What do I do when I’m up at 4:30 a.m. and my blog is not working? I do my best to figure out what’s going on. I get a post up, if I possibly can. I go through 583 Akismet spam to make sure no one I know has been eaten. Then I get my second cup of coffee and stare at my flat screen, sighing and wishing. It’s along time before I can do anything. I begin wondering whether I have hurt my blog’s feelings.

It’s off to IM Hsien Lei. She’s in the UK, so I know she’s up. She’s on the same network as I am, so I also know she has time to talk. Hsien and I trade comments of woe. We put together a few action plans and pass along a few emoticons. Then I ask, “Would you like to be today’s B.A.D. Blogger?” I say I’ve been meaning to ask. Hsien answers with an ethusiastical yes. I ask her whether she been following the series. She says, “You know I stalk you!.”

I laugh my way into my headset. This is an old friend who knows how to crack me up. Every time we talk there is always serious laughter involved.

As I write this, I look up our first comment shared on on record — November 9, 2004. Hsien had been blogging a whole year before that. I was a pup, only blogging a few months.

First we talked about being mothers of sons. It was surprising how weirdly alike the two boys are. Hsien said it was a comfort to know that hers might get to be 21 if mine did. I told the reasons I was glad I had son and not a daughter. She said what about having a son that was a little strange at first for her. We shared the idea of how having children was like growing up again only niw you’re on both sides of the issue. We also discussed the impact of gene pools.

Then our converation wandered. We talked about Google and people that we knew who worked there. I pointed to their tag like, “Do no evil.” I wondered what that meant.

Hsien talked about the uniforms people “put on” in their jobs. She was referring to how the work a person chooses defines more than just what they do. “When you are a lab scientist you put on that uniform; when you are a blogger you put on that unform.” She wasn’t saying that everyone was alike. She was saying that we have things in common, and do things insimilar ways. I was right there with her agreeing. Maybe that’s why we’ve been friends for so long.

We talked about the self-promoting nature of the blogosphere. We didn’t seem to think it was such a bad thing, though we saw instances where we both thought it went too far. That led us to remember times last year when things were more emotional. when life in the blogosphere had a more Wild, Wild, West feeling. I told her I thought of it as almost Shakepearian — some of the young men seemed to have taken on the junior-high girl parts.

There we were laughing again.

We talked for 1 hour and 46 minutes. Then the server was fixed. It was one time that I wished the server might have stayed down just a few minutes longer . . .

I guess Hsien knew that because a little while later, I received a video. It came with an email that said, “This is what I look like when I talk to you.”

She looks just as I imagined, only better if that’s possible.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

“You really know that the people who come, come to read what you write. If you don’t take advantage of that . . .” — Hsien Lei

Stop by Hsien’s Blog, Genetics and Heath, and say hi!

Thanks, Hsien, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar