March 16, 2007

?-vert

When I take the Meyers-Briggs test, if I remember correctly, I usually score INFJ, as do many many teachers and professors.

People who know me are sure that's wrong.

Why? Because to people who know me, they think of me as an extrovert. They know I clown around, I'm silly, I'm me ... and I don't care who knows it.

But the fact of the matter is ... if you get me in a situation where I don't know anyone at all ... I'll become the standard wallflower. I'll find a nice darkish corner ... the back of the room ... and just stand there, silent. Watching and observing like a good li'l writer-person.

I've been thinking about that a lot this week where I've been mostly silent online. I've been working on a few projects, not the least of which was a book cover for a friend's poetry collection on lulu.com. (When it's up on Lulu, I'll publish the cover and the link to buy here ) But I've also been thinking about what it is to put yourself "out there" for others. And the answer is that I suck at it.

I'm willing to risk improvement, but it's a really hard process for me. Talking to people whom I don't know is a very draining thing. The deal is ... an extrovert will get an energy charge out of talking to others. An introvert will get an energy drain out of it.

When I taught ... and my goodness, how I absolutely adored teaching ... I had to gear myself up for it and I had to wind down from it afterwards. There was a tremendous energy drain involved in preparing for class ... but it was well worth it to me.

But online? Online I can be a bit of the extrovert that I can't quite be in real life. And that's not completely uncommon, either. One of the main reasons that many teachers are using some form of MOO or online chat with students is because some students will "shine" online ... whilst others will shine during a face to face classtime discussion but despise the use of the online "discussion."

But what I wonder ... as we venture further into the age of computers and virtual connections ... is how do we define introvert and extrovert now? We have this tendency, myself included, to talk about the "real world" and the virtual world ... but I wonder if Gibson didn't have it right all along. Is a friendship conceived and carried out over the internet any less of a friendship than that of one face to face? I think about the people whom I have only known online ... some of them for 11-13 years now ... and we still "talk" regularly via the internet. I think of those folks whom I've loved and still consider friends ... even though one or both of us have moved away and we only talk once every great once in a while. I'm not talking about people that I've chatted with for a few months and dropped away. I'm talking about friendships over the internet ... and face to face ... which have spanned a year or more ... and several "deep" discussions. The kinds of discussions which involve a serious give-and-take and can't really be faked by actor in real life or online.

Are my friends in the "Banshees" any less friends than those I made in N.E.R.O.? Sure the Banshees only talked through emails and IM conversations. But the N.E.R.O. folks generally only talked in relation to the shared hobby we had first ... and secondly our personal lives.

What makes being social being social?

I'm not, by any means, advocating that all online relationships are the same as ... or even as "good" as "real life" relationships. But I am wondering if Gibson's description of what we would call real life isn't better described as the "meat" relationship.

Because I think I have several friendships online which are just as "real" as some of those I have in the physical world.

Then again ... maybe I'm simply a computer geek who doesn't know any better.

But I think of the people I've met from Wales ... from Australia ... from Israel ... from China ... from England ... from Belgium.

And I'm so incredibly grateful for the perspectives from other cultures ... for the reminder that "people like me" are not the only ones on the planet ... and for the reminder that other cultures are really not so very different ... that I think ... these online relationships are every bit as real as that of those who live in the same town as myself.

And I also have to wonder why a physical encounter with people I don't know leaves me so incredibly drained ....

.... whilst a virtual encounter with people I don't know leaves me charged and excited.

Is it the collision of new ideas? The fact that I am on the border of introvert and extrovert? (on the border, but still solidly on the introvert side). Or is it something else.

