My New Blog Persona

I decided I didn’t want a thick skin anymore. The deaf blog conference hosted by Deaf Read on February 1-3rd, 2008 deeply affected me to the point of deleting my wordpress deafread blog. I had been brooding on why it wasn’t working for me for quite some time. The color was awful, the font sucked, the postings were spread out all over the place. I wanted to change my “media specialist” persona. After LaRonda Zupp's Understanding the Psychological, Social and Emotional Aspects of Blogging and Vlogging in the Deaf v/blogoshpere and Adam Stone’s Legal Issues of Blogging presentations at the conference, I wanted to step up.

I’ve made some postings and comments I’m not exactly proud of. I felt them chasing me. They weren’t me anymore. They don’t define me today. This will be discussed another time.

Before I removed my figuring out kind of life blog, I made a Valentine video clip that very morning about creating a six-word ASL memoir (see below). My memoir creation was this, mom fun wait true business dead rise. What it means, you’ll have to see my ASL version. Ernest Hemingway and Dave Eggers did it for English. An unintended joke was also going on in the background on my son who is 16 years old. In the video I said I hope he didn’t pick his nose. But then he does it. I had hopes that he wouldn’t do that, but knowing him, all comfortable in his chair, I can’t say for sure I knew it wasn’t going to happen. You see I have a good gut about things. After it was over, my son was wondering why I was bending over laughing and hyperventilating, and banging on my desk. I showed him the video clip and he, too laughed like heck. He went over to the TV and pressed his face into it laughing, stomping his feet, getting up to breathe and then sitting back down. Later, I laughed in my sleep, my unconsciousness tapping into my consciousness.

Shaun came up to me and said, don’t you dare post that! I edited the video clip to push that little joke on him out of the way, and bring the creation of the six-word memoir to the forefront. But I was also divided about how much of the joke to show to the blogsphere. I know that moment I shared with my son was only a smart part of what you see. I liked that I kept the whole joke of it privately.

My new blog persona can't be said better than what Sam Keen wrote of his friend, Howard Thurman's philosophy in Fire in the Belly. "There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?' If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble." So that said, I have figured out where I am going hence returning to my original blog. Who will stop by and read? Anyone with Internet access. We are more profoundly united by our common humanity than we are separated by culture, gender, diversity, location, age, etc. Celebrate ASL!