a pretty picture from Tumblr

I’ve been reading lately (mostly on Tumblr, it must be said) how Tumblr is the newest, greatest thing and will surpass this that or the other thing. That, actually, may be true. It is so easy and it can be fun. It can also be a little annoying, particularly for introverts, I think. Or maybe just for this introvert.

It’s good that, if you have friends on there to follow and who follow you, you have an almost instant community. And the more you post or reblog, the more followers you might get and the more community–sort of–you are part of. You are rarely “alone” on Tumblr, even compared to some other social media sites. And you don’t have to have anything at all to say in order to participate, which can be a boon. People do create original content on there, or express their thoughts, or post new pictures, but much of it is reblogging what someone else has put on there.

The thing about communities, though, is that… well, there are other people in them. Sometimes lots of them, those you know, and complete strangers. A post can be reblogged by anyone at all. They can just send it through as is, or add their own thoughts, enter into the conversations and everyone has a grand old time. Or sometimes not, depending on how the conversation goes. Anyway, at times it can feel as if you are being inundated with people and all their… everything. Which, for introverts (or, again, at least for this one) can be very wearing.

Obviously the solution is to find a little balance, which most people seem to be able to do. Me, not so much when I first start something. I tend to just jump all in and neglect everything else, and then wonder when I get burned out on it so quickly.

Anyway, I’m not completely burned out on it yet–I still like to visit my friends there, and post pretty pictures, and see what great things everyone is talking about. But I also have other things I need to do, including figuring out what to do with my sites… it seems that almost all my domains are up for renewal this month, and I can’t figure out how I let that happen!

So, some future posts I have planned will be about organizing out loud (or, rather, in public on this site), and creating worlds and all sorts of other things. I have stuff to write about, now just need to see if I will do it.

Mind, I’ve had account at all three for years, but after my initial liking of both Twitter and Facebook I can’t stand either of them now. I didn’t last on Facebook for long at all, but I was all ready to write the praises of Twitter when I suddenly tired of the whole thing. But, well, now I have been giving Tumblr a try, and I like it. So far. I like the wonderful, funny, and awful photos that people find, the brilliant quotations, the bits and pieces of science news and… well, lots.

I fear, though, that what I most like about it is that I don’t have to write. I can just reblog pretty pictures, or the stuff other people have written as a sort of “what she/he said” and I am done. I have Tumbled. I don’t even have to become a part of any conversations and, except for a few brief comments, I don’t. I don’t have to do anything at all myself, create anything at all, really, if I don’t want to. And, so far, I haven’t.

Which makes me think it might be time to put that aside as well. Or, at least, to limit my participation on it. It’s not that I can’t write on there, or that no one does, but I have trouble doing so. Wackity brain issues.

Anyway, I have plans and thoughts and ideas and things to do and to write, and it’s about time to do them.

The new one is for me to write down my natterings, reflections, thoughts about Blackness and so on — and I am going to try to make this blog, Serenity etc, more of a professional space. Where I don’t just drabble on and on about unconnected and pointless stuff, but really concentrate on writing in a professional manner.

Hah.

We’ll see how it goes.

When people started talking about Firefly I thought the Serenity they referred was a character or something. Since I  had little interest in the show, nor any intention of seeing it, I never delved any further into it. Now I obviously have to change my tagline, which is “Serenity… an expedition.” To me this just meant a life’s journey type thing, a place to think deep thoughts (or my usual shallow ones). I never realized others were probably wandering through here looking for spaceships.

Sigh.

I don’t want every little thing I write on here also posted on Facebook — I ain’t that profound! So, I have removed it and now I am free to natter, chatter, and navel-gaze to my heart’s content and the only people who will have to endure all that are the few that visit this site. And if I happen to write something that I think others will benefit from reading, I’ll just post that. Whew. Glad all that is over.

I’ve been trying to figure out what the difference was, in my mind, between writing here and putting it on Facebook or whatever, and I think it’s because the “automatic social network sharing” feels like I am, or should be, writing for someone else. Yet I started this site so that I could write for myself. So that I could experiment with this and that, try my hand at memoir writing, see if I can get my “create your life” type series going, work out my thoughts on social justice issues, and more. But — call it stage fright, maybe — if I know I have an audience of people who are not self-selected, I have trouble doing all that. It’s not that there is a huge audience, mind — I only have like 40 friends on Facebook. But every little thing posting just felt intrusive (on them) to me, so I wound up writing rarely.

So, I should be posting more, and half of it will be ungrammatical blather, so yay! Everything is back to normal.

So, why don’t I have a house or a closet filled with red? I think it is because it’s a bold color. And it’s not that I cannot be bold and direct, but it is more my nature to be more subtle and somewhat subdued (appearing.) Indirect. Perhaps employing a bit of misdirection, in some adversarial situations, before moving in for the full reveal. From the cats that stalked through my life from my infancy on, I have learned the value of watching and waiting for the right time to pounce. (And, like them, I sometimes miscalculate and wind up falling, empty-handed, into an inelegant heap.)

But the thing with me and the color red. I don’t want it to blast its presence – I want it to hide in the grass and leap out to surprise me. A brief and sudden splash in a sunset; a wink from the midst of brown and gold leaves; or skipping through a profusion of colors in a painting, its strength blending in with all the other hues to make them all more powerful. This is how I like it best. A red wall leaves me cold; if I had the money I’d probably be one of those strange people who buy a white canvas painting that has one red dot, though.

So, there you go. My favorite color is red.