January's blog: this time this space
timethief
Happy new year! I'm starting it off
with a recommendation for a blog that will bring a
little light into your life: this time this
space.
Blogging goddess timethief tackles the issues,
including
gay rights,
population growth and
poverty in America. She also writes about her
personal struggles with depression and
fibromyalgia. But the ultimate focus of her
intelligent and informative blog is personal
development.
this time this space keeps readers’ interest with
posts on topics ranging from conscious
living to
dreaming to sexuality and many points in between. All
of this information comes in a clean, easy-to-read
package. In fact, the entire production is a
professional affair, with thoroughly researched,
well-written posts. On occasion timethief brings
in knowledgeable guest bloggers to broaden the
scope.
I first came across timethief on BlogCatalog
and my initial
impression still stands: here is a straightforward
woman who writes with kindness and political
acumen, who welcomes newbies with open arms and an
accepting heart. Her blogs – the other is
one cool
site,
which focuses on WordPress tips with many other
useful blogging-related articles tossed into the
mix – are there to help, whether it is by
smoothing the way to open minds or helping us to
create better blogs. Both are
must-reads.
December's blog: Inside Candy
— from Clarity, a poem by Candy Tothill
Candy Tothill of Inside Candy
I am officially jealous. Well, not
exactly jealous, just dumbstruck with admiration.
South African blogger Candy Tothill is a business
owner, a mother to three, and one hell of a writer
(who in her spare time is working on a
book).
Her blog, Inside
Candy, is
an enticing combination of poetry,
rant, and keen observation.
Candy’s writing is evocative. Her poems dance around
sadness and loss as she captures the elusive nature
of a moment or a fleeting thought, the glimpse into
someone else's window, a view into another way of
being. In between the poems, she mixes it up with
critiques on South African politics and thoughts
about life. And while there's a lot of
good stuff on her blog, she's written for
several
publications, too.
So, what are you waiting for? As Candy says, "Be not
afraid. It will only offend readers to whom life
itself is offensive."
November's blog: The Virtual Dime Museum
This month's featured blog,
the Virtual Dime
Museum,
is a shift from personal history --
October’s Melindaville
-- to popular
history, offering a change of pace for November.
The Virtual Dime Museum provides a peek at
advertisements, news stories, and sundry
entertainments from the mid-1800s into the early 20th
century. It is full of oddities and bizarre medical
concoctions, sideshows and haunted houses. Writer
Lidian, born and raised in New York City and now
living in Canada, has created an entertaining and
well-written three-ring circus of pop history,
Brooklyn and New York history, and Victorian pop
culture.
Whether it’s digging up an 1896 item about a skeleton hand found in Flatbush or profiling Victorian fascinations such as the animated bust, Lidian brings a sense of humor to the Virtual Dime Museum. Her interests in genealogy and history combined with her mad research and writing skills results in a diverting and dryly funny read. And if you like your pop history a little more recent, check out her other blog of kitsch and camp, Kitchen Retro.
October's blog: Melindaville
What could life be like after
recovery from hardcore drug addiction?
Today Melinda Roberts Tyler is a successful and
award-winning professor of psychology, happily
married to her soulmate, full of warmth and gratitude
for life. Over fifteen years ago, however, she was a
heroin and cocaine addict living on the streets of
San Francisco, at rock bottom with very little will
to live.
Melindaville
chronicles her
journey from hardcore addict to honors student and
professor. It is a fascinating, though often
harrowing, story. After moving to San Francisco to
pursue an acting career in the early 1980s,
Melinda gets involved in the burgeoning punk scene
and performs as part of the band Wild Women of
Borneo. Along the way she becomes an exotic dancer
and high-priced call girl, as well as demonstrates
an entrepreneurial spirit by starting “the world’s
first fantasy phone service,” Julie’s Hotline. As
her dependency on drugs intensifies, her life
begins to fall apart. It takes twelve years of
addiction before she begins to put it back
together again.
The blog contains excerpts from her memoir in
progress (working title: Lost and Found: A
Journey) as
well as consciousness-raising posts on the nature of
addiction as a health, not moral, issue, with
underlying causes and more sophisticated solutions
than “just say no.”
Melinda’s ultimate goal is to use the proceeds of her
eventual book sales to fund a foundation for sex
workers. Drug addiction and the sex industry are
intertwined. Many sex workers choose that path after
suffering childhoods of abuse. Maybe they start
working in the business to support an existing habit
or begin using just to get through the workday. Drugs
like heroin or cocaine provide compelling comfort in
a small package, a way to numb the pain of the past
and present.
Melinda plans to fund treatment and higher education
for these men and women who are so often invisible
and voiceless. I can think of no better
champion.