409th Friday Blog Roundup
Twice in the last month, I’ve noticed that a blog I read has suddenly been deleted. The first time, I wrote my friend — who is local — and asked her what was up. She didn’t know that her blog was gone. It turned out to be a glitch, and she got her blog back. Fast forward a few days later and I clicked over from a comment to a blog that hasn’t been updated in a few weeks. I knew there wasn’t a post in my Reader, but sometimes I’ll go to a site to make sure the Reader is updating. The pictures were all messed up on her blog. So I emailed her about it.
The next day, I clicked over again to see if the picture thing had resolved itself, and HER WHOLE BLOG WAS GONE. While I was waiting to hear back from her on email, it drove the point home of how someone online could just disappear into thin air. It’s not that people don’t go missing from the face-to-face world, but it is so easy online to just delete and move on, dropping an email address or url. Though that seemed out of character for the blogger, so as I baked muffins, I started thinking through a much more likely scenario: she had been kidnapped. Yes, and the kidnappers had forced her to delete her blog to prove to her family just how serious they were about the ransom. And now it was up to me to contact the authorities and tell them that she has been kidnapped by blog-deleting psychopaths!
Uh… and then she wrote and told me that the blog was back up.
I did make her promise that she would let me know if she was ever going to ditch her blog for real (vs. computer glitch), but it sort of brought to mind how far is too far in trying to get in touch with a blogger who has deleted her blog? The act of deleting may signal a break from all the readers OR I know plenty of people who have deleted their blog yet we still remain in contact via email or Facebook. Part of the question is answered by how close you are with the blogger. Do you have a friendship that exists off-line? Then you’ll probably have a few avenues through which to reach the person. But what about all the people you only know online?
Emailing to ask if everything is okay is clearly (in my mind) within the realm of appropriate reach because I often email with this blogger. But what if she hadn’t responded or if she had ditched that email address too, would it have been okay to contact her via Facebook? Is that going too far into the privacy of someone you know online to friend them on Facebook after they delete their blog? Can I tweet her? What if you had the person’s address — send a letter? Or is the only proper response to let that person drift away and disappear into the ether?
How much is too much when reaching out to a blogging friend?
Food for thought.
*******
And now the blogs…
But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:
- “Grief” (Growing Griswolds)
- “Two Hundred and Eightieth Day” (Bébé Suisse)
- “It’s Right There” (Hope, Trust & Truth)
- “In Sanguine, Veritas” (The Infertility Voice)
- “Twenty Years Ago” (Hobbit-ish Thoughts and Ramblings)
- “The Not Wasted Life” (My Three Ring Circus)
- “Just One Baby” (MissConception)
- “Knocked Over: On Biology, Magical Thinking, and Choice” (The Rumpus)
- “Back to School” (Certainly Not Cool Enough to Blog)
- “Sleep, Eat, Love” (Kmina’s Blog)
Okay, now my choices this week.
Mrsfit Mrs has a post on the fifth anniversary of family building that I love. I love it for its unflinching honesty. It is about looking back on what she has come through (seven losses to get to her daughter) as well as where she is going, all the while being true to herself and open with her readers who have been along for the ride. I love the twist of understanding in this thoughts: “With RPL, the hazard is that I shared pregnancies with many of you who hold some-number-of-month old babe in arms right now. I did my best to forget that, even if I’m keenly aware of each of my sisters who lost their hopeful starts as mine endured.”
Ginger and Lime has a post that starts with injections and ends with an admittance that she doesn’t believe IVF will work for her. She writes: “Most of the bloggers I started following in March 2010 (when I fired up The Intertubes for the first time) are now parents. While I was treading water, doing absolutely nothing due to my own potent combination of depression, anxiety, and no reasonable way to pay for treatments, you all were out there fighting. I vacillate between seeing your successes as inspirational (“if she can do it, maybe I can too”) and seeing them as tick marks on some Cosmic Scoreboard for a game that I am never going to win.” Again, I was drawn to this post too for its unflinching honesty. It takes a lot of bravery to state your truth (though I hope she is proven wrong and it does work).
More Room in My Heart also has a post about starting up IVF again to add to her family and how it is different this time around. She admits, “I found myself wanting to tell the nurses in a bragging sort of way…this is my 6th fresh cycle…I could do this in my sleep…but who wants to brag about that? Someone insecure? Someone wanting validation? Someone not wanting to be one of the women in the waiting room anxious about the process? Someone who accepts and knows the process, no hand holding or coddling necessary?” Go over to read the whole post.
Lastly, Certainly Not Cool Enough to Blog has a must-read post that is a reminder to all that there is always another way a day or event is viewed, the underside that we often forget as we glance at the exterior. She discusses the endless stream of back-to-school posts and how while she doesn’t begrudge those writers their thoughts, she explains how those posts affect her as she moves through life without her son. She doesn’t ask to be remembered out of obligation or on special occasions, but rather to have the inquiries to her emotional space come on those ordinary days when she is deeply missing her boy. She explains, “But maybe once in a blue moon; just a quiet nod to the ongoing agony of loss that ebbs and flows as life marches on. Especially as life marches on.”
The roundup to the Roundup: How far is too far to go to contact a friend you met online? And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between August 31st and September 7th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.
