Me and Xanga

The Xangans

In "What a tough crowd" (a couple of weeks ago) I asked if you recognized six Xangans--regular readers of this site. Well getting a speeding ticket on his way home from FSU is Zettonv. The guy who has a stab wound is Takunishi79. Someday, I hope to have a beer with this dude to see what THAT was all about. The chica who threatened to leave Xanga but didn't really is SleepingCutie. The tease. At least I did stayed away for a month (wink, wink, cool it guys...) Showing pics of her luau is Simply_Marie. Of course, they are not available by some quirk of fate. She has pulled what is called in our neck of the woods, a hamamoto. (Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to divulge details, but if you read my site regularly, as well as the sites of those who have been posting here since last November, you'd figure it out.) The guy reading the law book is SammyStorm, currently studying law--studying at the "bar" get it? Okay, okay, bad joke. But I have to do something to keep my spirits up after he left. The guy with the painting of a dog is our artist, ddsb2000. ddsb has his dog on his site at the top. Someone confused him with SammyStorm. If you went to Sammy's site, you would have realized that Sammy does not paint pictures of his dog. A look at his profile pic revealed that he IS the dog... or was the dog... Xanga and Me revisited: Personal Guidelines I have had the pleasure to have a number of new readers. Since I said I would leave Xanga--which lasted all of one month for this Xangaholic--47 new people have subscribed (this excludes anyone I knew previously); this is nearly a third of all subscribers. To what or to whom I owe this pleasure, I know not, but I am flattered, truly. In any event, I believe that I should, once again, outline my peculiar Xanga habits before some of you think I'm an asshole... Of course, I may be too late already, hahahahaha! Subscribing: I do not automatically subscribe to everyone who subscribes to me. I don't mean to seem rude or conceited, really. But honestly, I already have nearly 100 subscriptions myself, and adding to this list is scary. I still live in a 24/7 time continuum. But if you leave me a comment, chances are I will visit your site to return the favor, as some of you already realize. Leaving comments: I used to leave comments pretty regularly on sites I subscribe to. Many times, just a word or two to let them know that I've came by; others times, if the entry particularly moved me, I would comment at length, later regretting that I should have used it as my own entry, hahaha. I generally read subscribers on my Your Subscriptions page. I do this because some sites take time to load (usually because of music), others threaten me with pop-up ads (Chatter Box and Cool Sites counter are usually the cuplrits), and some have busy backgrounds and color schemes that are just plain impossible to read because of my visual handicap (I have really poor eyesight). Who can read grey text on blue background? Or purple text on an image? Sometimes the text is too small. As you might have figured out, I am not aging gracefully. Fortunately, the Your Subscriptions page puts all the texts in order with no pics or music on white background. Whew, fast to load and really easy to read! And I do read everyone I subscribe to. Unfortunately, due to the sheer number of subscriptions, I don't leave a comment on everyone's site all the time. I will skip an entry or two, and comment less and less on sites of those who don't comment on my site. It's not really a tit-for-tat situation, but I do believe that giving and getting are crucial components of any successful social relationship. And as odd as it may seem, Xanga is a kind of social setting where we can meet and interact with new people. Now, I know most of my subscribers only through Xanga, and if I told them, "Hey, I'm gonna be in New York or Tokyo or Chicago or Atlanta or Tallahassee or Monterey or Vancouver," they'd probably run and hide. But the relationships I do have with some of the regular commentors are fun, and this can be attributed to regular two-way feedback through which we have gotten to know each other. When it becomes one-way, when the dialogue turns into a monologue, it gets boring... There are those who have explicitly told me that they don't care to comment back and forth, that reading alone is fine; and of course, this is okay too. We all have different comfort levels and I will respect yours whenever I can... My Regulars: Since January, I have given and received coments from SammyStorm, SleepingCutie, Paikypoo, Bane_Vixen, and ddsb2000 frequently, during some stretches everyday. Its like saying "Hi" to a friend on the train everyday. To be honest, I feel lonely--even neglected-- when I don't get a comment from these guys. Of course, this is my hang up, not theirs. And please, Vixen, no comments of getting a REAL life. Hehehe. And there are many others I give and receive comments from on a regular basis since last year, incuding takunish79, japblkgrl, detachable, simply_marie, zettonv, mmh, BarbEric_bojo, nefarious_hatter, hattori_hanzo, SunJun, RieLin, the late hamamoto (no, he's no dead), fooky11, ca1b0y, No1watching, pallyatheart, KENSHIR0, Cboy918, SATO, and of course my students who I will not list. Hope I didn't forget anybody... I hope I get the opportunity to get to know some of you newer subscribers as well. Do you wanna get to know us, too?