Now I Am Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds
I actually had more than one possible topic to choose from today. I figured out that I had missed commemorating my 200th post, there was something to be done with that. I had some potential thoughts brewing on Hawaiian shirts, casual Fridays and the way even supposed irreverence is programmed in our society. Or perhaps ruminations on how the use of the words "in our society" make any argument sound like an 8th grade essay contest runner-up.

All those, sadly, have to be set aside while I attend to something, a blog-personality conflict that I had a part in creating, albeit accidentally.

I would have loved to have worked this out via e-mail or blog comments, but not everyone has e-mail addresses listed on their blogs and comments, well... the less said about the current state of Blogger the better.

The players in this Shakespearean tragicomic cavalcade of erroneous readings and missed meanings are all loyal Bucketeers, so it is in my interest to present all sides as even-handedly and objectively as possible. If I drive even one reader away, I run the very real risk that the fragile card-house of my ego will collapse in a dusty heap. I can't afford another shame spiral. The last one ended up with me missing a kidney and a stretch in a Mexican jail. I'm still not sure how the two events are connected.

Anyway.

It started with half of a comment from Rita's blog. Something ridiculous was being discussed and then she threw in this question:

PS: Pops, I am officially weirded out by the Cult of Pops that I seem to now be a part of. Am I obligated to reciprocate all this Pops-related linkage?

First of all, to be clear, this is Rita making fun of me. Nothing to do with the actual links or the people who made them, just her making a joke about my runaway blog success spilling over onto her blog and demanding her time and attention.

Using my fabulous digital detective skills (OK, it was Technorati), I deduced she was talking about the dynamic brother-sister duo Kris and Dusti, recent convert Bucketeers whose patronage and attention I greatly appreciate.

Too obsequious? Sorry.

I responded to Rita's initial question thusly:

What's this now? I did see someone who had recently added me to their blogroll also added you. Is it more widespread than I realize? If you need me to go around and beat people down on your behalf, just say the word. I know how much your prize your privacy and anonymity.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Get it? Privacy and anonymity on a blog in which the URL is the blogger's name. Funny jokes, yes? This comment set a sort of a... uh... tone for the rest of the conversation.

Because I later linked Kris and Dusti's blogs in the course of the conversations, they were drawn in sort of mid-way through. And like a horrifying episode of Three's Company, neither side has been able to completely get a handle on the other ever since... leading to Rita getting de-linked (which she expressly did not want) on both blogs and Kris getting kind of mad.

The main reason Kris got annoyed was Rita's post obliquely inspired by this where she says (sort of... uh... bluntly but not, I don't think, deadly seriously) that people should put more detail in their Profiles so she doesn't have to read a bunch of posts to get to know them, referencing his blog directly.

The irony is that... um... how do I put this... despite all the detail in Rita's profile, you still have to kind of read a lot of Rita to "get" her (or at least the blog version of her). There is no way to acclimate to style without some reading. Rita has a very strong, direct style, the intent of which is almost always humor and the target of which is almost always herself. I think all of the Comments conversations and related blogposts can actually be read that way. But that's just me.

Or maybe I'm totally wrong, Kris and Dusti are loony, vague stalker-types and Rita is a snooty, black-hearted crone in the body of a college student. But somehow I doubt it.

So there you have it. My first Blog Personality Controversy. Again, I would have preferred to have covered most of this in less Grand Blog Post-y fashion, but there it is. For my part in all of it (however small), I apologize.

I'm almost positive that the parties involved are pretty well over it by now and it's only me left in a state of agita about it all.

If Rita would like to respond with rage and indignation to what might be read as some kind of unwanted and unasked for apologia on her behalf, I would fully understand.

I accept your scorn. From all of you.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a self-flagellation session scheduled for late this morning. The cat-o'-nine-tails waits for no man.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 10.0 [perfection thy name is Blog Incest]


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:55 AM