This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004).
This blog is one of the transitions for the new year. I've started it This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004).
This blog is one This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004
I suppose it started with Aunt Clara, my mother's aunt. She was a very interesting lady in her own way, and if she were still alive and had email, I would probably now be asking her a lot of questions about the 1930's in bohemian New York and similar topics. But, as my father used to say, "if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a taxi cab," and Aunt Clara, who was never to know the thrill of incoming email, died decades ago. The last time I saw her, which was when she was visiting San Francisco, she pointed towards the Golden Gate, and said, "Oh I see they built a bridge there!" (I didn't make that up. Yes, she had been here before. Long before.)
Anyhow, the thing about Aunt Clara was that I was always derelict in my duty to communicate with her. Where did I get such an idea? Well, from Aunt Clara, for one. You see I lived in New York when she was still alive and I did visit her once or twice (well, once I think) I never got around to seeing her again, despite many invitations. We could have done lunch; she offered to let me stay in her midtown apartment (I lived in the far Bronx); there was a lot we could have done, but I didn't call her, and now, of course, it's too late.
Beyond Aunt Clara, there were all the thank-you notes that I was supposed to write for gifts (yes, even sweaters) that I had received from her and other relatives. I never got caught up with those notes. In fact, thank-you notes were probably the original medium with which I honed my highly developed skills in the fine art of procrastination. My mother had great fear, well-founded, that I might totally abandon the family and never communicate with them again. In those days nobody ever heard of blogs, email groups, or the World Wide Web. When friends and relatives did not have elegant little note cards delivered to their mailboxes they were to consider themselves forgotten and abandoned. For all eternity. Or at least until the next December holiday season.
And now, what do we have? Online social networking with Web 2.0 scripting. I wrote recently about the human squirrels who collect contacts like nuts set aside for a harsh winter. But there's another angle. In April, 2006, Technorati's Dave Sifry wrote that the blogosphere doubles in size every six months. That should put its size at 138 million by next month. Let's make the very modest assumption that each of those bloggers has acquired at least two new contacts via friending, comments, or email. Let's subtract 20% for error, phony blogs, and dead blogs. But we're still left with 220.8 million brand new Aunt Claras who deserve, at the very least, one line of email. How about you? Have you written to Aunt Clara yet?
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