Decennium

February 2001 I sat down and started a blog - I'm actually a bit hazy on the exact details of where and when - and somehow I've now blogged for an entire decade. Selected highlights (and low points)

2001: I began blogging (using my own software). I subsequently moved my blog to diaryland where I met DiscoDave, now my Other Half (although that happened much later). I also began meeting up with Copenhagen-based bloggers. We weren't all that many in those days and could fit our Xmas party into a small flat.

2002-4: I moved the blog to blogspot. My blogging became less about my hazy university social life and more about academia and books. A lot about books.

2004- 2006: I bough my own domain, bookish.dk, and turned my blog into a fullblown litblog. Heady days with publishers emailing me with lovely offers, getting linked by major US & UK newspapers, appearing on the radio and all that. I also gained a bonafide stalker in the process who had to be cautioned by Copenhagen police whilst I hid in my best friend's flat. That wasn't fun nor heady.

2007: My webhosting company pulled the plug on bookish.dk for no apparent reason (this happened to several other bloggers too). I set up this very blog instead after mulling over it for a few months. I missed writing way too much.

2008-?: Lit-blogging gave way to personal blogging gave way to craft-blogging. As a result I now show my face on the blog (and if you are a bit savvy, you can find my full name too). Blogging is now so mainstream that most of my offline friends are linkable. Social networking has become very intertwined with blogging and it is sometimes difficult to know when my blogging starts and ends (for more thoughts on this, I recommend reading Stuart's take).

Simply put: I cannot imagine the last decade without blogging and bloggers. Over the past ten years I have met a huge amount of clever, funny, witty people (and my boyfriend) through blogging. Some of you I have later met offline; some of you remain online friends. I won't do a rollcall because I will miss out too many people - and some of them have left the blogosphere too - but thank you to each and every one of you. It has been a real blast.

Can I make a simple request? If you happen to read this, would you leave a comment? You can say something about how you feel about blogging, if you blog (why (not)?), what your favourite blogs are .. anything goes. I would just like to hear from you - even you, dear lurking blog reader!

And here's to ten more years.

Crossing the Line - Redux

Reblogging a post I wrote in 2008:

Yesterday someone I knew roughly fifteen years ago wrote to me via Facebook. She asked me if I were dying because she had noticed my status updates on Facebook (and quite possibly this blog) and was, I quote, sooo worried about me!!!!!!!!!

One thing which absolutely fascinates me about blogging and, by extension, social networking on the web, is the idea that you "know" the blogger or the person you follow on a social website. Where does that idea of "knowledge" comes from?

I don't know about you, but I moderate my online persona and I have done so ever since I first started blogging almost eight years ago. I used to be almost obsessively private about my identity, but when one of my blog readers began stalking me obsessively in my then-hometown, I realised that anybody would be able to find out who I was no matter how hard I tried to mask my identity. It was just a matter of how net-savvy you were. These days I link my real name to this blog and use a somewhat transparent web 'handle'. I continue to be very aware what I share online.

Do you know me if you read this blog? Of course not, although you will have a good idea of what to expect if we were to have a conversation offline. Can you deduce anything significant from my Facebook-updates? Quite apart from my having a semi-severe PathWords obsession, no.

I'm slightly amazed that anybody would consider asking me about dying via a casual Facebook message or think I would disclose terminal illness via one-sentence updates on a silly social networking site. I think this proves the divide between illusory 'knowledge' generated by virtual interaction and actual knowledge of the person writing all of this.

And two years later I'm reblogging this because I'm yet again baffled by how tactless, intrusive and self-obsessed people can be.

And how some people never learn.

Points

1. I overheard a conversation today between a little girl - maybe six years old? - and a woman who was clearly the au-pair. The little girl was a nightmare and the au-pair tried to calm her. The little girl turned to the woman: "You need to get yourself a PROPER job. Oh wait - you CAN'T which is why you are minding me." Ouch.

As a friend of mine pointed out when I posted about this overheard conversation on Facebook: "Well, if she's that precocious she can probably deal with being told all the horror stories about graduate unemployment these days. And that maybe she can use insults like that when she's old enough to have a proper job herself. After her parents have paid for her to have a gap year so she can find herself."

Zing.

2. This past week has been full of I Am Officially Getting On In Years moments. The other day I realised that Freddie Mercury has been dead for almost twenty years. Then I saw a young teenage boy sauntering down Byres Road looking like a young Brett Anderson circa 1992 (and then it hit me that the first Suede tracks are also almost twenty years old). And I learned that one of my erstwhile hang-out spots in Copenhagen has closed down. I'm facing my own mortality and it feels really weird.

3. A couple of crafty projects have been finished with much success. My Idunn hat is splendid and I'm rather pleased with an Amy Butler skirt I made too. I have failed miserably at keeping track of my Self-Stitched September, but I have been wearing something self-made every single day. I have been having a hard time understanding the instructions for a particular decrease section for my current Big Project, but I have cracked the code (sleep helps) and Progress Has Been Made.

4. Work is swamping me, so non-work things have suffered a lot these past few weeks. That means the house is a tip, I'm 75 pages into a library book due next week, very little blogging/commentating, and crap food. I hope to catch up with myself (and the housework) before too long as we're having Very Important People visiting us from the States very, very soon.

5. Finally, I was very pleased to see this news story about ABBA and Scandinavian politics as the top BBC Entertainment news story the other day. One day I need to write about the other reasons why I left Denmark and why I'm so ambivalent about my country of origin.

So, how are you?

