Posted 4 years, 10 months ago in the wee hours by oso
One of the things that always amazes me about real-world conversation compared to blog conversation is just how much time we spend talking about other people. It’s especially evident when you run into someone you haven’t seen for months or even years: there’s so much good stuff to catch up on, so much potential, but you end up spending almost all your time asking how X, Y, and Z are doing.
In the blog world it would never once occur to me to, for example, leave a comment on Myke’s blog asking how Gustavo has been. But that’s exactly what we do in meat space every day of our lives. Blog world is so much more direct and enchantingly egocentric.
With all that said, blogging is also about spreading networks and conversations, breaking down borders and stereotypes that separate us. Walking along La Jolla’s coastline with Myke last week, we agreed that he, HP, and I would have never become friends were it not for the flattening effect the blogosphere has on the social obstacles we inherit. It dawned on me during Myke’s visit that, besides a couple high school friends I’ve lost touch with, HP is my first real American-born Latino friend. And Myke, my first gay friend. Plus, as Myke pointed out, the age difference alone could’ve kept us from becoming friends had it not occurred online first. (Happy 38th old man!)
In that spirit, what follows is a random, and in no order, run down of what my peoples – virtual and otherwise – have been up to lately. How’s that bad 90’s rap song go?: “Why don’t you bring your friends to come meet my friends and we can all be friends?”
Karen is the first person I met in the physical world after first getting to know her through her weblog. Since then we’ve fallen out of touch completely. I think the last time I saw her, big-bellied and still pregnant, was when Elenita visited last year (amazing to think it was over a year ago) and we all went out for greek food. Taking a look at Karen’s last entry though, she’s just as articulate, analytical, and honest as ever. She’s also got this new section (well new for me) on the right hand side called “Tidbits of Life,” which I really like – just one or two sentence little wisps of reflection … like this one about her family who still live in Turkey:
My mom bought an iBook last time she was here and we both bought iSights. This past weekend, my nephews were staying over at their house and we did a video conference where I got to see my nephews, mom and dad and they got to see me, David and Jake. No one can say the digital age doesn’t rock.
Speaking of Elenita … she’s back! Which probably means I lost a bet to someone ’cause I really thought the best of her blogging days was well behind her. She came to visit last September and, even though I was typically busier than I like to be, we still got in some good exploring, beach time, and even a swim. Unfortunately, it seems like some ideological differences are coming between us. (my list is coming soon)
I must admit, I miss Dr. Cereal a little bit. Our team rad exploitations in Monterrey were legendary and could/should have been more so. Not only that, but he could have obviously used some competition in the Kitchen Gymnastics World Competition 2005. It’s ok though, it’ll give me a whole year’s worth of training time after which I will beat him so badly, he’ll wish he was a cockroach in his own apartment.
Speaking of Monterrey, Armando shows off his tattoos and his girl leaves a comment saying “kiero verte raiii nauuuu,” which I guess translates to “I want to see you right now.” I never did get to meet Armando while in Monterrey, but I did meet Hipocratico who has recently written two warm and fuzzy posts about his wife, Erika (who I was lucky enough to meet) and his daughter. I also got to meet Candy who made this hilarious video and Rolando, who it seems is still on blogging hiatus. Another Monterrey blogger who I didn’t get a chance to meet, but who I certainly hope to meet some day is Luiz who continues his obsession with chorizo and now TinTin.
César no longer goes by the EMC, but rather “Mr. D.” His first day surrounded by “bug-eyed, little guercitos” seemed like a big success. At least more successful than him trying to look GQ in that pic.
Chris and I haven’t gotten lunch together lately, but as usual, he and his lady Anna have been much more participatory San Diegans than I. He’s also got some great pics of chalk art from Little Italy, like this one of Mario from Mario Bros. Speaking of normally participative San Diegans, Derek has fallen off the map since the big marriage announcement. Hopefully he won’t blog for more than another month so no one is affected by his annual voter’s guide.
The queen bee of the blogosphere (just kidding!), Cindylu, has made up her mind on her halloween costume … sunflower princess. Hmmm. No comment. I’m actually a little bummed. For the past three years my group of friends and I have rented a party bus in Los Angeles on Halloween which takes us … well, I never really remember that far into the night. But tradition goes I dress up like a woman, the pictures turn out hilarious, and the next morning’s hangover is disastrous. On top of just halloween though, part of the celebration is Angel’s birthday … but this year she’ll be taking her pediatrics board exams which mean our halloween is getting postponed until mid-November. And which means, I have no idea what I’ll be doing this Halloween. No reason to shave the legs and put the pantyhose on if I have nowhere to shake it.
