A Small Chance of Success

It's the worst when you haven't posted a damn thing for half a month and you log on to see people are still checking out your blog.  Oh, the guilt!  And thank you, as well, whomever you are.

I have a long list of things I've been thinking about writing up, but between being sick for two months, having some lovely oral surgery and planning my first trip to Seattle...  My head kind of hurts.  And then there's the I-haven't-written-in-so-many-days-that-it's-all-going-to-be-crap-now thing.  That does happen.  So, despite having only posted twice in the month of February, I have signed up LostGirls for the March NaBloPoMo on BlogHer.  I knew February might not turn out well for writing, but I don't want to get too far off track and I have enough in the works (with a little help from my friends) that I can actually promise some fun posts this month.

For The Thinnest Skin, a couple of my fabulous friends are having fun with nail polish and their iPhones so you will have some lovely pictures to check out with my post on Julep Nail Color (which we're obsessed with and have been for a few months now).

For Lost in DC, I'm examining all that I love and hate about the DC Metro Area while deciding whether or not I'll be leaving it for good.

For Uncrafty, I'm making the world's saddest crochet embellishments and hoping they'll get prettier as I go (there will certainly be pictures of that process to come).

And for LostGirls in general, this month's BlogHer NaBloPoMo theme couldn't be timelier:

So what is the NaBloPoMo theme of the month?

RISK

When was the last time you took a risk? I mean, honestly threw caution to the wind, said even a small chance of success was worth the possibility of failure, and took a big chance? If you can't remember the last time you took a risk, what are you waiting for? Don't you know that with great risks comes great rewards?

BlogHer Entrepreneurs conference happens March 21st and 22nd, so we thought we'd celebrate fierce, risk-taking women by making them the focus of our theme this month.

Obviously I'm not entirely unfamiliar with taking risks, having just moved to DC from California in 2011.  But part of the reason why we take risks is to get out of things that we know simply aren't working.  My situation here is certainly that.  It was a nice try and I don't regret having done it, but...well, I'll be writing a long post about that this week.  And Risk is something all of us here at LostGirls can sink our teeth into, so you will also be hearing from people here other than myself!

But let's start with today's prompt: "Do you think it's better to play it safe or take risks?"

In all honesty, there are appropriate times for each of those.  And only you can decide when those times are.  I think taking the risk to come to DC wasn't a bad choice overall, but I also see now how playing it safe for a few more months there and really figuring out where I wanted to end up might have been a wiser decision.  But a life without risk seems like no life at all to me.  If you don't take risks, large and small, you will be missing great opportunities.  Even those horrible mistakes that result from some risks are worth something.

The two times I've moved from the West Coast to the East Coast have turned out to be bummers, but I learned from both and those experiences definitely changed me in some very good ways.  I gained perspective that I didn't have before.  I grew up in some ways that were certainly needed.  I made new friends and had new experiences that I wouldn't have had if I'd stayed in California, where I grew up, surrounded by familiar surroundings and all my lovely long-time friends.  I don't like the idea of stagnating and it's one of those things that happens without you noticing!

My goal right now is to find a place to call home that I won't want to leave.  A place where I can spend the rest of my days without feeling like I'm suffocating in the sameness of it all.  Who among us is not looking for the right fit?  And how on earth could we find it without a little (or a lot of) risk?

Day 22: So THAT'S Why I Get So Much Spam...

Dontcha just hate it when you name something and then, only after it's fully established, realize that it has connotations you really don't want to be associated with?  I imagine it's something like putting that name you've been pondering on your newborn's birth certificate...the one where you combine a favorite female literary character and the Greek goddess of love...then saying it out loud for the first time and realizing...

 + =

What I'm trying to say is that I did not name this site after a novel that eroticizes childhood literary characters.  LostGirls isn't meant to contain any adult content, which is why I'm not even linking to the aforementioned book (the books listed at the beginning of this post range from travel memoir to true crime).  And while I also did not name it after the fabulous Syfy series, Lost Girl, (the person who told me about the show Lost Girl thought it was funny that my site has a similar name and I'd never seen it - Deb, it's your fault I'm now addicted), I'd mind that connection a lot less than one that gets my emails automatically sent to my friends' spam folders and seems to encourage spammers of a certain persuasion to attempt to contact me.  So let that be a lesson to you all - before you finalize the name, Google it.

Since we're on the subject, the name "LostGirls" was inspired by the Lost Boys in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan.  When I was little, I thought of them as a group of misfits who found family in each other.  Of course, I know that's not the whole story now, but I still like that idea.  I wanted LostGirls to be a place for women to belong, regardless of who or what or where we are.  To quote Meg's mom, Kath: "I think a hard lesson to learn is – blood doesn’t make you family – kindness, respect and love do."

Not Erotica.  Erotica does not make you family.  Just so we're clear.

Day 18: Magazine Addict (and a quick note)

      

The other night I was talking to a friend about my addiction to magazines and how I had to give it up due to lack of funds.  Another friend told me to check out Zite (thank you, by the way, Brendan).  Bad news first:  It is currently only available for iPhone, iPad and Android.  I have an Android phone, so I've been able to use it, but I would love to be able to see it on a regular computer, as well.  The good news:  For those of you who do have one or more of the listed devices, this is a fantastic app.  Zite is a personalized magazine on your device.  You download it for free, then choose topics that you prefer.  Once you have your first edition, you can vote up or vote down stories, based on your interest in them and Zite will keep that in mind when creating your future editions.

With so much information available online today, it’s increasingly difficult and time-consuming to find the content we want. That’s where Zite comes in. Zite evaluates millions of new stories every day, looking at the type of article, its key attributes and how it is shared across the web. Zite uses this information to match stories to your personal interests and then delivers them automatically to your iPad or iPhone.

Informative, funny or just bittersweet, below are some of the things I would have missed if it weren't for Zite.  Mostly because I feel too much of the time that I just don't have the time to sort through so much media.

Coming Soon: Fewer Pictures of Naked People at Our Nation's Airports (The Atlantic)

9 Reasons to Love Betty White at 91 (Esquire)

Leon Leyson Dies at 83, Youngest Survivor on Schindler's List (Los Angeles Times)

Watch: Paul Thomas Anderson's Pilot for 'The Jon Brion Show,' Featuring Elliott Smith (indieWIRE)

  

For those who don't have any compatible devices, StumbleUpon is similar and quite fantastic (you can also find me there, as JessDC).  I plan on using both, but since Zite works well with my phone and I'm not at home very often, it's a great app for me, personally.

And now a quick blog note:  I had previously mentioned that posts for Uncrafty, Lost in DC and The Thinnest Skin would be labeled as such in the post title.  Then, while driving back from Alexandria today, I started thinking about how incredibly long my post titles are going to be.  And then I remembered that, since I add the name of those sub-blogs to the Labels section, you can actually find posts for them at the top of the Labels widget.  And, to make it more convenient, I've moved Labels from the bottom to the right sidebar (below Archive, which was also revamped).  I hope this will end up being easier for all of us.