Thank Yous Are Long Overdue

I'm having a pretty awesome week for various reasons and as a result I have not had much time to 'grap a cuppa' (as they say here in Blighty), sit down and think about what's going on. I am not complaining about awesome things happening, but I do appreciate having time to breathe and having time to reflect. First, though, a big thank-you to some very generous people.

Roobeedoo and I had a quick conversation whilst at Knit Camp and it went pretty much like this:

Me: You look like you! R: You look like you too! Me: I have some vintage sewing patterns. You rock vintage sewing patterns. You want them? R: OK! Me: Cool! R: I'll take a photo of you first before I go look at Knit Camp vendors! Me: Ughdfsagr..

And so vintage patterns were sent north-wise and in return I received a very chic 1960s sewing pattern. Oh, and some yarn which was totally not part of the deal but who am I to complain when it's two balls of Drops Alpaca in a very fetching coral-pink-red shade. Funnily enough I have some grey Drops Alpaca in my stash and I'm sensing stripes + wristwarmers + hat ..

Earlier this year my friend Paula ran The Race For Life and I had chipped in as part of her sponsor deal. As a thank-you, Paula made me a personalised scissor fob in my favourite colours and I received my gift this week. I'm using the fob as my keyring (alongside a felted sheep - don't ask) because that way I'll get to see my gift every single day. I'm a huge fan of handmade presents.

And finally Ms Old Maiden Aunt handed me a Knit Nation goodie bag, a Sanquhar gloves kit (because I'm a big sucker for local history & knitting traditions) and her Tangled Yoke Cardigan. When I protested about the amount of gifts, she told me that she was bribing me into knitting her a Laminaria shawl. Hmm.. cunning plan, Lilith!

Now, I'm off to sit down with my new autumnal knitting project and hopefully having time to ponder various going-ons. It's been a mad week so far and it's not over yet.

Green

Aberdeen is known as "the Flower of Scotland", I'm told. I know it better as "Granite City" because such a huge part of Aberdeen is built from granite. Whilst Aberdeen's Duthie Park is understandably a turist attraction, most visitors will just know the grey granite city centre with its very few pockets of greenery/fresh air. You walk and walk and suddenly all you know of the world is grey granite. And then you make it to the Union Terrace Gardens and you sigh a very big sigh of relief. Except The Aberdeen City Council has decided the Union Terrace Gardens need to be developed (or should that be re-developed).

You see, planning permission was already in place for a new visual arts centre - an expansion of Peacock Visual Arts which would have provided North East Scotland with a proper arts centre next to its Art Gallery and the library - as was funding, but these £13.5m plans have now been scraped in favour of a £140m plan suggested by local oil tycoon, Ian Wood. Wood's plan involves raising the Gardens to street level (using a concrete base), a car park and new shopping facilities.

Cue massive public outcry, a public consultation which found overwhelmingly against Ian Wood's plan, and a City Council which decided to side with the money man.

As you can tell, I'm on the side that think a concreted Union Terrace Garden will just make Aberdeen look even more grey. It is a shame.

On an entirely different note, if you read nothing else today, do go read Bells' blog entry about reading her grandmother's letters. It tugged damn hard at my expat heartstrings and it also made me miss my grandmother even more. I'm a professional cynic, but, really, my heart's not in it (especially after reading Bells' words).

Beads

So, this is your almost-first look at Larisa, a little scarf I designed some months ago and which is currently out with various test-knitters. It is knitted in Kidsilk Haze and has beaded edgings. I'm currently one-third through the scarf itself and find it a really relaxing knit. Just enough interest to keep me going and yet easy enough to knit late at night or during my commute. I'm not one of those knitters who walk through a meadow and decide to knit a scarf inspired by a particularly beautiful tree. I designed 'Larisa' because I could not find the right pattern for an elegant, yet straightforward, scarf which I could give away as a present. I wanted a scarf which would dress up an outfit, a scarf which was classy rather than fashion-forward. And so I simply sat down with a partial ball of Kidsilk Haze, some beads and my trustworthy notebook.

I would say, though, that I am one of those knitters who love their art and fashion history. I drew some inspiration from Art Deco - in fact, the horizontal line of the beading contrasting with the vertical lines of the lace is a design element I picked up from all those hours I spent reading about sky-scrapers many years ago. I tried out various severe lace patterns with super-vertical lines before opting for a lace insert which combines some vertical design elements with a V shape (or heart-shape depending upon your mood). I just think the pattern looks much softer and more inviting as a result.

Meanwhile, I have finished my crochet bag and meant to get some shots of it today. Unfortunately the weather was not on my side and it proved impossible to get enough light(!) for a good photo. I hit a snag with the lining, actually. It turned out that my sewing machine which I was "not entirely sure actually works" did not work. Maybe you will understand if I show you which machine I have.. I'm not sure why it does not work, except that the bobbin case keeps falling out when I use the machine and the 'overthread' doesn't want anything to do with the 'underthread' (I'm not sure of my English sewing machine terminology - does it show?). So, anyway, well. I had to handstitch the lining and I'm not a fantastic handstitcher. I'm going to rip out the part of the lining I have already attached and wait until I can afford a new machine (or work out why my machine does not work - whichever comes first).

Finally, if you reading smart women writing about what it's like to be a smart woman (i.e. a person), you will enjoy The Anti-Room. I found this little post on Harlequin romances and inherent misogyny.

PS. Faithful readers, do you think me and my full-busted short-torsoed peasant-woman body could get away with this cardigan?