I was talking with a friend the other day about our digital personas. I’ve also been thinking a lot about Sarah Bray’s recent challenge: what is my One Thing? I am not yet able to articulate an answer to that one, but I have a feeling that a stroll through the online world I have begun to inhabit might give me some clues.

I don’t visit the professional part of town—linkedin—as frequently as I should. But when I do go, I dress up. I no longer wear business suits but I do put on tailored wool pants and a well-cut jacket. I always wear heels and makeup, of course, and my jewelry is interesting but not outré.

Facebook is like dropping by a weekend barbeque that goes on all week: casual, lots of laughs, and occasional moments of the sublime. I’m pretty likely to be in jeans and a t-shirt and sneakers here, little or no jewelry except for my green Iran wristband and my white One. Maybe I’ve put on makeup, maybe not. I’ve met pretty much everyone here in person or at least on the phone. We talk about the day-to-day stuff of old friends and family—what’s new, remember when—and excitedly discover shared interests with new friends. A few people bring up the latest current event issues and some advocate gently for the causes they are involved in. There are a few conversations going on about spirituality and creativity [is that redundant?]

My website/blog is open to the virtual world, but it’s very much my space: my studio, my office, my workshop, my publishing platform. It’s my work woven into my passions, which revolve around saving photographs and designing books. [And on those occassions when the stars align, saving photographs by creating a book. Oh, sweet heaven!] Since I work in a virtual world, I can wear whatever I want, and it’s usually black: black yoga pants, black t-shirt or sweater, depending on the season, most likely barefoot. I feel most myself in this place and am frequently in the flow state described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. [1] I’m intense when I’m working here, focused totally on the work at hand.

That’s why I so love the public space of Twitter. I see it as this fabulous town center with trees and benches scattered under the trees, a great coffee shop, book store, newsstand, music store, movie theatre, library, and performance space, which I nostalgically envision as an old-fashioned bandshell like the one in my home town. I never know who I’ll run into when I’m there. I actually know very few of my twitter friends in the “real world”, although I have developed some meaningful relationships in the fifteen months or so I’ve been coming here. I may pass through dressed in my professional clothes on my way to linkedin or dressed casually having just come from Facebook. Sometimes I shout out the window of my workspace to some of my designer colleagues and other times I step out of my workspace to take a break swapping jokes or sharing links to clever 404 pages. I’m here most weeknights watching TRMS with other Maddow fans and on Friday night for the latest episode of Caprica. Occassionally I wander into the square wearing pjs and strike up a conversation with whomever is there about issues great or small.

So while I am not yet able to articulate my One Thing, I am clear that my digital persona needs to be big enough to accommodate all of me: the professional me, the quirky me, the political me, the me who likes sci-fi and slapstick comedy, TEDTalks and Twin Peaks, who reads Seth Godin and Colleen Wainwright and Thomas Merton, who loves virtually any rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and anything Mary Edwards composes and performs. Make of me what you will: I am sure I contradict myself and I don’t care—I contain multitudes [and I am clearly not above lifting one of Walt Whitman’s most frequently quoted lines for my own purposes.]

[1] fun fact – I can actually pronounce his name correctly – ask me next time we talk! I'm also supposed to let you know that if you click that link and then buy the book, I'll get a pittance out of it.

I don’t watch American Idol but, via updates in my social media streams, I am aware of where it is in the contest cycle. I have learned that Britain, Afghanistan and Ukraine [among probably others] Got Talent as well, courtesy of Twitter and Facebook updates.  The latest winner in Ukraine is Kseniya Simonova with her impressive and moving performance art retelling the story of the Nazi invasion using the medium of sand drawing. 

After clicking on the link that a Facebook friend put up, I shared it via my own Facebook and Twitter updates. I downloaded the music from iTunes [Nothing Else Matters by the Finnish group Apocalyptica] and am playing it on a repeat loop as I write this post.

A couple of years ago I would not have known any of this. Probably no one outside Ukraine itself would know of Simonova. I would not have seen her amazing performance, nor would I have seen the emotional reactions of the audience. Watching the performance, I did not know what military invasion she was picturing, but it didn’t matter. War is war; and love is love. And love goes on in the midst of war. And war continues to tear lovers apart. And I continue to believe love will out. So went my little rumination.

I did a Twitter search for Ukraine’s Got Talent, saw a list people who had also commented on the video who looked interesting, clicked on one of them, found his tweets and blog interesting and began following this “interface design, usability, photography, bass player” from Canberra Australia.

It’s quite likely that Kseniya’s internet fame will quickly fade, like that of Susan Boyle. And I’m not claiming that her cultural contribution is on a par with Georgia O’Keeffe or Wladimir Burliuk. [Impressed that I know the name of a Ukrainian artist & book illustrator? Grazie Wikipedia.] That’s not the point.

It’s these seemingly miscellaneous and perhaps superficial ties that I believe are weaving a more inclusive and global social fabric. My consciousness about the Ukraine is now raised and I may be more attentive to stories about it in the news. I am more aware of and open to a wider range of expressive arts and music than I might have been before. Perhaps I’ve just frittered away the past hour or so of my Saturday with this foolishness when I cudda/shudda been out with “real” people. Maybe. But I think this communication platform is significant in ways we are not yet able to articulate.

Most of my life I have hated the number 9. I just didn't get it. Whenever I had to deal with a 9--adding one, subtracting one [I never even considered venturing into the higher math realms of multiplication or divison]--a wave of anxiety would wash over me. I literally had to count on my fingers. I learned to do it subtly, touching my fingertips one after the other, always being sure to start with my right hand so I didn't lose my place.

It was well after I became a woman of a certain age that someone gave me a totally new perspective on 9s: they're just like a ten, only less one. 73+9? Just like 73+10. 83. Except less 1. Okay, 82. Wow! That's cool. Let's do another one.  67+9=77-1=76. How easy is that? Subtracting? Jus go the other way: minus 10 plus 1. 88-9=78+1=79. No more anxiety, no more twitchy fingers.

Let's just leave it at that because I have no intention of going into timeseys and dividing. And I actually have a point to make which has nothing to do with arithmetic.

How much of what makes us anxious or fearful, irritable or angry, is a result of simply never finding a way to understand it? 

I must admit, when I am confronted with a 9, I still get a shiver, a quiver, a tickle of anxiety. But then I remember: 9s are just like 10s, only less one.

books - reading them, designing them, making them, altering them, collecting them, seeing them piled everywhere.

photos - old, vintage, found, vernacular as well as my own

new urbanism - and our built environment

tribes, groups & communities - dynamics of, participating in, contributing to, creating

TED - smartest people on the planet

sci-fi - Battlestar Galactica just bumped Star Trek:TNG from best sci-fi series ever; waiting impatiently for Caprica to start; devastated that Virtuality wasn't picked up as a series. think Ronald D. Moore is brilliant [and a wee bit full of himself]

print-making & mixed-media 

ideas & questions - the questions, way more important than answers.

the Goddard model of adult education

really loud music

movies - first in the theatre, then on DVD with lots of bonus features

weeknight lineup: Olberman, Maddow, Stewart, Colbert