Sunday, August 05, 2007

mourning


I subscribe to blogs using Feedblitz, and get a daily email with links to all the new posts. Today's feed included one about insurance in Texas and I knew what it meant: One of the blogs I follow had closed up shop and a spammer had swooped in to claim the blog URL. This time it was Secret Brain.

Art had let us know this would happen and seemed at peace with it. I know most of us will probably not be blogging forever. If you look at the archives of most sex blogs, you'll see the ancient ones started in 2005. Most started last year or this year, so it's still a new thing.

There a just a few bloggers I have off-blog email relationships with, yet I feel some form of friendship, affection, lust, for a bunch more. Yet I am aware we really don't know each other. In most cases, we don't know each others' real names. But there is something very intimate about what we share on these blogs that leads to these feelings I have.

So when someone closes up shop, it's like losing a friend or loved one. I don't question the decision of those who, when they stop posting, take their blog down, although I hate to see those names stolen. I'd rather they did what Desireous did, maintaining the URL and making it private. Another option, although time-consuming, is to change every post to draft status. It just feels to me like someone moved into Art's house and kicked him out. But in the long run, it really doesn't matter. We all have our own lives, and we blog for a variety of reasons and find the blogs and bloggers we do to satisfy our own needs.

I just want to say thank you to Art for sharing his life, for supporting other bloggers with his knowledge and efforts, with best wishes for the future. And to the others -- perhaps some still lurking -- thanks for your openness, friendship, and in certain specific cases, for making me all hot and bothered.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

It would seem Kadish may be in order.

Anonymous said...

Yes, what you say is so very true. I've been doing it for over two years and I think my trick is that I take sabbaticals when the creative juices begin to fail. It was actually Art that sent me tips and tricks to do this.
I miss him and although that feeling of saying good-bye to a friend will happen again in the future I like to think that there are great sex bloggers out there on the sidelines just waiting for their turn.
;)

Fusion said...

Very well put Al, it is sad when someone you've had the chance to get and know leaves our little corner of the world, but that's life, and we all move on, hopefully to bigger and better things. I miss Art and his talent, but others will come and we will have new friends.