Speaking of my group of friends, if there are any two things that hold us together it is a house in Pacific Beach commonly known as 1669 and it is Dave Dutt. He’s somehow the drunken spiritual cement holding his arms around us all. I mean, look at this picture, it’s all so obvious. I even have faint memories of hanging out in Dave’s garage as a 15-year-old while Moreno showed me how to play 3 note Smashing Pumpkin solos on the electric guitar. Anyway, Dave’s been doing well lately: working, playing lots of shows in Hollywood, and he’s coming down to SD this weekend which should be fun.
Elena Mary’s blog is one of the very first I started reading – nearly two years ago – and never once had I remembered her blogging about her sister … until Monday when her sister showed up in the NY Times. Pretty interesting. She’s even written a chapter of a book. Talk about a proactive family.
Kau Boy is better known on this weblog as the unlucky guy on the bottom bunk, but he also happens to be the best American potter in all of Taiwan. According to me anyway. His latest batch of flickr photos is the first peek into Eric’s new Taiwan life for those of us he left behind. I love flickr.
Wow, it’s late. And Thursdays start early in my world. So this thing is gonna have to turn into a series … which, of course, means it’ll never be finished.
Smart went nuts and rode a unicorn through the storm …
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Yukk yukk yukk.
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I hope you’ve already begun your training–the 2006 KWGC in Zimbabwe won’t be as easy as you think. As much as I’d hate to have to compete against a fellow Team Rad! member, it’ll be nice to have a familiar face around (even if I have to do a reverse triple toaster jiggle in it. In yo face, that is). Hopefully I’ll make it up that way sometime before the big event though.
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You could always dress up as a woman and come to Boyle Heights for _____’s party. I can’t believe Alfonso is your first US-born Latino friend.
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Oh, my dear boy–ideological differences, huh? Unless you tell me some day that you just bought that beautiful looking iBook to just use emacs and spurn Aqua entirely, I think we can work something out. Hell, I’ll even forgive you if you use vim.
And… far be it for me to speak for Karen, but I’m guessing her little boy has started teething. It’s about that time.
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I’m always game. Gimmie a buzz.
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It baffles me that you have never had an American-born Latino friend or even a gay friend. But people are different, people experience things in life at different times and when we read them on our egocentric blogs (becuase they are, but for some reason they’re selfless too) we learn, we understand, or we refute. It’s amazing the level of knowledge I have amassed from ElenaMary, Gustavo, Cindylu, La Tortillita Changuich, and el HP in just a small amount of time. The irony of it all is that even if I feel like I know and care about them in a personal way, I realize that I only know a small percentage of their being. It’s amazing to think that I (we) have access to this part that perhaps all of us blogeros don’t in fact share with others. Some of us, like you, Os, perhaps, are a little different in the sense that I gather that your close friends know you’re a geek and maybe a bit of a dork—I know mine do. But I wonder this…will I ever get to meet everyone of these blogeros (well, scratch off, my homie, HP, ’cause we’ve met and hopefully we’ll meet again for some chelitas, guey) and detach ourselves from just the “people who I read their blogs at 7 am at work” to more of actual friendships. Me gustaria eso, a lot. Thanks for the name check,pal, I’m only tryin’ to copy your GQ estilo on your FlickR fotos. Si, no, that’s the pot calling the kettle a jarron.
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pos yo hablo hespañol……
….. o eso creo jajajaja.
mis tatuiajes mijooooooooooo a poco no tan shidos. y k desgracia k nunca te conoci…. ojala y algun dia pueda estrechar tu mano.
cuidate porfas.
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Do you really have a life, or do you just read blogs all day?
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Oso tiene una vida………. y muy shida
cuidate compi…… ahhh, y este…….. no es mi girl friend…… es una amiguita.. muy amiga…. jajaajaja.
cuidate
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I think it’s kinda cool that you have a whole digital life, complete with people that come and go, people who come floating to the surface, then sinking again, or sometimes just floating away to the otherside of the ocean. do we put more stock in the friendships we form in the physical world? can the invsibile electronic connections be as strong?
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Dr. Cereal,
I never knew Team Rad! had an explanation mark; my sincere apologies. Who leaked to you that I’ve been perfecting the reverse triple toaster jiggle? You saw what I did to Judith Miller.
