Tonight I’m not so terribly inspired to say much. I’m still fighting B for back pain, though it is improving. I’m getting ready to put up an ad on our local craig’s list for a trainer, I think I need one to get me going –and someone who can keep me from hurting my back or ankle.
But The Blogging from A to Z Challenge has finally..inspired? forced? me to take a look at the deferred maintenance on the house of my blog. Not long ago my friend Sara at Serrabellum Digital Design revamped an old design purchased from a previous designer for my website. I’d previously done all my own designing and HTML work and it showed. I really enjoyed it though, my websites actually did resemble the collage boxes and shadowboxes that I make for friends. Â I might have to find a way to do that again.
ANYway…Reverb10 before it went poof, inspired me to make my blog more social media friendly and interactive. And I’m glad I did. I’ve met some wonderful folks on twitter–especially @mentalmosaic and @spacecitypaula who keep me writing even when I’m ready to crawl under the covers for the winter. And @jillsmo, @blogdangerously, @thebloggess and  and @schmutzie inspire me to be better. Not approaching that league yet though I can feel my actual voice getting ready to blurt, trumpet,sound off, peal or vomit forth? Yeah that.
Before Reverb10 Â really didn’t care too much about twitter. I’d tried it and had seen some excellent educational applications of it, but didn’t get the social aspect of it or the friend aspect of it, and now I do.
And with Blogging from A to Z Challenge I’m finally letting go of that blog design I loved so much but which was requiring constant hacking apart and re-piecing to work. So I became Determined to do something about it. It isn’t finished yet, but today I whittled my categories from 75 to under 35 I think and converted some to tags. I’ve got a new design–still needs some tweaking, wishing it was three paneled like my old one and I  need a few more header designs to rotate through. It doesn’t have the same Steampunk feel my old one did, but I now have nested comments without a hella lot of stichery and have removed livefyre which unbeknownst to me everyone hated (boy is my face red). I’m trying to be my own OpenID host and I’m working on getting the ‘logging with Facebook  and Twitter option working again. Because I really WANT to be a part of this lovely experiment. I’ve already picked up quite a few new reads,  maybe a new reader or two and have commented every night (though I will do more, I’ve been on back pain meds every night so this has been a bid of a struggle) on at least 5, I hope to improve that in the next while because seriously bunch of interesting folks involved in this one.
I will do my very best to return the comment love too! If you show me yours, I’ll certainly show you mine.
Ok, all that said–
The word for today is one of my favorites, not quite as obscure as previously.
D is for Dudgeon
http://www.forvo.com/word/dudgeon/ <—How to pronounce it
I love this word for several reasons.
1)I used to hate Victorian Literature until I didn’t. Seriously this is almost heresy for an English Major (that’s what my Master’s degree is in, even though I crack the whip on a phalanx of electronics daily) and I couldn’t stand anything except Charlotte Perkins Gillman and Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll and GB Shaw. Give me a good morality play or Breton Lai anytime.
And then probably 10 or so years ago I went mad for costume dramas and so then began to reread what irritated me in college and grad school. As long as I stay away from the more purple prose of Dickens and some of the Victorian poets I’m all about the social maneuvering, manners and fits of high dudgeon (see what I did there?) that make up these intricate stories.
2)It sounds remarkably close to dungeon, which makes me think of Halloween, which is when we got married and you know, our favorite holiday
3)It’s an underused word. I find as I get older and have spent (more? too much?) time on the Intertubes that the mannered speech and broad vocabulary of the Victorian’s pleases me. I know I so much enjoy listening to Max Raabe in between song snippets simple *because* he is so well spoken.
So the next time someone stomps out of the office or flounces off the national stage just think of them in a ‘high dudgeon” and at least for me, it makes it all better
~~comments are held for moderation, but not for long~~
You have done well. I’m taking a blogging class and I’ve done some of the same things you have. I still need to work on my overall blog design thought
I too am battling B for Backpain right now- need to drag myself to the gym and hit those weights soon 🙁
Thanks for stopping by at my blog, and I really love the word dungeon. Like you, I have been fascinated by the word since I was a kid.
Heya Jyllian!
Thanks for introducing me to such a fabulous word! I’ve witnessed a few episodes where it would apply at my job lately. Let’s see if I can work it into a sentence next week.
So bummed we didn’t get to meet IRL when you were in Dallas.
I’m loving your blog makeover, too.
I think it’s great you’re doing the A to Z challenge. I can’t seem to do much more than watch from the sidelines lately, but I hope to dive back into blogging fun here soon.
~Tui
Great to hear from you! This one is tough but fun. Tough because parts of life are in disarray but fun because of the focus it requires and the play with words. I appreciate the kind words about the makeover. I miss my old theme, but it wasn’t working anymore.