That's right folks, it's officially been a year since I first wrote this statement of purpose and the first real entry on my original blog.

A lot has happened since I first decide to give this whole blog thing a try. At that time I was doing the Off-Again-On-Again Tango with Morelli, although unbeknownst to me I had already seen and talked to him in the flesh for the last time a couple of week previously. I think I had a clue something was wrong, which was in part why I wanted to start writing – to do a bit of venting of pain. But I was petrified of the idea of writing online...of putting my thoughts and feelings up there for anybody to read and comment on them and potentially judge me. I was worried that my friends and family would hate it, that they would be uncomfortable with being discussed or, worst of all, that they'd think was an uninteresting, self-absorbed hack.

However, I also knew that I wanted a way to express myself that was more....challenging than the old paper journal that I'd kept for years. So I decided to give it a go.

Now after a year, I think the decision to start a blog is probably one of the better chances I've ever taken. I'm so much happier (despite recent entries to the contrary) and more confident now and, silly as it may sound, I think that's in part because of the blog. At the risk of sounding like I’m navel gazing again (I know how much some of you HATE that), the process of writing the blog has helped me feel more comfortable in my own skin and in my own head. And I've been pleasantly surprised by how my nearest and dearest have embraced this little project of mine. I think most of you will agree that the input of folks like MCL, Garlock, Travers, Ford, Sojourner, Jordan and Wilson really have helped to make this virtual space feel more homey - to feel less like an online journal and more like a bunch of friends getting together over a couple of cuppas to chat. And of course, that was really what I was hoping for all along.

And then there has been the unexpected benefits of all the new friends I've made - Soon-To-Be-Dr.-Cara, Mocha, Chris, Bill, Sue, Dana, Jean, Loofa, Steve, Guinevere, Betsy, Elizabeth, Life in the Fast Lane, Pointless Ballyhoo, Tanilan, BGOAB, Alex and Belinda, Aynde, Christy, Tamara, Aunt Tea, and so many other folks that I can't even list them all (I mean really...this list is already longer than the Mouseketeer Roll Call). If someone had told be a year ago that I could become friends with so many people who I've never met in the flesh and who are scattered all over the country, I'd never have believed them.

So thanks all and congrats! You've all helped me keep this thing going over the last year. May we all spend many more years together!

I've known for quite some time that October was going to be "The Month from Hell" (tm) - too many volunteer projects, work projects, book signings, and other STUFF, all competing for my time. Add to that the unexpected family freakiness and you've got a stressful month. However, there is an upside to all this activity...you get to meet new people...like the guy with the nice eyes that I got to volunteer with yesterday. *grin*

That aside, it's been just crazy around the Caffeinated Librarian household. But there have been a few articles and blogs that have caught my eye. So, let's begin the weekly Tour:

• This past weekend, I started to write an entry about the pink women's cut team jerseys that I've started seeing all over the place and how much they irritate me. My thought, "Do I really need to wear a pink jersey to remind myself that I'm a woman? Are there really men out there who would MISS the fact that I am woman at a game without me wearing the bright pink jersey? And if there are men out there who really are THAT stupid...I would hope they wouldn't be fans of one of my teams." But anyway, I was just about to write an entry about all that when I saw a BlogHer article by Sarah called "Sports Fans: We Don't Appreciate the Pandering," which covers most of my points and comes up with a few I hadn't thought of. Allow me to give you an "Amen," Lady.
• John over at Stank has had quite a few good entries the last couple of weeks include an ode his dog Ed, his take on the Foley mess, a story of a man and a baby, and an entry that I think ought to have been called "The Best Email Ever" ('cause it made me laught out loud). Oh yes, and he mocks the Seahawks fans again (I know you're shocked).
• It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, as Mocha definitely knows. She also has a great story about "Cookies and Cooties."
• Soon-To-Be-Dr.-Cara has news. Oh and Chica, Chris says you, me and Bill need to write up something about comic books sometime soon.
• Speaking of Bill, he had some of his expectations disappointed on his recent trip, but at least he came back with a bunch of odds and ends to write about. (Oh, and by the way dude, the ability to introduce order into randomness is called "being a librarian.")
• Christy has an update on her life and a really chuckle-worthy news story to pass along.
• Aynde had an interesting conversation with her husband the other day (yeah, I agree Aynde, I'd like it just fine too).
• Sue's been quiet recently (hopefully everything is okay), but last week she had an update on her daughter, DQ, and Kansas basketball.
• There's been a lot of talk on BlogHer about the recent school shootings and the fact that the victims have all been girls. One of the overviews of all the recent entries on the subject can be found in this article by Suzanne Reisman.
• For those of you interested in environmental issues, the Gulf Coast Wetlands are also back in the news.
• There has also been some controversy over a blog called Walmarting Across America.
• I know that Loofa recently asked how (or perhaps why) folks can date multiple people at the same time. Coincidentally I came across a woman who has two part article on this subject...see part 1 and part 2, if you're interested.
• Dove's natural beauty campaign has been raising some eyebrows online.
• This site is called "Think Geek" - need I say more?
• Ever wonder where the phrase "cup of Joe" came from? Ever heard of fried Coke? Doesn't matter how you get your caffeine, it seems it's in the news these days.
• Surely by now everyone's seen the story about the scientists looking to create a real, live version of Harry Potter's invisiblity cloak.