Cindylu,
I should clarify: I had plenty of “Latino” friends in high school in that their last names were Ruiz and Moreno and Gonzalez, but they never brought up the fact that they were Latino and most of them don’t even speak Spanish. With HP, on the other hand, he’s guaranteed to talk about being Mexican within 5 minutes of meeting him. For my friends in high school though, their ethnicity just wasn’t an important part of their identity. In fact, it was probably as important to them as mine is to me – I definitely don’t go around referring to myself as ethnically Swiss. It’s just not something I really think about. So HP’s my first proud to be latino latino friend.
Elenita,
Diplomacy is so beautiful.
EMC,
I agree with you. I don’t know if I’d use the word selfless. But blogging – as self-centered as it seems – forces you to think so much more holistically because it acts as a bridge between your most intimate thoughts and the people whose opinions you’ve come to respect. Blogging has actually changed how I think over the past couple years. I’ve always had a running imaginary dialogue in the back of my head but now it’s actually directed at concrete people which forces me to be more honest and think in terms of how others will interpret it. What I’m trying to say is when you blog, you are continually thinking of everything from the viewpoints of other people. And I think that is a wonderful thing.
Georganna,
It’s been well established that I have no life, but I appreciate your reinforcement. Actually, my answer is that I don’t watch TV. As in, I watch probably one hour of TV every two months and it’s only when I’m waiting to do something at a friend’s house. The average American, on the other hand watches more than 4 hours of television a day. That gives me nearly 30 hours a week to read weblogs, which is probably just about how much time I spend doing so. I will admit though, the inkernet has lately been taking away time once dedicated to books. I used to go through about a book a week … this month I haven’t even picked up one.
Catarf,
Gracias compa – solo tan “shida” por cuates como tú. Y … tu amiguita parece bastante “amiga.”
Joe,
Some good questions. I think it really depends on each person. My “digital life” as you call it and my real life friends were two completely different universes until just recently. It really felt like I had my “blog life” and my “offline life,” but slowly the two are starting to merge. Some of my blog buddies are starting to meet my old school friends and some of those old school friends are now asking me for help in setting up their own blogs and flickr accounts. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I started this post – to talk about my friends simply as friends without putting them in two different camps. Thanks for dropping by from land o’ the maple trees.
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The blogdom is a wonderfully enlightening thing. I doubt I’d be much into the ‘net at all if I had not gotten into the blogosphere a couple of years back. And yes … I do think some of the friendships I’ve met have affected my life and will be long lasting. To me, it’s just another way to meet folks in the modern world. Just like in the ‘meat world’ … some friendships will last, others won’t. I’ve met quite a few bloggers now and do feel I’ve begun to make some solid friendships. It’s actually rather amazing to me as we really would likely have never met otherwise. Geez … just look at the differences between Oso, HP, and myself. We’re damn near polar opposites on many fronts whether it be age, ethnicity, ideology, or gender preference. We got along famously .. perhaps we simply balanced each other out. I know I’ll meet up with other bloggers I’ve not yet met in the future.
Hey — Abogado is just a few hours north at law school. I’ll have to share a drink with him when next I’m up in DC!
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Mi Mas Chingon,
I really have grown to love this blogging community and I love feeling it reciprocated. You know I call Oso on the phone pretty damn frequently and I couldn’t figure out why. I have plenty of “real life friends” and then this Sunday I realized what it was. I can talk to Oso about things in my life that my friends cannot identify with. For example, taking a Zapoteco family pumpkin picking. My friends in Mexico don’t get it, my friends in the US don’t get it. But those that have lived/experienced both do get it, and one of those people happens to be el Oso. I’ve been lucky enough to have him to share it with.
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[...] Es curioso que me siento mas libre de hablar de mi vida personal en español. Más que libre, tengo las ganas, pero no se preocupen, no fue el punto de este post. Hace unos días escribí un post hablando de la diferencia de como conversamos en la blogosféra y nuestra vida diario. Tantas veces cuando vemos alguien en la calle, cuando hay tantos temas de que podríamos platicar, casi siempre hablamos de otras personas. Chismiamos. Pero en los blogs, escribimos de nuestras vidas y leemos los pensamientos directamente de otros. Es un proceso, según yo, mas directo y mas honesta. Pero los blogs también se permiten que descubrimos nueva gente, nuevas conversaciones, nuevas culturas y perspectivas. Por eso, hoy sigo escribiendo de las vidas de mis amigos, ambos, online y offline. [...]
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[...] Years ago I got some criticism that I blogged very little about my family and when I did blog about them, the compliments were wonderfully sweet and made me proud of my family; Elena Mary’s blog is one of the very first I started reading – nearly two years ago – and never once had I remembered her blogging about her sister … until Monday when her sister showed up in the NY Times. Pretty interesting. She’s even written a chapter of a book. Talk about a proactive family. –El Oso [...]