10 thoughts on “look up.”

1. I’d like to know a bit more about the baby in the octupus costume, Meg. 8 limbs would be remarkable, but 6 is still unusual.

2. Er… ‘octopus’. (It’s 5.45 a.m.)

3. One of the Ten Best Things I Read Today: this post.

4. Hmmm … I’m sensing a theme here.

5. Dick, it was the baby of a friend of a friend. We could only count six legs. Maybe he was sitting on two? But the legs were so large, I don’t think that was the case.

   His actual legs made up two of them, then the other ones were stuffed and stuck out to the sides. So cute.

6. You made me smile. Thanks!

7. My sister who has worked with children who bully and who are involved in swarming incidents told me that running shoes, thrown up on electrical wires are the result of a bullying/swarming incident. What apparently happens is that the kid who gets swarmed gets their shoes taken away(among other things)and then they’re thrown up on the wires as a symbol of conquest. Have you (or anyone else) heard about this? If true it would change your position on seeing them being one of the 10 best things you saw this day.

   I’m just catching up on your blog so am moving backward, but sorry for your recent loss (May 26). Does it feel strange to you to broadcast such intimate information about yourself to the big wide world?

   DJ

8. Hey DJ! Thanks for your comment.

   While shoe tossing may be something bullies do in some circumstances, it actually is a fairly traditional and silly thing that occurs in my neighborhood with people in their late teens or early twenties… people in a partyish mood. Nothing untoward.

   I worked with children for many, many years, and wouldn’t celebrate anything that happened as a result of bullying.

   If you look up shoes being tossed over power lines on the Web, you’ll find everything from your theory to a last day of school thing to a new shoes thing to a gang initiation thing to a rite of passage thing to heaven only knows what.:-)

   I just know what it means where I’m from.

   As to broadcasting intimate information, it’s a funny thing, isn’t it? :-)

   But a death in my family isn’t really an intimate experience in that it needs to be kept quiet or secret. How I deal with it may be something quiet, but my grandfather was a man worth publicly celebrating. I’m happy to tell people about him.

   Blogging is really an exercise in choices, regardless. There’s a lot I hold back that other people might share, and a lot I share that other people might hold back. You just do what works for you, and let the chips fall where they may. Everyone I know (friends, family, co-workers) reads this space, so I draw the lines as I discover them.

   Thanks again!

9. Hi Meg,

   I’m glad to hear there are other reasons why shoes are tossed on the lines. I felt sad before, everytime I’d see that, thinking there was evidence of another kid being bullied.

   I am thinking about what you said about blogging being about choices about what to write and what to hold back. I am always curious, from a kind of sociological perspective, about personal information sharing over the public space of the internet vs the private world of face-to-face contact. How information is received and perceived – what mood people are in, what else is going on in their lives, what else about their life experiences will colour their perception of what I’m writing. Such as when I read what you’d written about the shoes on the line – my information about this was different from yours so I couldn’t figure out why you’d celebrate it. Even writing this comment, I am trying to be careful to explain myself clearly so there is no misunderstanding whereas if we were sitting down together and talking we could convey so much information by our gestures, facial expressions, tone, instant clarifications, etc.

   I don’t know exactly where I’m going from here… maybe if we were talking :))!

   Anyhoo – I have to run now, but nice ‘talking’ to you!

   DJ

10. I think, as with most conversations, eventually you just have to take the chance of being misunderstood if you’re ever going to be honest about anything.

    I’m a pretty polite person, and I don’t write about anything particularly rude or controversial on my blog, but people will take exception nonetheless if they disagree with you, or have no context, or don’t like your tone… whatever the case may be.

    But that’s the way it is with writing or expressing yourself anywhere. If you’re going to put it out into the world, whether it be in a book or a magazine or in a gallery or on a wall or on a blog, you will have to take the chance that someone will take it the wrong way.

    I can live with that. I wouldn’t have chosen writing as my plan for the rest of my life otherwise. :)