Dunno. But I'm grateful for the relationships face to face and through the ether, both.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:43 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | Why Johnny Won't Learn and Mrs. Curnutt Is Tired of the System | Stumble

March 11, 2007

Get Personal

Finally, CafePress is no longer the only game in town. Seems like every time I turn around, there's another company who will let you upload your own graphics onto their products ... some so that you can buy the stuff you want ... like MyTego.com, for example, where you can upload your own graphic and make a skin for your iPod, laptop, game station or even cell phone. There's WineSource.com where you can make your own wine label ... BoardPusher.com where you can make your own skateboard deck ... or you can buy the one that I designed:

(If that link doesn't work ... click the Shop button on the BoardPusher site, then CoyoteThunder ... you'll see it there.)

But probably the best of all of these companies is GoodStorm.com.

From their website:

Founded by serial entrepreneur Yobie Benjamin and venture capitalist and philanthropist Andy Rappaport, GoodStorm empowers organizations and individuals to generate higher income from e-commerce sales. The company develops and provides free ecommerce tools and technologies, including their new T-shirt Wizard ( http://tshirts.goodstorm.com/ ), for sellers to create online stores to market print-on-demand apparel and co-branded merchandise through GoodStorm.com.

In other words, you open a store, you get more of the profits. The better news is this: the quality of their products is EXCELLENT. The printing is well-done, it adheres to the t-shirts well. I wish they had more products available than just t-shirts, but I will say that I've been highly impressed with the quality of their shirts. I've ordered several shirts from them ... of my own design, cuz I'm just that much of a geek, and I gotta say, I love them.

And now they've added something new. A T-shirt wizard that will let you offer a t-shirt with your logo or design ... AND let your customer add their own text or design to it as well. Check this out at Craigslist. And, that's not all (wait, that sounds like a Romco commercial or whatever, doesn't it? Oops. But seriously ... this gets even cooler). If you set up a store with their t-shirt wizard, you can enable a community opt-in feature. This will allow people who order your stuff ... which they've then personalized with their phrase or image (or both) ... and now that design is ALSO available on your site.

And, of course, I encourage everyone to buy a nice Red Monkey shirt. The Red Monkey is even wearing jeans! (Cuz we don't want any nekkid monkeys ... oh lord, what have I done? The weird search engine hits I'm gonna get for that phrase now ... sheesh.)

If you're not inclined toward making graphics, I encourage you to look through the GoodStorm.com site because they have managed to capture a LOT of talented people there. The Daily Kos, WordPress, Craig's List and others do their shirts through GoodStorm.com and I've found a TON of designs that I adore every time I peruse the site.

And ... if you are graphically inclined ... it costs nothing to set up your own store. Quite an improvement over CafePress' $60 a year for a "professional" shop (which allows you to use more than one design on a product). Which also means that unlike CafePress, GoodStorm doesn't stick you for a year's fee and then refuse to refund it when you close the store down. (Which is what happened to me. They charged me for a second year ... I didn't remember it was coming up that fast ... I closed the store as soon as I got the "receipt" that I'd been charged another $60 and quickly informed CafePress ... their response: "We don't give refunds for that." Nice ... real nice. There's $60 completely wasted.)

Now, go buy my skateboard deck and some t-shirts. Please?

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:02 PM | Comments (1) | Blog | Stumble

March 8, 2007

Think

Normally I avoid memes like the plague. Cuz really, yanno, they are like the plague. You're supposed to infect another three or five or ten blogs with the same little meme-virus that you just caught from some well meaning person or vague acquaintance.

But this one makes sense. The Thinking Blogger Award to me is less about a meme and much more about discovering good, new reads than being a silly meme. So ... I'm proud to accept this Thinking Blogger award from Life at the Edge (and the absolutely faaaaabulous MsDemmie) ... and I'd like to beat her for naming two of the people I would have awarded this to, except, of course, she'd like that too much.
(Of course, she felt that way when Matt and Sue tagged her ... so I think it's just a part of the way this works!)

First here are the rules:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote. Here is a silver version and a gold version.

