I don't even know you any more

I've been thinking a lot lately about this whole online-journal-thing. My intent was to have a place to chart my running progress so I'd be responsible for updating something. I'm still sort of working my way up to running, and it's still sort of painful, but it's coming.

But the whole "read about me!" aspect of "blogging" is a turn off. I try to treat this space as a way to update folks I know (and I'm pretty sure I know or at least someone real knows) everybody reading this. I'd certainly prefer to see/talk to you in person or on the phone, but that ain't always feasible. So you get this, sort of updates, sort of ramblings. And I try to make it all the truth.

The artifice is the thing I guess I'm mulling. So often in our culture it feels like we communitcate less with more stuff to communicate with. I could get to know you, but I want you to know what I had for breakfast. It feels so good to tell you!

Web logs are a great way to advertise you, another thing I like about the freedom of the web and the $8.88 domain name registration expense. Warren Ellis uses the web to generate a sense of community and to sell himself. The Engine and Warren Ellis dot com and his Bad Signal daily e-mail list are all tools he uses to sell his upcoming and current work and to brand Warren Ellis. The weird part, after being on Bad Signal for a year plus, is you feel like you get to know him.

Reading the work and the thoughts and the ramblings, I feel like I "know" this guy who lives in Northern England. We've never talked, we've never communicated, but he e-mails me more than most of you do. It's odd.

And yesterday I, about 8000 others, got this from Warren:

"I know some of you have been
wondering why I haven't been in
touch much, and I know a lot of my
offices keep tabs on this list to
see if I'm working. So hopefully I'll
catch all of you with this email and
not have to mess around with a
bunch of others.

My mother died this afternoon
after a decade-long fight with
cancer. She was 59. I was there
when she went. We knew last week
that this was it, and she went
peacefully, in her sleep, at the
hospital.

Damn right I'm in the pub.

Unlikely to be around much over
the next few days.

-- W"

That's what was in my e-mail box from a guy I've never met. He doesn't do that, it's never e-mails about "I stubbed my toe" and "I really like vanilla" it's usually about movies and TV and music and how to make books and comics better and how all the women who run The Engine are crazy. But yesterday, the very real, the very final, the very much a person e-mail came in.

And I felt sorry for his loss.

What I'm getting at is this: I'd much rather have gotten to know him in the pub. It'd be better to meet people that way. It'd be better to not play voice mail tag. This crappy typed thing doesn't make up for me taking your money at the poker table, but it helps, I guess.

Warren sent this out this morning by the way:

"bs
me

To add insult to injury, this morning
the end of a spring popped out of
the bed's mattress and stabbed me
right in the willy.

Smile, damnit. We're all still here.
Like I always say: every day above
ground is a bonus.

-- W"

Ain't that the truth.