Honey

Ever since I can remember, I have wanted to be a performer. I had more than just a typical desire for attention - I longed to attract a certain kind of attention, the kind that inspires admiration and awe. A few short-lived periods dot my life story in which I successfully realized my fantasies, but these times passed, and insecurity and confusion tucked me under to await another opportunity.

My desire to perform has led me to spend a lot of time with the Internet. The Internet provides an opportunity to perform in a million different ways from behind the safety of my own computer. It also allows for complete control over such performances, since barely anything is in real time. I can write and rewrite this post a million times before offering it to the world to be witnessed and criticized appropriately.

Sometimes, I spend too much time with the Internet. Sometimes I start to feel as though I’m expecting too much of my identity to be validated by a complex network of opinion, an unreachable mass of constant change. I feel angry at myself for sinking too much weight into something that is intangible, resulting only in a smattering of memorable images of cute kittens, a vague recollection of the sexual habits of bonobos, and a general idea of how to be more productive in my day to day activities.

For some, the Internet has provided more than just information, but has also served to form and strengthen human relationships. This is a valuable byproduct of the Internet experience that I am yet to know first hand. It takes more effort than I can offer to maintain the amount of interaction necessary to keep up with massive amounts of personal information through endless numbers of social channels. All this social networking is making me dizzy. As someone whose identity is constantly in flux (what’s my name now?), I cannot be expected to maintain so many online identities! It’s a ridiculous expectation, really. I think the only answer is to purge myself from the Internet (as much as is possible) and also to spend a little less time paying attention to my online existence.

Do you ever get sick of the Internet? I can’t ever really get away, since this is where I work. I think maybe I need a vacation.

I’m so mad at you. I haven’t quite figured out why you’ve made me so angry, but I thought perhaps some direct communication could help.

We’ve been together for a really long time now, and I’ve put a ton of energy into making this relationship work. I’ve spent more time with you than anyone else, and I’ve tried to be as open and honest as possible.

Even though you’re always there for me, I feel like you’re elusive and sometimes extremely cold in our interactions with each other. Sometimes I feel like I know you so well and then I’ll wake up one day to discover that I don’t actually, really know anything about you at all.

Whenever we get together, I feel expectant that you will satisfy a loneliness inside of me that no one else understands. I think that you will enable me to be honest with myself and as a result, I will be more connected to the world as a whole. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of that connection and I’m inspired to make things work between us. Other times, like now, I just feel sick and tired of giving and giving and never feeling like you actually care one bit about how hard I’m trying to understand and relate to you. I have literally dedicated my life to you. What have you done for me besides made me feel empty and alone?

I think maybe I’ve had enough of you for a while. It was better when we took that little break and spent less time together. It doesn’t do any relationship any good to overdo it. Ever since I started taking you everywhere with me, I’ve become more and more overwhelmed with you. I don’t want our relationship to be about need or addiction and I’m tired of looking to you to make me feel good about myself.

I know I can’t get away from you entirely, but we need to spend less time together. I know you’ll still be there for me if I ever want to be more deeply involved.

If you’re anything like me, you read more than a couple of blogs as often as possible. There are so many amazing people out here in the web-o-sphere who are sharing their experience with anyone who has access, and I don’t want to miss a thing!

One of the reasons I love reading blogs is that I don’t have to go check each web site daily to see the interesting thing my favorite blogger has posted. Instead, I can use an RSS Reader to check all the best blogs for me, aggregate and categorize them, then give me simple access to all the new items.

An RSS Reader is a piece of software, either online or installed on your computer, that is responsible for making your blog reading an enjoyable experience. There are lots of great readers out there, and I encourage you to search the web for the one you like the most.

The RSS Reader I like the most is Google Reader. I like that it’s easy to get to, the mobile interface on my phone is great, and it has a good set of keyboard shortcuts.

It’s pretty easy to get started. Just go to Google Reader and enter your gmail account information. To create a new subscription to follow, just click on Add subscription. You can create categories and organize new feeds accordingly.

Google Reader is smart, too. You can enter a website address (like koencidence.com) and Google Reader will find the feed URL to use when configuring a new subscription.

I’ve made all my Google Reader tags public, so you can take a look at the feeds that I subscribe to. This is also a great way to get started with Google Reader.

• art
• feeling good
• geekery
• information
• portland
• queer
• random goodness

Good luck!

My social skills are going down the tubes again. I can’t really think or write about much else except data elements, XML conversion, and getting things to show up on a web page the way I intended them to. I’m likely to have my head stuck inside the computer for quite a while into the future.

That’s alright by me. I like the way it smells.

Agent and I attended a lovely dinner party this week, complete with homemade deliciousness and comfortable chatting around large, conjoined tables. I hardly knew anyone there, but felt a sense of familiarity and belonging anyway. Good food, good people, and good conversation.

I didn’t talk much to the whole party, as this is my way, but eventually someone across the table asked what I do for a living. I’ve had this conversation before. It goes something like this:

“So, Koen, what is it that you do?”

Insert one of: ["I'm a programmer."], ["I work with computers."] or if I really want to blow their mind I’ll say “I’m a web application developer” (which is my actual title at work). Agent likes it when I say “I’m a computer scientist,” which is what I always mean to say, but I forget.

“Oh…” That’s usually the end of this conversation, but sometimes they’ll act interested. “So what does that mean?” they’ll implore curiously.

And I’ll say “I make websites that do stuff!” with a little too much enthusiasm.

Sometimes this will mean nothing to them and I’ll have to give an example. When giving examples about the Internet, I’ve found there’s nothing more universal than Google. I’ll say something like “Do you use Gmail? That’s an example of a web application.” And then they’ll think I’m really smart (hopefully), but usually I also see a flash of pity in their eyes.

So I told everyone at the party that “I’m in computers”, which may have been the dorkiest think I could have said. Everyone was very kind, even though I felt like I’d foreignated* myself. It didn’t help that I became a little too excited about the challenges of developing interfaces for use on both Internet Explorer and Firefox. I lost my audience then, which was perfectly fine with me.

*Foreignated is not a word, yet.