11 comments
The blogs posts you picked sound amazing and I will need to make time this weekend to check them out.
I have NOT been kidnapped, in case anyone has clicked on my blog lately. I’ve been paralyzed at a crossroads. I keep thinking about howI’ve been pondering the “Where does my story end and another person’s begin?” question. What about the photos I post, but I LOVE photography and my baby is my main subject these days. GAH! Would my blog really by MY blog without the pics? I am working on a compromise and I hope to be up and running again soon.
Oh, and the pic you linked to yesterday. I am officially haunted for life. I was looking forward to taking my son to the beach for the first time next summer and now, well, I just can’t get that picture out of my head. I won’t deny him one of my greatest pleasures in life, the ocean. But I will be forever haunted. You can’t just erase that kind of a thing. I shouldn’t have clicked, but I did. I want to thank you for posting it, because my curiosity was certainly peaked. I also want to somehow unclick.
https://www.stirrup-queens.com/2012/09/enoughness/
I loved this post of yours, Mel. I love reading your posts like these, with little snippets, these memories captured in glimpses and chunks. I long for another week or more of summer, too 🙂
http://jjiraffe.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/men-and-infertility/
Jessica’s post was astounding this week. Packed so full of beautiful moments with her husband, as she navigates what to tell her children about their potential future fertility and how it could impact their life choices.
http://creatingmotherhood.com/2012/09/06/grandmothers-i-know/
Dresden has a moving and inspiring post about discovering the breadth and depth of her grandmother’s card-sending habits over the years.
http://thesmartness.com/smartone/2012/09/surrogacy-in-the-news-written-by-me.html
JW Moxie is rockin’ out all over the internets with her compassionate, candid commentary on the surrogacy experience.
http://theinfertilityvoice.com/2012/08/cd6-no-woman-came-up-to-me/
And my own post this past week, for taking some brave and necessary steps in an altogether different and painful healing journey that goes well beyond my infertility.
Nobody better use my blog for kidnapping leverage – my family (except my husband) doesn’t know it exists! Of course, they might pay readily to see what I’m saying about them. Which is nothing, more or less. It would be a waste of money.
As an anonymous-ish blogger, I think that whatever information a person shares with you is fair game for contact. If they follow you on Twitter or Facebook (or vice versa), or if they give you their home address, you have been given the go ahead to contact them. I think carefully before I share those things…and people who don’t think carefully about them probably also have no problem with sharing their phone number with Google, and so would have their account accessibly again within a short period of time. You probably wouldn’t run into that situation unless they were actually kidnapped (or deleted their blog). But, anyway, I think that’s one of those social contract things that is understood – if you give someone the means to contact you, you should do so knowing that they might actually use it. Which is why I won’t give Google my phone number, dammit.
(Also, you may have my regular family and friends email address to somewhere – because I know I’ve left it here by mistake in the past!)
*accessibility
It’s scary to think about people disappearing in thin air. On that note: I think reaching out is person dependent. I’ve met bloggers in real life and have thoroughly enjoyed those meetings. But I also respect tht some want to remain anonymous.
For second helping:
http://jjiraffe.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/men-and-infertility/
http://nokiddinginnz.blogspot.com/2012/09/imagine.html
http://glimpseinsidemyjourney.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/why-not-me/
I have been known to reach out directly to a blog owner if her posting schedule changes abruptly. So, if I’ve come to expect a post a week and three weeks have gone by or longer, I might drop an email asking if all is well.
I haven’t had the experience where a blog was deleted but have had several close up shop that I still think about and wonder how their world is.
Oh my God, how did I not know this blog existed (granted I am super new to the scene). Thank you so much for doing, I am a) thrilled b) dizzy with awe at your organizational abilities and dedication and c) going to lock myself away today and try to read all these new blogs listed!
Thank you.
Hmm…I have been reaching out lately to some of the women I’ve known online to get pregnant and disappear. It worries me when they are happily expecting finally, after being very regular IF bloggers and then they stop posting. I know they are just busy or sick or tired…but what if something bad happened and we aren’t there to support them? What if they lost the baby!?
Anyway, I think if there is an e-mail you can use it seems perfectly okay to make sure they are still alive. I don’t know if I would track someone down on Facebook or twitter (unless you already speak to them through those outlets), but we all just want to make sure nothing bad had happened.
I had the same experience recently with a blog and didn’t email for fear of intrusion. It feels strange to have something so intimate and feel it won’t be permanent.
Thanks, too for picking up my post. It’s been a hard anniversary, but certainly much happier with Eve finally with us.
This was a timely post. I had just had a conversation with my husband about how he’d need to get onto my blogs and announce my death if I got run over by a bus, because I wouldn’t want to leave my blog friends wondering what happened.
I think if you’re going to stop blogging, then a good-bye is polite. Mind you, I have a sadly neglected travel blog that i update only infrequently, and I’m sure people wonder if I am ever going to be back or not!
Thanks Cristy for nominating my blog for second helpings. As most of my posts are, this was prompted by things I read and saw around the community.
Um, I noticed a few weeks ago that a dear blogging friend had not written in a while. I sent an email but still no answer. Her last post was almost three weeks ago. Is it appropriate to do a shout-out at LFCA? or just let it be. I do know she has a pretty large following.