Every year the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library hosts a festival of reading called "Novello." Usually the festival runs through October (although this year it goes well into November) and includes a variety of authors and other famous figures who give lectures, answer questions, and sign books. It's a wonderful festival and my mom and I try to go to at least on Novello event each year. So on Thursday we went to hear Doug Marlette, controversial political cartoonist and author, talk about his new book Magic Time and his first novel The Bridge, which I wrote a little about earlier in the week.

First of all, we both really enjoyed listening to Marlette; although he was obviously uncomfortable talking in front of an audience, he is very funny and quite an armchair philosopher. Some of his ideas were extremely interesting to me and I'm going to try to do them justice tonight. However, he covered a lot of information in about an hour, so if I mangle it hopelessly, please forgive me.

Two of the things Marlette talked about at length were: how do good people allow injustices to happen around them without doing anything and why are those injustices so frequently forgotten by the very people who were witnesses to them? He wrote both of his books, in part, to explore how this "collective amnesia" (as he called it) works because several members of his family were witnesses to two major events in the South. Like the character "Mama Lucy" in The Bridge, Marlette's grandmother was bayoneted by a National Guardsman during the General Textile Strike of 1934, an event he describes in his book as "[The] Closest we've ever come in this country to a revolution." (I'm assuming he's not counting the Revolutionary War or the Civil War). His father was part of the troops called up to search for missing Freedom Riders in Mississippi during the 1960s (as pictured in the movie "Mississippi Burning") and that was the inspiration for his new book, Magic Time.

Those are both pretty big historical events, right? But Marlette thought it was strange that he didn't learn about either story until he was well into his 40s. And when he asked his relatives who had witnessed these events for more information he found that they knew very little about the events themselves, despite having "Forrest Gump-like" (again, his words) front row seats.

So Marlette set out to find his own answers and in finding them he came to some conclusions about why some people who witness injustices can forget them so quickly. He called it the "Good German" principle: basically good, moral, generous regular folks witness an injustice (like the concentration camps in World War II Germany) and make excuses for those evils saying that they aren't really that bad ("they're just factories," for example). But when the truth comes to light and the nature of the horror right next door is exposed (as in the Holocaust), these same good people are left with a predicament: if they allowed these awful things to happen without doing anything to stop them, that may mean that they aren't quite as good as they thought they were. That realization is to much of a threat to their sense of themselves and their reality, so they either say the injustices never happened or bury the story through a kind of collective amnesia (in essence, forgetting is easier than dealing with the questions).

The idea has a lot of implications for the South...but for the purposes of Marlette's books, his theory explains how good, God-loving, Bible-quoting Southerners could justify and fight for segregation in the 1960s in the face of awful events like dogs and water cannons being used to attack protesters in the streets, firebombings of black churches, and the assassinations of so many Civil Rights leaders. It certainly explains how the General Textile Strike of 1934 could become one of the bloodier and most forgotten events in United States history.

I don't know, maybe the ideas that Marlette spoke about on Thursday are nothing new - maybe they're well known concepts that other folks talk about all the time. But they were lightning bolts for me, not only in relation to my own family and their tendency to "spin" or forget history that doesn't suit their needs, but also because of recent stories in the news. Because just when I think we're making progress, a story like this comes along that reminds me that we're only a hair's breath from those bad old days. And the only way to keep history from repeating itself is to speak out and to ask questions - even if the answers might lead us to truths about ourselves about which we aren't proud.

Guess what I had for dinner tonight. If you guessed sushi, give yourself a gold star.

I was talking to my mom tonight and she started telling me a story about when I was little, about five maybe, and her mother and my father's parents were all over at our house. I had gone to take a bath and my "Ma" (my fraternal grandmother) had gone in to check on me. Well, she had just rejoined the others when I came out of the bathroom, dripping wet and said, "Mama, Ma just said she loved me more than Grandmother [meaning my mom's mother]! Why did she say that?!" Needless to say things got a bit awkward after that and my mom, not knowing what to tell me, said, "Oh honey, Ma was just teasing you." That seem to satisfy me and I went back to the bathroom, promptly forgetting the whole thing. Of course it was a lie, my grandmother meant exactly what she said and my other grandmother never forgave her for it, but that's all really beside the point of why my mother was bringing up this story now.