All right ... five blogs which make me think ... not five blogs which I simply like ... cuz there are plenty of those out there that I enjoy. For instance, I love the heck out of Nonsense Served Almost Daily ... but because it makes me laugh. It does make me think ... and Mikster asks me to think when we chat ... not that I do because, well, that's work and stuff, but he asks anyway. But the blog is a much needed way to relax and remember to laugh instead of (imagine big booming voice here) Making Me THINK. (Okay, you can stop with that voice now. Geez, did you hafta make it so loud? Booming isn't always LOUD, yanno.) Anyhow ... blogs which make me think ... in no particular order:

RohDesign ... Something over a year ago, decided that I needed to go back to drawing again. Like a lot of kids I did it for a long time and thought about pursuing drafting or technical drawing ... or cartooning. At any rate, when I decided to go back to my early love of drawing, I did a few google searches to look at others' sketches with the intention to practice off of others' stuff at first so I could begin to learn how they saw the lines ... and how I did. Mike's SketchToons were exactly what I was looking for ... and then his kind, kind comments when I posted my attempt at mimicry was very much appreciated. His posts about design and being a working artist/graphic designer/ad-marketing guy always make me think. Particularly when he talks about the right tools for the right job and audience, something I've always believed in as well. (Sometimes digital, sometimes analog.)

Damn, I'm long-winded. My English teachers throughout my schooling would be shocked.

Photoshop X ... despite the fact that it hasn't been updated in AGES. There are some great tutorials here ... and those always make me think ... and get the creative juices flowing.

Identity Crisis ... Life the universe and everything in this blog. I admire Suzy tremendously for her bravery and her stubborn tenacity ... and especially her storytelling voice. Amazing blog.

Martian Anthropologist ... who better to make you think than a Valentine Michael Smith analog?

Living with Multiple Personalities ... whether Cat is talking about current events in her life or re-telling the story of her therapy process and learning to live with not just past events ... but the effect that those events had on her developing personality (and leading to the development of multiple personalities) ... Cat always makes me think. I'm fascinated by the ways in which children cope with events that simply go far beyond the pale and into the realm of what most of us would find unbelievable. Having been through bits of similar experiences myself ... I find the coping mechanisms fascinating ... and Cat's honesty endearing.

All right ... there's my five. Hopefully you'll click and enjoy a few of them.

Tomorrow or over the weekend, I hope to have a review of a new feature from the great folks at GoodStorm ... yanno, the place where I have my t-shirts set up. Like the one with this design on it (click to hit the store):

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:45 PM | Comments (4) | Blog | Stumble

March 1, 2007

Check One

A little over a year ago I joined a community of bloggers and quite enjoyed chatting away in a shoutbox. I have a tendency to not fill out profiles on various sites because I'd rather just be me instead of trying to figure out how to describe me (which is nearly a lost cause anyhow ... I don't fit well into boxes).

Inevitably the question came up. I was talking to some people and one person said "he said" in relation to something I'd mentioned ... and someone else said, "he? don't you mean she?"

And the debate began.

My online screen name of "Ender" is actually a character from the wonderful Sci-Fi book, Ender's Game. The character in the beginning of the book is a 6 year-old boy. Now, I pick that screen name (or EnderFP ... FP for Fisher Price) because I really identified with the character of Ender in that and the subsequent books. It didn't matter if Ender was male or female to me ... we were a lot alike in a lot of ways.

Naturally as the people in the shoutbox began this debate, they "turned" to me and said, "Hey, tell so-and-so that you're a man/woman."

I steadfastly refused.

They went to read my profile ... on which I'd left M/F blank.

The debate raged even further on.

Now, mind you, if you go to my larger site (delete /RedMonkey/ in the address bar) ... you can quickly find a segment of my site which will definitely answer the question, but people don't necessarily think that I own the domain CoyoteThunder, so they didn't think to check that.

For about 3 months, I would simply chortle to myself as the fact that I wrote about my first car meant that I was a man. Or that I wrote about some book meant that I was a woman. Everything I said in my blog and in that community's shoutbox was scrutinized for a while as people tried to make up their minds if I was male or female ... everyone had a theory.

And, there were a few people who got upset ... as if I were purposefully deceiving them, tricking them for some ulterior motive.

