JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

Couldn’t resist posting this little piece tonight…

Around dinner time I checked Anita’s blog and saw that she would be on the radio tonight. My first thought was to try to get the girls in bed by showtime. (Ted’s in Seattle tonight at SeaJUG )

When I mentioned this to the girls, Abigail asked, “Can we listen to her?”

“Let’s have a pajama party!” declared Michaela.

So I got the girls through their baths and ready for bed by 8:30, when her interview was set to air. Michaela was upset that I hadn’t had time to put on my own pajamas. But we cuddled on the sofa under a blanket and listened to The Works on KUOW. It was a special treat, staying up past bedtime.

I don’t know if Anita already has a fan club: perhaps we added a few more members in our living room tonight! The girls even remember what color shirt Anita was wearing at the February Seattle Webloggers Meetup when we met her (blue) and described her as having “hair as long as Auntie Joy’s”!

Abigail, as is her nature, had plenty of questions, including trying to figure out how radio broadcasts work (“Why is it on tonight?…What time does Anita go to bed? What time do you go to bed?”).

It seemed to me that Anita got asked the “typical” blogger questions and she handled them well, with depth and thought.

To the question why do you blog/how did you get started?
Anita said it was to “complete the cycle”, after reading journals and blogs.

When asked what a blog is:
Anita said there was a continuum from “what you did all day” to a list of links: “most people’s are in between…”

The host did the diary under the pillow comparison (ugh, I don’t like that one!)
Anita replied “except that it’s public” and went on to compare blogs to fanzines and amateur publishing that was part of the culture decades ago (in the 30’s?).

To the concern about safety and security, Anita said that if bloggers are worried someone will find what they’ve written about them, “people have to realize…they will find it…you might as well count on it…people have lost their jobs.” She said that she posts “things that I would say to a friend or someone I just met. I put a lot and just don’t worry about it.”

When asked about her goals:
“to get as many readers as possible?”
Anita said she blogs “to have fun with it, to enjoy what I read, enjoy what I write.”

I appreciated her comment on comments: “If I don’t get comments I have to say, well, that’s what I wanted to talk about….” and maybe a post on another day might generate more interest…

Anita had a great reply too to the question of good versus bad blogs: “it’s not like television…it’s more like books in the library…there’s plenty of space for all.”

The next guest was the operator of DailyKos , Markos Moulitsas Zúniga. The kids were already a bit wiggly and noisy so I decided it was time to take them up to bed.

“Why did Anita only talk only a little bit?” was Abigail’s last question of the night. (I think she wanted to hear Anita talk longer – or maybe she just wanted to stay up later!)

I missed most of what Markos Moulitsas Zúniga said, but I caught his last statement…he was describing what it was like to be in the press box as a blogger at a Democratic convention in California last year.

A member of the media asked him “What’s your revenue?”

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga continued “I’m writing for the passion…I care about these issues…I’m doing this because I love to write…this has to be your motivation..there will be (only) a handful [of successful (popular) bloggers]…the vast majority aren’t…it’s a lot harder than it looks.”