Put simply, there is no replacing books.

Skimming the internet for information about the internet makes my brain explode. It's the end of the year so there are posts all over the place recapping the developments of 2008 and predicting 2009. I wish I had two brains so I could write about books/blogs/my dream development and the pace of innovation at the same time, but unfortunately I don't have two brains. I'm not being academic in these musings, either. All opinions are informed purely by experience and reaction.

One thing that makes books a great medium is the fact that they have beginnings. Not just a point at which they come into being, but honest-to-goodness, ground floor beginnings. Most books have no prerequisites before you open the front cover, no backstory, no need for familiarity with a particular industry or topic of knowledge. Such things help in many non-fiction instances, but books have the ability to start laying a foundation from page one and build on that foundation as it progresses.

In comparison, periodicals (blogs as well as magazines and newspapers) don't have that luxury. Each member of the audience has a different level of understandings of the topic at hand. Every item in a periodical has to take into account that the audience contains first time readers and loyal, well-informed readers. Depending on substance and style, this diversity of readership can be an issue of varying size; the more continuity involved in a publication, the more glaring the ignorance of a new reader.

I'm most aware of my own ignorance when reading a blog in which the author talks about their own life, and when I'm reading a magazine that might have had more useful tips in the previous issue. (The "relevant tips" bit crosses over into blogs, too, though a different sort, and the internet has archiving and search function.) I wish these things were more organized and linear.

Instead of a personal chef or trainer or shopper, I want a personal information curator that I can point towards a blog or two or four and have a distilled bundle of knowledge returned to me. I'd give it a link to memoir blogs like Waiter Rant and get back the full evolution of the idea, the voice, and the person; all the developmental highlights. I'd point this curator to Get Rich Slowly or Lifehacker or Wired and get all the strong posts from the past that weren't obsolete three months later, and also integrated versions of posts on those familiar topics that keep coming up over and over again. Best possible world: the comments would also be mined for data that supports or refutes the original post.

I've heard that if you subscribe to Cook's Illustrated long enough the content starts to repeat itself. The same thing happens with children's magazines (at least Cook's probably puts everything into different words!), and I wouldn't be surprised if original advice in magazines targeted towards writers get rarer over time.

Wouldn't it be more efficient for the readers if there was a starting point for all these publications? Then it would be my own choice to skim or read every word, but at least if I was feeling clueless it would be my own fault for not absorbing information. And the redundancy factor would be reduced, too.

No, it's probably not practical, but it seems like it could make my life easier.

I think the next great innovation for the web should be a system available to netizens at large to create something like.... well, basically "This Week In Your Pregnancy" for any topic. Essentially a book in which a chapter is delivered each day or each week. I don't want to embargo information, just let the timing of each delivery be customized to each subscriber.

Right now I'm gearing up to write about my experiences of being left behind while Reagan's at boot camp. It'd be nice to get a daily or weekly email with ideas and support for my situation, through which I'm reminded of my husband's progress and given a slew of ideas for what to do when he graduates at appropriate times. Like an advent calendar. For military wives.

Yes, my other blogging project, The Beginning, Boot, and Beyond, aims to be five parts memoir/journal and two parts ideas/advice for navigating all the "firsts" of being married to someone in the armed forces. "Aims" is a bit of a lofty word considering I've only posted twice so far, and am still mixing the cement that will become the blog's foundation. Ultimately, I want it to be something that can easily be read from the beginning, as the progression of this story intrigues me. Of course, it is my life, so I am a bit biased.



Reagan is my muse. Especially while he's sleeping*. It gives me a chance to consider him in both concrete and abstract ways. His body is here, a tangible reminder of his reality and of our relationship, but he is still, his mind journeying in the dream world.

Of course, as soon as I write anything like that, he takes a noisy breath and shifts in his sleep to get more comfortable.

This poem, like Geography, comes from the weary moments between preparing for bed and actually climbing between the covers, when my mind, full from a day of gathering information, is at its limits. I originally wrote this one a number of weeks ago while he was still working his retail job.

Nightshift

Spooning we will slumber
yet I don't hurry towards that time
as sleeping will obscure
your reailty from mine.

Though dawn is nearly breaking
I press my cheek against your skin,
listen to your breathing
and your heart beating within.

I wonder what you're dreaming,
hope to make the good parts true.
I sink to sleep, reluctantly,
knowing I'll wake--in dark--alone.

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* he might be better for poetic inspiration while he's asleep, but he's much more fun to hang out with while he's awake. :):) I'm going to ink a portion of that scannie (after I get a little rest) and prove it!