bless me, the bounty.

    • Thordora, thinking blogger and one of the most original and frank voices in my corner of the blogosphere, is callin’ me names. and i like ‘em.

    the Thinking Blogger award is one of my favourite bits of badgy bling that go around out here. yes, it’s been bestowed upon me before. yes, i am a shameless hussy braggart, perhaps, for even mentioning it again. but it plays to my weakness, this particular prize, because it goes straight to the heart of my personal hubris. i’m not in line to be voted sweetheart of the blogosphere, or Homecoming Queen, nor even likely - alas - win a ROFL award. alack. ahem. but i think, yep…it is my brain in which my confidence has always resided. i honour smartness above rubies, and i like complexity, and i preen a little when my thinky feathers get petted. i know preening is unbecoming. but i am unrepentant.

    since the last time the Thinking Blogger graced my inbox, however, a lot has happened here in the crib. my world has gotten bigger. and in that expanse, i’ve found something quite amazing - a crapload of other people who think. and write about it. often beautifully, incisively, reflectively. most of the bloggers i return to again and again are, in some way or another, thinking bloggers…bloggers for whom thinking - channeling the meanderings of the mind into a keyboard to try to make some meaning emerge - is at least in part the purpose of blogging. i adore this. it’s a community the likes of which i’ve never had, in my real life. and it feels like a mere corner of the spiderweb - right now, on my radar screen, are at least ten other bloggers whose sites i’ve hit once or twice, and been deeply moved by, or impressed with, but who i haven’t quite had time to incorporate into my regular reading list yet. and when i do, there will always be ten more on the horizon.

    but one small group has managed to come together in a semi-cohesive fashion over the past month or two, to navel gaze think proudly and overtly and right out in the open, about - as the header says - identity & writing, and community & authorship.  for all that, even though my membership in the group probably qualifies this as shameless self-promotion even more unbecoming than preening, i award BlogRhet, as a collective, my quota of the Thinking Blogger awards for this go-round. because it’s a thinky blog. and a shared, collective effort…though one birthed by Joy and HBM, to give credit where well due. the group’s composition is ever-shifting and growing, and all it takes to become a member is to let Joy know you’re interested, and then run the risk of actually posting your work on a site dedicated to thinky posts. which is harder than you’d think, no pun intended. but is making for fascinating conversations.

    now please excuse me whilst i go over there and finish my latest thoughts on this facebook phenomenon. and class. and what this article here has to say about facebook being the Pottery Barn of social networking software for kids, and why i think maybe if i were fourteen again i might be on Myspace.  or wish i was.

    if you haven’t been to BlogRhet…go get you some.