My point was simple and remains the same:
In the online world, what difference does it really make? I'm not dating you ... I have no intention of dating you ... I'm happy as I can be with my partner. I'm not interested in anything extracurricular.

And every person to whom I pointed that out, kind of metaphorically stepped back and said, "Oh ... yeah, I guess it doesn't matter."

I'm interested in some things that are considered masculine in some cultures. I'm interested in some things that are considered feminine in some cultures.

It wasn't until two mothers were talking about ADHD in their children ... one the mom of an ADHD son ... the other the mom of an ADHD daughter ... that I realized there are other times when admitting to your biological sex can be important. I spoke of how my ADHD meds affected me ... and the mother of the daughter said, "Yes, but that's the typical reaction of a male on this medication ... it affects females completely differently."

Oh.

She thought I was male and having the typical male reaction. In order to not "blow my cover" of being the perpetual "Pat" on that site, I didn't say anything to her. I should have.

Because while I am biologically female, I don't really fit well into that category. And my "typical male reaction" to that ADHD drug? Does it possibly mean that there really is a biological component to homosexuality? I am a gay female ... and I have noticed more and more frequently over the past few years that medications which are prescribed to women but not men ... don't work as well for me. In fact, a friend of mine, also a gay female, was prescribed Welbutrin ... which according to her doctor, they don't prescribe to men for depression as it tends to do very wonky things to their behaviour. Relieved that she was able to take this medicine, my friend had high hopes for using it as a kind of mitigator during the switch from one anti-depressant to another.

She reacted to the medication like a man.

The doctor said she'd never had a woman have that adverse reaction before.

I'd love to see some studies done on M/F reactions to meds ... and then compare that to the reactions of M/F gay persons as well.

But that's kind of a side issue. Why is it that when we're online, it's soooooo vitally important to find out ASL? (I had to ask what that was ... to me it means American Sign Language ... apparently in the online world, it's come to mean Age, Sex, Location.)

I'll admit I do want to know if I'm talking to a 13 year old instead of a 25 year old ... but only because I want to couch what I say a little more ... no ... not more of anything ... a little less bluntly. I won't lie to kids, so it's not that I will not talk about something that I would tell an adult. But I might change the way I say it a bit. Other than to make sure the person is "legal" so to speak, I don't care how old they are. Location? well, sometimes it's interesting to learn about a new country ... or even the differences of one area to another in the same country. Sometimes I like to know that the people I know in England are safe when I hear about a car accident in Leeds.

But why would I care if someone was male or female? What difference would that make in our online friendship/acquaintanceship? As I said earlier ... I'm not going to date that person. I don't make passes at other people. What other good does it do to know if they're male or female?

To discover if we have similar interests? Pffffffft. That doesn't work at all.

To me, who we are online is simply revealed by the words we type. Sex, for me, doesn't enter into it at all. An "adult" chatroom where the point is virtual groping, sure, you need to know. But for most day-to-day 'net transactions ... it just doesn't matter.

Do I take offense when some folks refer to me as "he"? Not at all. I find it interesting to see who makes what assumptions ... I'd rather not say at all, but invariably someone corrects the person calling me "he" and the jig is up. But I do find it fascinating to watch the conversation and watch someone try to fumble through the unconscious assumptions they made based on my online behaviour and pinpoint why they thought I was male (or female, for that matter).

The problem for me is simple ... when I get to a website that asks Gender: Male Female ... I don't know what to check. I go to a site that asks for Sex: Male Female, I know I'm biologically female and that's an easy answer.

But gender is more of a social construct ... a set of expectations that men act one way, like certain things ... and that women act another way, like other things.

But we all know this isn't really true. We're human and we're too complex for such a simple distinction. I'm not even naive enough to suggest that homosexuality enters into this ... I think that's an easy way for a lot of people to roll their eyes and avoid the topic completely.

