Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Dude, uhm, What's Dooce?


This person here is the creative genius behind what, according to me, is one of the best postmodern sites I have encountered in my years as a cyberite and bloggie. Her name is Heather Armstrong and her site is called dooce. As a linguist, the first thing that grabbed my attention was her coinage 'dooce'. The explanation she provides is gripping both linguistically and culturally and I recommend you read it.
And for those who get the culture of the West, her style would make much sense.
I liked reading her posts and how she reads life in the West. Her style is humorous, a tad cynical yet poetic, and, most importantly, it feels candid and these are as good reasons as any to like reading her posts.

But what is it that makes this site so idiosyncratically enjoyable? Simply put, the creator knows how to marry personal narrative with general public interest. Couple that with humor and a genuine pop culture savoir faire and you have a winning site.

Even when she writes about her dog or her quotidian outings, one is bound to read with interest.

Yes, she is that good.
Thank you, dooce, for entertaining and informing me. Check her out here.
In the meantime, here is a snippet from one of her posts:
"I'm not sure what I want to do with the next hour of my life, or even the next ten minutes. I COULD DO ANYTHING. I mean, this whole process started three years ago, and it got really intense a year ago when the deadlines were written in ink on a contract, and since then every single minute of my life has been heavy with the thought of those deadlines. I felt guilty if I took five minutes to read a magazine because I should have been using those five minutes to write my book. I felt like I was walking around with a 500-pound llama sitting on my face, and it hadn't bathed in several weeks.

So I know it's not over, because this is when the work really begins, when my editor takes his red pen to the Word document and starts crossing out entire paragraphs and makes notes in the margin like, "YOU ARE DUMB," or, "SIT ON IT." But just making it this far was so thrilling that last night I turned to Jon and said, you know what? Tomorrow I'm going to take an entire hour and organize my sock drawer! AND I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO FEEL GUILTY ABOUT IT. That's how out of control I was."
graph per dooce

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

it looks really cool. western, you're right.

Anonymous said...

Ha. Her editorial reaction is brilliant.
Thx for the pointer, Bri.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, a friend sent me a link to her site once. I thought you'd dig her too....