There and GONE again

 I was reading through some of the blogs I subscribe to and one was commenting about the tragic and extremely horrifying occurrence of comment-block-clearing that sometimes randomly occurs. Here was the initial post from The Bloggess:

I read lots of blogs.  I laugh and/or cry at them.  I write long, thought-out, vaguely-witty comments.  I fill out my email address and blog url and name above the lengthy comment and hit “submit comment”.  I wait several impatient seconds while your blog thinks. Your blog shows me my comment and asks me if I really want to submit this or if I’d like to change up some shit first. I start to second-guess myself but then I soldier on, hitting the “No, I totally want to submit this comment because why else would I have hit ‘submit comment’ and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop questioning me because it’s making me paranoid thankyouverymuch” button. Your blog thinks again for a few seconds. My comment pops up underneath all of your other comments along with my picture (hi, me) and I feel very grown-up and technologically savvy.  Then I hit the “back” button to return to your homepage but one quarter of a millisecond before I let go of the back button your page flashes with a “Oh, and don’t forget to write these blurry words and/or do some math for us first to prove you’re not a robot or else your comment won’t actually be submitted. We apparently have a lot of problems with robots. I’m sure you understand” and I scream “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” and everything moves in slow motion as I try to find a way to stop time but it doesn’t work and the page flashes back to a now-totally-blank comment box.  I try to go forward.  Nothing.  I try to go back.  Nothing.
I bang my head against the keyboard and cry a little.  I have no idea what I’d written in my now-erased comment and  now I’ve also forgotten what the post was about and where I live.
I fill out my name, email and url again.
In the comment box I simply write “lol”, and vaguely hope that this wasn’t a post about how your grandparents just died.
I vow to never, ever do this again.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

I thought to myself, OMG this happens to me and I just get...get...well, there is not a great adjective in which to summarize my feelings about this matter, but I can pretty much bet the farm that this has happened to all of you at one point or another. I have gotten in the habit sometimes, before hitting the forward or back button to "select all," and "copy" everything, you know, just in case.

I think it just struck a chord with me because it recently happened to me when I was writing an email, and in one unexplainable instant, everything was gone. Just gone...in one proverbial virtual *poof*


Oh, and as I was reading through my subscriptions, I have been cutting out more and more blogs that have just gotten rather stale. Nothing exciting happens, the author no longer blogs with regular consistency (not that I can really talk there) or frankly, I just don't care anymore. I had, at one point, subscribed to a TON of fashion-ish blogs. The number of these type of blogs alone almost consumed and made up my entire subscription list, minus a few people's blogs that I actually knew. I quickly skimmed the more recent postings from those fashion sites, and decided to delete them from my feed. Feed. Who ever thought to name the list of blog information you follow just that: feed. Wouldn't "reel" be more appropriate?

Sorry - A.D.D. moment there.

Where were we...oh yes - blog deletion.

Along with blog deletion that happened, I sat there, wondering why some of the people who I "follow" don't blog anymore. They were once witty, or just plain interesting, and the proverbial blogging well has dried up for them with nothing else to go on other than their stale site pages. *sigh* if only they knew: I AM INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY! SAY MORE!

But comments can only get you so far before harassment becomes your new label.

Another thing about comments - I am pretty sure that I know of and see only two people that have posted any comments to any of my blogs - you know who you are and I LOVE LOVE LOVE you for that. It gives me more than a writing outlet, but some validation that I am being heard, or in this case, I guess, read. I get satisfaction from it, I will admit it, no matter how vain it may appear.

So then, I suppose that is all for now!
-L