She told me that she realized now (from the look on my face and the tone of my voice) that even at that age I knew that what my grandmother had said was wrong, that it was an injustice. And I was going to take care of it right then...or to quote her, "you stomped in there and held court; I mean how many five year olds do that to a group of adults?"

She also reminded me of another time, in high school, when our band director started verbally laying into a group of students in front of a gathering of the whole band and all of their parents. I stood up, in front of everybody, and told him in detail why he was wrong. I also told him how unfair it was for a man with a doctorate and a position of power to humiliate a group of high school students in front of their parents. It shocked the hell out of everyone because I was a shy, quiet and overly serious kid - not the type of student who would ever defy an authority figure or talk much above a whisper.

'Course, I remember that one and I remember parents coming up to me afterwards telling me how impressed they were. And I remember thinking, "What's the big deal? He was wrong and he ticked me off."

So what's point of all this? "Well," my mom said, "I was just thinking about your blog and how you get when you see an injustice. You get indignant and head off to fix it right then, just like you did when you were five and like you did in high school. I guess I've just never realized that you've always been this way. So I guess it makes sense that you should start a blog."

You heard it hear first folks: I was born to blog.

I know this will probably sound like false modesty, but the whole thing mystifies me a bit. My mom seems to see this as some wonderful heroic quality in me and she's very proud of it (and me). I find it to be more of an annoyance than anything; I can guarantee you that if I could just learn to keep my mouth shut instead of stomping into situations (like the one on MSN) full of fire and righteous indignation, demanding justice - if I could just shut up, my life would be much more tranquil and I'd probably a happier person in the long run. Because, quite frankly, not everybody loves a crusader and sooner or later someone's going to nail me, either verbally or physically, for pulling this crap. Sooner or later there will be consequences - it's a miracle it hasn't happened before now.

Of course it's no use knowing this - I'm not going to change. I wouldn't know how, quite frankly. It's not like I plan these things. Stuff just happens and the next thing I know I'm hip deep in it without remembering making the choice to wade in. So I guess I'll have to grin and bear it and hope that my luck holds.

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I'll try to work on the Tour tonight, but I can't promise you much at this point. I haven't felt up to doing much blog walking this week. But I'll give it a go and we'll see what happens.

Thank you to everyone who wrote in to my other blog comments to tell me about good things. It means a great deal to me and I promise I'll get to answering you each individually later. And keep them coming if you've got 'em - I have a feeling we could all use as many warm fuzzies as we can get.

Oh, and I am feeling much better tonight (almost forgot to mention THAT).

An MSN friend clued me into this emerging firestorm surrounding a former featured Spaces writer and very popular blogger. Although I have had no contact with the gentleman in question, I had noticed his comments on plenty of friend's blogs. Still, it is very surprising to discover that something like this is going on in the blogsphere. It shouldn't be really, since we know that all sorts of folks who prey upon others lurk in real life - of course they would be online also. Still, it makes me sad - not only for the women involved, but also for the innocent men who may feel "painted with the same brush" of suspicion.

I wish I had something witty or wise to sum the whole thing up, but I don't - I'm just dumbfounded.

Start at the first post on Jeannie's blog, then follow to her post here and here.

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Addendum (11-03):

If you go looking for these post now you'll find they've been deleted, which puzzles me. On the one hand I understand: the ladies involved were worried that MSN would shut them down and they were bothered by the tone of some of the commenters on the posts who were, rightfully I think, angry about EZ's actions. But on the other hand, any trace of this whole effort is now gone and can no longer benefit future women who might fall under his "spell." Yes, people are more aware now, but turn over on blogs is pretty high so that won't last long.

Plus, to be honest, I feel a little duped: why did I bother getting so hot and bothered over something that had this little permanence? And besides, the mutual pat-on-the-back fest that's replaced the posts of the last few days irks me...and I can't put my finger on quite why. Perhaps because I thought the point was to DO something, not just for everyone to feel good about themselves.

If the folks involved go on to create some sort of blog to inform women about how to beware of online predators then that's wonderful; there's definitely a need for that sort of thing and when/if it's completed THEN this whole thing will have accomplished something. For my part, the main lesson I've learned from this situation is to be a little more leery of lending my two cents and my blogs to the causes of folks I don't know.

And on that uplifting note, Happy Tuesday.