source: some chick named Jan Vermeer

I’m in the process of unsubscribing from a bunch of blogs that I used to read because when I subscribed to them I thought it was cool to read those blogs.   I was a beginning blogger, and they appealed to me and I became wistful and awestruck at how many people were in their comment sections, how wonderful every paragraph they wrote was, how cute their stock photos were, and how they were whisked away to conferences and given blogger goodies.

But then a bad thing happened and I started writing like those bloggers and my writing style (as you probably noticed) became bland and formulaic. But then I realized I can’t do fake, cloying, and overly self-important. And then I discovered actual good bloggers who didn’t write by blogging templates or Copyblogger rules, who wrote about real life in a way that was interesting, who made me want to find out more about them.

I don’t want to read about Generation Y anymore, and I don’t want to read about how to make money from my blog.  I don’t want to read formulaic copy about why women should have Roth IRAs.

I want to read stuff that teaches me more about the world and that makes me feel like I’m a part of your life. I want to read bloggers whose writing is so good that it encourages me to work on my turn of phrase.   Most importantly, I want to read bloggers that don’t feel the need to try and impress me by being pretentious and specious and getting more blog hits.

I want to read about girls that voluntarily work in the Emirates, people that describe life in Israel in a style that is uniquely theirs, about doctors that are also mothers, and  people that make me laugh and wish I’d written what they wrote.

And I want to be a writer who inspires this kind of desire.

Things I want to blog about but can’t because we still don’t have high-speed internet at our new apartment yet (hopefully by the end of tomorrow):

• The Air Force Memorial and how cool it is, especially since you can almost see it from our apartment:
• Ari Gold and how I want to be him
• Our potential trip to California
• Weird girls like Regina Spektor
• How depressing Stars on Ice is
• My mom’s lilac:

but for now, I remain wireless and WiFi-less yours,

V.

1. Shuttle Launch

I stalk/read Rubinary.com pretty frequently, because it’s cool to see how other Russian-speaking couples live and also blog about it. I always tell Mr. B that he should co-blog with me, but he always tells me that, if we’re going to blog together, he’ll just blog about his normal topics.  So I back down for the sake of your sanity.   Also, Mr. Rubinary has the same name as Mr. B.  Also, they take awesome photographs of their awesome apartment and I am very frequently jealous.  So, when I read their latest post, I couldn’t help but be extremely excited for them.   What I really want to commend them on, aside from wishing them a big mazal tov, is how methodical they are about the whole thing,

On the other hand we were planning it for a while now, and everything worked out almost as planned. During the Spring of 2009 we made a decision. We went to see a doctor to make sure everything is OK.

Seeing as Mr. B is also a Man of Science, Mom, I’d urge you to expect a similar process.  Like the shuttle launch, this stuff has to be done in sequence.  And, like the next shuttle launch, this process will be starting approximately never and demand more and more government funding.  Take that analogy as you will.

2.  The Olympics

I had no blogging topic today, so I outsourced it.  Because, remember, I am lazy.

And within minutes, I had help:

And,

So, thank you, Twitter, for making me even lazier.   Fortunately, I’ve already written about the topic, so I don’t even need to do that.

3. Elsewhere

On a more serious note, at Walrus, I am writing lots of nasty, nasty things about Russia, like why Russia hates its black community and how Moscow is a pretty crappy city.

Two quick things over at my other sites:  For Walrus, I reported on Kanat Saudabayev, Kazakhstan’s Secretary of State, at the Atlantic Council in DC.  It was really exciting, especially in light of the Kazakh movie I saw recently:

And, regarding the Blizzard of the Century, I went clinically insane.

Because, really, how many jigsaw puzzles can you put together in a day?  Also, don’t make fun of my cat hat.  I requested it to be made by my mom in 10th grade and you know what?  It’s amazing.

When I was in the third grade, I won a contest or got the best grade in some class-I don’t remember exactly.  All the other kids that won had gotten something like gift certificates to Pizza Hut or stickers, so I was excited to get the same.  Unfortunately, all I got was a book called Words of Stone with the words “Happy Holidays! from Mrs. Moyer,” my third grade teacher,written there.

I was really disappointed because  the book had no pictures and no stickers.  I felt really gypped and left it in my room.  A couple months later, I picked it up and read it straight through.

It scared me and fascinated me at the same time.  It was about a lonely little boy, Blaze, whose mom died of cancer several years ago, leading him to be secluded and to just play with his dad and his grandma.  One summer he started seeing his mom’s name, Reena, appear in stone formations in the field near his house.  The work is the doing of Joselle, who comes to stay near Blaze’s house at her grandmother’s after her mother abandons her.  Both are lonely and both form a common bond, although the friendship isn’t what is seems.  That book was one of the first that taught me it was ok to be weird, and about family structures different from my own.

Anyway, the point is that I obviously have treasured this book for a really long time and have picked up a couple of things from it, the most important of which is that Blaze’s grandma, Nova, says rabbit, rabbit, rabbit superstitiously every month, the first day of the month. I picked up the habit subconsciously and now am annoyed if I don’t say it on the first day of the month and expect not such a good month, even though it’s obviously a silly supersition.

Today, I forgot to say, “Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.”  Tonight while I was headed to the gym, I got into a car accident.

It wasn’t a big accident and only my left-hand side bumper was damaged, and no one in either of the cars was hurt, thank God.  But, combined with the cold, cold darkness of the the past couple months and the not saying of Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit, I am convinced that winter is out to get me.  As an economist, I know for a fact that correlation does not equal causation.  As someone who’s already been messed with, I am ready for April.