Hello, my dwindled numbers.
The time has come for me to close up shop here at Brown Rabbit Tanning.
It's taken a long time for me to arrive at this course of action, but I know it's the right thing to do.
It would be remiss for me not to admit that it's been stupid to have so much of this not-entirely-mainstream thinking linked to my real-life identity. I've made arguments to the effect that this stuff is more meaningful if I, the real person, am willing to stand behind it and slap my name on it. And I've made arguments that assert that my blog persona was truer, more authentic, than the cleaned-up presence-in-the-world version of me, and therefore, the reasoning went that I wanted to own these thoughts publicly. But I was kind of full of it, and you all probably knew that before I did.
Both of those arguments do a snappy yet distracting little jig around the real reason I insisted upon keeping my name and face on this blog. The real reason, unfortunately, had a lot more to do with childish defiance. You see, I resisted getting a real, salaried job until I was nearly 30. And it's taken the several years since to come to terms with the fact that I do have a fairly conventional career and am not the wild and reckless Arteest of my childhood aspirations. While my emotional investment in said career is a growing, evolving quantity, my emotional investment in the life that that career provides has held steady and strong. I'm pretty lucky, all things (shoes, food, lipgloss and ever-growing book collection) considered. It's come to my attention I really like living under such privilege. But this blog? This blog has long stood as a sad, sagging little barricade, protecting the transgressive, iconoclastic artist identity to which I'd aspired since I was, like, four years old. My thinking on this matter (to which I wouldn't have admitted as little as 18 months ago, as I so wanted to be a real grown-up) went something like this: "The brass at my job might have a problem with all the guff? Well, I gots to be me!! And This Blog Is More Important Than My Job!!!"
Now I have an answer to that thought. It goes like this: "Oh, brother. Grow up, brat."
Surely you won't be surprised to hear that, in fact, I now feel that this blog is not more important than my continued ability to provide for myself in a more or less self-sufficient manner. I know, I know, it's sad when we lose that last little gleam of rage against the machine, isn't it? Or rather, it's been sad for me. More than sad. My mourning period for my youthful indiscretions has been inordinately long and rapturous. I have rended both clothing and hair in service to this mourning. No, really. I mean that pretty literally. And yet, come to pass, this reckoning has.
It's not like this isn't predictable. I've posted on some scares here and there -- when my pageload records have reported some traffic from less-than-friendly eyes. And, yes, it's happening again. I've had some traffic lately that's made me nervous (yes, dearies, I see you!) and, well, I'm not enjoying the nervousness so much this time around.
Of course, I really shouldn't have waited until I got nervous again. I should have done this a long time ago. In fact, for many months now, I have been considering moving this content to a new home, a home over which I can throw a glamor of obscurity. Without my real name attached. For the sake of peace of mind.
So, that is exactly what I've done.
I have a new blog. I won't link it here, for obvious reasons, but I want to beg, plead, implore, cajole, and bat my eyelashes at anyone who has read this blog in the past-- or has found me anew in recent days-- to email me directly so that I might send you my new URL. And if there's anyone out there who subscribes to a feed off this blog, it would be great if you too request the URL and resubscribe to the new blog. It'll be a challenge for me build a readership again, especially as I have not done my part to keep anyone very entertained for the last year or so. Honestly, I have been so grateful to the few of you who have continued to look for posts while I've been writing so little lately. You've given me a reason to come back to this project, even as I've struggled to find confidence enough to do so.
I really hope you'll follow me to the new digs. Like, I hope that a lot. An enormous amount. I feel an unquantifiable sum of hopefulness about that. Really.
In some ways, this move feels like a fresh start. I can't promise that I'll immediately get back on the ol' writer's horse and begin posting madly again. But there are ways in which dropping this scrim between the new blog and my real identity feels like a liberating chink in the armor of my ongoing crisis of self-censorship. I'm tentatively optimistic. Quite tentatively.
Oh, right. You need the email address. Tada!: girlcalledM@gmail.com. Please. Don't hesitate. Please. Really.
So, this is me, bidding you all a sweet see-you-soon.
