him as a whole entire room or anything, but hey, that’s his call if he wants to say “I’m a kitchen!” or something, you know? Far be it from me to take that little joy from his life, you know? Anyway, he says that you can chop the celery in the Cuisinart and then the carrots, and then the onions, all without cleaning it in between! And then when you put-a the meat-a in it for the spicy meatball-a, you only have to clean it one time! Save-a you time! And then I was sort of regretting selling the thing in pristine almost-unused condition to a Craigslist guy for a mere pittance when I could be saving time by making meatballs, but you know there he was in my livingroom and I had to let it go.)

[Points for Longest Parenthetical Comment]

[Oh! Before I completely leave the subject of upgrading blogs etc., you should read this well-written post about Wordpress 2.5. Me, I am afraid to upgrade because I just know Nameless Important Stuff would disappear forever, so I'll be here in my dinky wp 2.1 forever, thank you.]

So, yeah, changes! I’m changing alll the time, believe me.

But adding dropdowns to my blogroll is only the surface of the changes. The real changes go deeper. We’re talking Blog Identity here.

You know what I’m talking about. Say you start a blog in 2002 because you heard on NPR that “weblogs” are the cool new next thing. So you start a blog, you write a couple of posts, and then you forget about it. (I’m not saying that happened to ME, by the way; we’re speaking hypothetically here of course.)

So fast-forward a few years. You keep hearing about this “blog” thing. You’re looking for, you know, a creative outlet. So you start writing about shit. You start reading other people’s blogs (because you haven’t an original idea of your own), and HOLYSHIT people make money from these things???! Well, count me in, sir! I want me a piece of that!

Um…how do I get it?

And more importantly, WHO AM I?

So I looked, as we all do, for identity. My kid has Down syndrome? Great! Hook me up with the whole Down syndrome blogging community!

Yeah. And, as good as that is/was, it’s not really me. My kid still has Down syndrome, that’s not going away any time soon (hey! yesterday he was stacking nesting cups instead of throwing them! first time!), but I’m no longer the parent-of-a-kid-with-down-syndrome. I mean, I AM, but it’s not my identity. It’s his identity. (Actually, it isn’t even that. He’s just Eric, as far as he knows. He doesn’t need an identity because he already knows who he is!) And it’s not my blog’s identity.

So some people’s blogroll is kind of like high school. The cool kid’s table. And some people invite everybody to the table, because either they’re just friendly like that or maybe having more people at the table makes them look more popular, I dunno. Some people invite just their friends. I could write a whole book on the Psychology of Blogrolls.

But mine had blogs on it that I don’t read anymore for one reason or another (hey! sometimes we just don’t click with everyone, you know?), but I felt I should keep them because of the Dwn syndrome thing. Would not keeping them, once I had linked to them, signal a subtle dis on Down symdrome? Was I obligated to maintain these links forever?

Well, no. This isn’t a Down syndrome blog, though 1/4 of my kids has DS. I’ll still write about it from time to time as part of what’s going on in his life/my life, but it was never a focus here. So my favorite writers who also happen to have kids with Down syndrome are just that: my favorite writers. We’re going all-inclusive here with the blogroll. Writing is writing.

And the focus of this blog? Well, it’s me. Me me me me me me me!

So, hi. I’m Karen. I’m a channel, which is sort of like a psychic only much much better. I’m a writer. I’m an artist. I’m a mother. I’m also a cyclist, a lover, and a person who wears herself on the outside these days. I cry sometimes, I get angry sometimes, I think about things a LOT. I don’t use my real name, but it’s close enough.

Hi.