Not a Moleskin

I haven't written with any sense of consistency online or in my journal. I just haven't really felt it. But I did feel bad about it.

I think my old journal had some bad mojo. So I got rid of it even though I wasn't even half way through writing in it.

My new journal is an Ecosystem journal. I like the color and I like that it's made from recycled material.

I hope that it has good vibes.

Geek out

I have been very busy blogging the last few days, just not here. If you want to be geeked out on elearning and stuff like that, head over to my other blog.

I'm attending the eLearning Guild's Annual Gathering | 09 in Orlando, FL. I haven't been to the House of Mouse yet. I think that will be tomorrow.

Flashback: 2/10/2002

I bought my new journal today because my old one is almost full. I got myself another Moleskin square ruled journal. I love it.

I always carry a journal around with me to capture thoughts that can't wait until I put them in my blog, or are just too personal.

To celebrate my new journal, I thought I'd take you back to an entry from seven years ago today.

2/10/2002
Michele's all moved in.

I went in on a Saturday afternoon to help her unpack.

I took the train in from New Brunswick. I hadn't been in NYC since September. As I passed Newark and looked east at the skyline, my heart hurt -- as it always does. But I was able to put my arms around it now.

Growing up in the 80's, it was all about excess. If you did anything, you did it over the top. Expensive toys, loud clothes, high hair. It was always more, more, more.

Well, when I looked at the alien skyline, I realized: there was just too much sky.

Once I got to Penn Station, the familiar smells came back to me. I think the popcorn guy was the same one. The black karaoke guy was still there next to the news stand singing those corny songs, wearing the same hat, jacket and shiny shoes. It was comforting to still see him there. The world could fall down around me, but as long as that guy is still there singing to a captive crowd of commuters, then the world will be ok.

I got on the A/C/E downtown. There were still signs on the subway and in the station for World Trade Station. I took a picture. I transferred to the L train and all I could think of was David Reynolds singing "There ain't no party like an L train party!"

I got off at 23rd and wandered around. I had to ask a cop where I was going because I got a little disoriented. Didnt' have those familiar towers to guide me. I passed a firehouse and looked at the cards, signs and flowers that were still on the sidewalk.

I found Michele's apartment building. It's right on the edge of Gramercy Park. It's fantastic. I'll be coming here a lot.

I have more to write, but I'm tired and I want to go to bed.

The weekend is over too soon.

[musical notes] "I still love you New York" [musical notes]

[sketch of the NYC skyline with the Twin Towers and Statue of Liberty]

Don't Stop Googling My Twitter

I was killing time at work this afternoon and decided to Google my online handle. I was amazed at just what results came up: Twitter posts, posts on blogs, blog comments, my name on other people's blogs. And most amazingly, a lot of my photos that I have hosted on Flickr have been used in online presentations, articles, and travel sites all over!

Here are my photos:

• on a Chicago travel site
• used in a slide show (slide #68)
• on a Huey Lewis artist site
• a stock photo aggregation site
• in a hotel review
• on a wiki type page
• a Philadelphia travel site
• a consumer advocate site
• on a Tampa travel page and on their iPhone app page
  

A few reporters have even found me through my photos on Flickr.

The first time was in March 2007, when a Wall Street Journal reporter was doing a story on VIP only areas of exclusive vacation hotels. She found this photo of me lounging in the infinity pool of the El Conquistador Hotel in Puerto Rico. First she sent me questions over email and then she called me for a phone interview. You can read the final article Class Warfare at the Infinity Pool. I was even quoted!

At the El Conquistador Resort in Puerto Rico, Claudine Caro infiltrated the infinity pool during her four-night stay last August. The pool is meant for use by guests of Las Casitas Village, a small complex adjacent to the main building. (There, current peak-season room rates start at $269 a night -- about $40 more than a room in the main resort. One-bedrooms start at $485.) Ms. Caro, a 33-year-old in South Brunswick, N.J., who develops educational courses for a pharmaceutical company, and her cousin visited the pool twice around dinnertime, when there weren't any attendants around. "We walked in like we owned the place," she says.

After my 15 minutes of fame were up from that, I got another 15 minutes. CNN was preparing a series of stories of road trips, and being that I just finished my Laid-Off Blues road trip, I sent in my story. Not only was it featured in a CNN iReport piece, I was interviewed again over the phone and they developed a multimedia slide show with me narrating!



It blows my mind how this crazy thing called the internet, which I dove into head first in 1995, now chronicles my life in ways I could never have imagined. In some ways, its a little frightening and I do need to be aware of what I'm putting out there, but for the most part, it makes the world a much smaller place.

Poor-man's Therapy

I've been keeping a journal in one form or another, on and off, for quite a few years. Some have been public in a blog, but most of it has been private in my handwritten books.

I started keeping a journal simply as a way to remind myself of things I've done. I still have all my notes from middle and high school still folded up in those crazy origami patterns to make it impossible to open easy. I like to look back and laugh at that silly 14-year-old who thought she knew it all. Now the journals collect my thoughts, feelings, and recollections of crazy antics. It serves as my own time capsule.

I find that I write more often and more eloquently when I'm going though some sort of emotional change. Usually when I'm starting a new relationship or ending one, the entries become more heart-felt. The pages have become my therapist and I reveal my soul through the ink.

Samara O'Shea wrote about her keeping a journal, "So to me a journal is that place to be unabashedly honest with yourself, and it's dangerous because you won't always like what you see. You'll look at your thoughts and say, "I don't actually think that do I?" You do and it's fine."

She has a new book coming out Note to Self: On Keeping a Journal and Other Dangerous Pursuits that I'm interested in getting. In it she provides some suggestions and exercises:

• Write in a stream of consciousness: Forget everything you ever learned about writing and just write. Let it all out: the good, bad, mad, angry, boring, and ugly.
• Ask yourself questions: What do I want to change about myself? What would I never change about myself?
• Copy quotes: Other people's words can help you figure out where you are in life, or where you'd like to be.
• It takes time: Don't lose faith if you don't imme­diately feel better after writing in your journal. Think of each entry as part of a collection that will eventually reveal its meaning to you.

I like to write in my journal, but I would like to be able to leave my mark with some thing more substantial than nonsensical ramblings and sporadic pearls of wisdom. I want it to be something that will be insightful to future generations of my family. I want it to be a part of my legacy.

How about you? Why do you blog/journal?