Kisses, M
The time has come for me to close up shop here at Brown Rabbit Tanning.
It's taken a long time for me to arrive at this course of action, but I know it's the right thing to do.
It would be remiss for me not to admit that it's been stupid to have so much of this not-entirely-mainstream thinking linked to my real-life identity. I've made arguments to the effect that this stuff is more meaningful if I, the real person, am willing to stand behind it and slap my name on it. And I've made arguments that assert that my blog persona was truer, more authentic, than the cleaned-up presence-in-the-world version of me, and therefore, the reasoning went that I wanted to own these thoughts publicly. But I was kind of full of it, and you all probably knew that before I did.
Both of those arguments do a snappy yet distracting little jig around the real reason I insisted upon keeping my name and face on this blog. The real reason, unfortunately, had a lot more to do with childish defiance. You see, I resisted getting a real, salaried job until I was nearly 30. And it's taken the several years since to come to terms with the fact that I do have a fairly conventional career and am not the wild and reckless Arteest of my childhood aspirations. While my emotional investment in said career is a growing, evolving quantity, my emotional investment in the life that that career provides has held steady and strong. I'm pretty lucky, all things (shoes, food, lipgloss and ever-growing book collection) considered. It's come to my attention I really like living under such privilege. But this blog? This blog has long stood as a sad, sagging little barricade, protecting the transgressive, iconoclastic artist identity to which I'd aspired since I was, like, four years old. My thinking on this matter (to which I wouldn't have admitted as little as 18 months ago, as I so wanted to be a real grown-up) went something like this: "The brass at my job might have a problem with all the guff? Well, I gots to be me!! And This Blog Is More Important Than My Job!!!"
Now I have an answer to that thought. It goes like this: "Oh, brother. Grow up, brat."
Surely you won't be surprised to hear that, in fact, I now feel that this blog is not more important than my continued ability to provide for myself in a more or less self-sufficient manner. I know, I know, it's sad when we lose that last little gleam of rage against the machine, isn't it? Or rather, it's been sad for me. More than sad. My mourning period for my youthful indiscretions has been inordinately long and rapturous. I have rended both clothing and hair in service to this mourning. No, really. I mean that pretty literally. And yet, come to pass, this reckoning has.
It's not like this isn't predictable. I've posted on some scares here and there -- when my pageload records have reported some traffic from less-than-friendly eyes. And, yes, it's happening again. I've had some traffic lately that's made me nervous (yes, dearies, I see you!) and, well, I'm not enjoying the nervousness so much this time around.
Of course, I really shouldn't have waited until I got nervous again. I should have done this a long time ago. In fact, for many months now, I have been considering moving this content to a new home, a home over which I can throw a glamor of obscurity. Without my real name attached. For the sake of peace of mind.
So, that is exactly what I've done.
I have a new blog. I won't link it here, for obvious reasons, but I want to beg, plead, implore, cajole, and bat my eyelashes at anyone who has read this blog in the past-- or has found me anew in recent days-- to email me directly so that I might send you my new URL. And if there's anyone out there who subscribes to a feed off this blog, it would be great if you too request the URL and resubscribe to the new blog. It'll be a challenge for me build a readership again, especially as I have not done my part to keep anyone very entertained for the last year or so. Honestly, I have been so grateful to the few of you who have continued to look for posts while I've been writing so little lately. You've given me a reason to come back to this project, even as I've struggled to find confidence enough to do so.
I really hope you'll follow me to the new digs. Like, I hope that a lot. An enormous amount. I feel an unquantifiable sum of hopefulness about that. Really.
In some ways, this move feels like a fresh start. I can't promise that I'll immediately get back on the ol' writer's horse and begin posting madly again. But there are ways in which dropping this scrim between the new blog and my real identity feels like a liberating chink in the armor of my ongoing crisis of self-censorship. I'm tentatively optimistic. Quite tentatively.
Oh, right. You need the email address. Tada!: girlcalledM@gmail.com. Please. Don't hesitate. Please. Really.
So, this is me, bidding you all a sweet see-you-soon.
Kisses, M
