A somewhat goofy mini-collection of stuff I’ve been reading, stuff I’ve been thinking about and oh, some completely random crap.

Actually, I’m under the strict compulsion to write ten pages about anything on my mind. So this is me. Practicing brevity.

Selma and I are away in Monterey teaching our Destuckification Retreat* so we weren’t really on the internets that much. Luckily we always have a surplus of excellent things wanting to be Itemized.

And yes, I totally wrote this in advance.

Also, some of the Items (Item!) are kind of long because I had to make up for last week’s extra-brevity edition.

*Retreeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaat! Advaaaaaaaaaaaaaaance! Run awaaaaaaaaaaay!

Item! Post No. 51 in a series whose existence sometimes kind of gets on my nerves but I do it anyway because I really like shouting Item!

Item! Someone actually kind of understands what I do!

When your duck is famous, you tend to run into all sorts of stuff about yourself on the internet.

Some of it is sweet. Some of it is mean. Some of it is just bizarre.

But a lot of the time I get the sense that people kind of have no idea what my work is about. They’re describing bits of the elephant but it comes out all wrong.

Like people will say, “Havi is a social media expert who writes about communication” and then I want to go and cry, even though yeah, I do sometimes write about communication.

Whatever. As long as no one calls me a “thought leader” (eeeeeeeew), I’m mostly fine.

But you cannot even imagine how overjoyed I was to come across this post because this wonderful person figured out what I do.

“Here’s the thing. Havi talks about the hard and stuck stuff that keeps us spinning our wheels and driving ourselves crazy with negative self talk about what losers we feel like because we can’t make any headway with our thing or lack of a thing.

And she does it in a way that honors and respects the Hard without making you feel like a total, useless freak because you have a HARD and ARE stuck.”

Best Twitter name ever? @wulfshado.

Item! Doing it right on Etsy.

I like Etsy. I like having a way to support artists and fabulous craft-ey people of a variety of stripes while getting gorgeous hand-made things.

It’s where I buy presents for people. And where I get stuff for Hoppy House.

But I’m almost always wanting to rewrite people’s intro “about the store” paragraph.

So often it’s either not that interesting or it doesn’t make any reference to a website or a twitter stream. Which is important because I want a way to not forget about this person when I’m on Etsy.

This particular Etsy shop is called Fab Gabs Vintage and I love the way she introduces it:

“It was half-past one, and I was just thinking about the lunch counter when SHE walked in. Now I’m telling you, this dame was trouble.

“Detective,” she said “I’m looking for something.”

Right away, I knew I couldn’t help her. I pulled a business card out of my desk.

“Fabgabs.etsy.com” she read.

“That’s right. She’s a swell gal with all the dresses and hats and shoes you could ask for, she…” I suddenly realized I was talking to nobody. Trouble had walked right back out my door.

One if these days I’ll have to stop giving referrals.”

She’s @FabGabsVintage on Twitter and I didn’t even have to do any work to figure that out.

Item! Paypal horror story.

Okay, this hardly counts as an Item (Item!) because paypal horror stories are a dime a dozen.

But still.

A good reminder of why it’s useful to have more than one source of where the monies come from.

As much as I dislike every shopping cart software I’ve ever worked with, and as big a headache as it was to get my own merchant account a few years ago, still better than this:

“We had to add from our own money to pay the developers and now won’t see our money from it until end of May.

During one of my support calls I asked the “specialist” if there was any way I could have prevented my account from being limited because of the higher transaction rate.

For example, perhaps I could contact them and notify in advance of the upcoming sale. The answer was a definitive NO.”

Lovely.

Item! How to say stupid things about social media.

A wonderfully written post with a depressingly terrible comments section (avoid! avoid!).

It’s by Cory Doctorow (from Boing Boing) and I really appreciated it. And read the whole thing despite the fact that I generally avoid anything about social media. Other than, you know, social media. But reading about it. Ugh.

This was great though.

“Criticizing the “banality” of Facebook conversation is as trite and ignorant as criticising people who talk about the weather. There’s a reason we say “Did you sleep well?” at breakfast and “How was your weekend?” when we turn up to the office on Monday (and it’s not that we care about the weekend or the rest).”

He’s @doctorow on Twitter.

Item! Traveling Teeth Follow Rumors of Home…

“As the dentist examined my mouth, probing my gum line with the delicate precision of an ant in a sugar bowl, he said: ‘Your teeth are moving.’

I mumbled: ‘Mrrtgwoof?'”

Hiro talks about restlessness, wandering, patterns and the vibration of home. An excellent post.

She’s @HiroBoga on Twitter.

Item! Everything sounds better with of Doom on the end.

My friend Nathan pointed out that everybody loves things that are “of Doom!”

I have been testing this theory and ohmygosh he’s right.

Thai Food of Doom! Extreme Sex Toys of Doom! Broken Carburetors of Doom! Doomsday Signs of Doom!

Blooming Tulips of Doom! I forgot to take my Vitamins of Doom! I’m going to have a pint of the Stout of Doom!

Yup.

He’s @NathanBowers on Twitter and he was my first real Twitter friend. Ah, those were the days.

Item! Chaos, Entropy, Meet Cosmos.

Loved loved loved this post from Lisa Firke about her, uh, creative approach to filing.

“For my personal papers I used to keep just two file boxes, Chaos and Entropy, but I’ve recently thought of adding a third, Cosmos.”

Fascinating.

She’s @HitThoseKeys on Twitter and she’s awesome.

Item! Update from the land of the Peculiar & Hilarious Shivanauts!

The “peculiar and hilarious” thing comes from Melynda’s sweet bit about Butterfly Wishes.

New date for the next hey, ask me stuff about Dance of Shiva and maybe even dust off your DVD no-cost teleclass thing. You can leave questions in the comments and I’ll do what I can.

Item! Comments! Here’s what I want this time:

• Things you’re thinking about.
• What you think when you hear the words “Monarch butterfly grove” because ohmygod a Monarch butterfly grove.

My commitment.
I am committed to giving time and thought to the things that people say. Even though asking for what I want still feels awkward for me, I’m just going to remind myself that this is a thing I’m practicing.

That is all.

Happy reading.

And happy Blustery Windsday. Or a Balmy one. If you need one. I wouldn’t mind one. Because of the butterflies. Anyway. See you tomorrow.