I know a woman who adores horses. She changed the dress code at the company she works at to allow jeans and t-shirts. Her hair is shortish. She speaks plainly. She gets the job done. So far as I know, she's not gay. But she's not that stereotype of a "female" either. And there's nothing wrong with that.

This marketing trend of trying to squish people into Male and Female just burns me. I HATE getting marketing crap for perfume or flowery junk ... just because I checked Female on their damn form.

It's time to grow up and realize that we're more complex than that. Ain't one box gonna cover it.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:41 AM | Comments (6) | Blog | Stumble

February 6, 2007

Ewww

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:06 AM | Comments (4) | Blog | Stumble

January 20, 2007

Motivations

In elementary school, mail was one of the best things in the world. My sister and I would delight in opening mail addressed to Occupant (providing we got to it before Mom tossed it on the nearest landfill). But my sister and I rarely got mail actually addressed to us except for birthday cards. When we moved away from Austin, my friend Nancy moved to Longmont, Colorado ... and we did exchange letters periodically. Eventually, one or the other of us would forget to respond, and there would be a long drought between letters. Then, one of us would remember, write and the exchange would begin again.

So I was startled one day in the fourth grade to receive a letter which was NOT postmarked Colorado. Who in the world would be writing to ME?

It was a chain letter - that scourge of the post office in Ye Olde Days ... which given their current desire for people to write to each other, I think they're trying to give the chain letter a comeback to help ensure their jobs.

Today, of course, the chain letter has moved online, like nearly everything else. Today it's the cutesy pictures, the PPT slides telling you that the computer software can take a picture of you (even tho your machine does NOT have the hardware installed), the "touched by an angel" letters ... ad nauseum.

And, as annoying as they are, you can generally recognize them from the subject line and delete them without any bother. Yes, they use up bandwidth, but at least they're no longer asking you to sacrifice 20 trees and your first-born child to the silly cause.

What I do NOT get is the "chain letters" of the blogging world. There seem to be two "chain letter" variations in blogging.

First are the memes ... although, I have seen some which are useful introductions to a person and interesting to read. However, most memes are silly, pointless, too long, and, frankly, boring as hell. Ones like looking up your birthdate on Wikipedia and recording the historical events that took place on your day of birth ... interesting and that can be a thoughtful post.

But most of these are long, rambling, hideously vapid entries.

Next are themed days ... again, some of these are actually very nicely done. Many people participating in Wordless Wednesday have something very interesting going on and it's a nice touch. FOAD (fook off and die ... and I forget if this is a Thursday or Friday thing) is interesting sometimes. But sometimes I've seen posts where the person is simply repeating the same post they'd made the week before. Doesn't it make more sense to just gather some stories together and have a FOAD post whenever you feel the need? Do you really want people to FOAD every single week? And if so, have you considered anger management classes? A low dose of an anti-depressant, perhaps?

Still, like Wordless Wednesday and some memes, some of the FOAD posts are also quite interesting ... and generally humourous.

What I really don't get ... what really strikes me as the "chain letter" of the blogging world ... is HNT. Half Naked Thursday.

WHY?

Are there that many people on the internet who are exhibitionists? Wait, don't answer that. A quick Google search would probably confirm that question. Still ... what's the point with show a bare portion of your body on the internet for all to see?

And please ... I'm asking a serious set of questions here ... I was being a little silly earlier ... but I honestly don't get HNT at all and I really do want to know - what's in it for you and for your blog?

Is it because people need the attention? The reassurance that they are "okay"? Is it simply a kind of forbidden thrill? Is it, perhaps, a self-esteem building thing where the person is trying to honestly look at themselves objectively or in a new way?

And, if your blog is about political commentary ... or philosophy ... or your favourite hobby ... or just reminiscing and commenting on life in general ... how do you "justify" including HNT posts in amongst the other posts?

Despite any conversation this post generates, you won't be seeing HNT pictures here. I'm simply too camera-phobic to ever do that ... but I am interested in what you have to say.

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:30 AM | Comments (1) | Blog | Stumble