IT’S NONE SHORT OF AMAZING THAT MISS JO’S BEEN BLOGGING SIX MONTHS ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO, and that she now has the pleasure of writing a post in the New Year.
She never expected to make it this far w/ Miss Jo’s San Francisco, since her first motivation to blog was to stop her clueless Old Media whining and learn what this bloggy business is all about.
“Aren’t blogs just some kind of vanity press ?” Miss Jo once embarrassingly sniveled.
Whatever the case, she was certain her snarkiness would be justified
once she got her arms around blogging mechanics, search-engine optimizing and what’s driving all this self expression at the rate of 900,000 posts daily from among 133 million blogs worldwide, as tallied by Technorati in its most recent State of the Blogosphere.
As with most uninformed narratives, Miss Jo quickly learned she knew squat about blogs as she started tippy tapping post after post on things that struck her interest about living in San Francisco and her family.
(Her blog’s top four best-read posts in the last month deal with earthquake preparedness, Lolita fashions in Japantown, Day of the Dead in the Mission and SF’s elegant calla lilies.)
She looked to other bloggers in the City, and not surprisingly found camaraderie with I Live Here SF, which features locals who post about “their own San Francisco;” Indie Fashion and SF Style for SF street trends; whimsical Bikes in the City; photoblog SF Toasted; and the Tender Blog’s window into the Tenderloin’s rough streets, cultural melting pot and great cheap eats.
To stay abreast of SF’s municipal transport system that’s beset with accidents, fistfights and fare dodgers, Miss Jo now checks in with Muni Diaries, from which she is grateful to have gotten a heads up about this Sunday’s, Jan. 10, ninth annual Ride-BART-Without-Pants 
happening on the Pittsburg/Bay Point line, between 1-2 pm, brought to the City by NY-based Improv Everywhere. (Miss Jo will be gardening with her pants on, but glad to know like most San Franciscans that there’s a young funster, sartorial happening afoot.)
Her blog network of strangers also extends elsewhere, like on Long Island where working mom DG writes Diary of a Mad Bathroom, which keeps Miss Jo in stitches with reminisces about growing up with her likable gun-toting Uncle Ronnie or when she convinced the kids that their dad used to rap and she would style his bouffant hair.
Another favorite, DKZody, gives Miss Jo insight into working at an urban Fresno, Calif., high school with gangs and what life’s like in the state’s Central Valley. (DK is moving to SF and it’s already fun reading her take on the City.)
Rounding out her for-pleasure blog reading are sites by people Miss Jo knows. She’s been following posts by friends Eug and Chris trekking in Nepal with their three teenagers; sister Melissa B. who writes as the Scholastic Scribe 
about her familia and from the front lines of high school teaching; and Moo, Miss Jo’s 19-year-old niece Ella Dos and emerging photographer. For anything golf and to get the skinny on Tiger Woods, Miss Jo reads her BIL on Mr. Fairway.
At this point in her brief blogging career, and as a journalist whose income for 30 years has come solely from newspapers and magazines, Miss Jo’s amazed to find herself really digging her no-pay web gig, as well as following other blogs.
As an old newsie, Miss Jo reads new posts in the blogosphere as though they’re hot off the presses. The wonderful free-flowing, real-life expressiveness and connectedness conveyed in blogs makes top-down traditional media seem flat footed.
Blogs—Technorati calls them “the new arm of the Fourth Estate-- are also reviving the art of essay writing, as well as photo essays, which have been largely abandoned by papers and magazines in the last 20 years.
It’s all a lot of fun and endlessly interesting writing from a sticky laptop in a home office in Fog City. Thanks for reading and being part of Miss Jo’s network. Have a wonderful New Year and may all your dreams come true.
Sunrise over the East Bay and calla lily photos by Miss Jo
4 Comments
Happy birthday Miss Jo. Hope you had a wonderful day.
Thanks for mentioning our Nepal blog in your blog. I feel honored. I also enjoyed your story about your blogging life. I’m still new to it but must say that I get more and more into it. Happy blogging!
Eugenie
Thanks for the shout-out.
I got into blogging because it was suggested that I needed a web presence if I was going to attempt a life outside of the classroom. A short time ago, a very young person made the comment to me that he was impressed with the web presence I had. I nearly fainted. In less than three years I had accomplished what I set out to do. Same thing with the SF apartment.
Now, if I can only find another career after I wrap up this teaching thing. Who knows, maybe the blogging will help with that too.
Hey there, and Happy New Year! Thanks for the props, chica. The longer I blog, the more I learn about others…and myself!
You are so kind to give me a shout out on YOUR six month blogiversary!
I love the glimpse into my adopted city that your blog gives me. The blogging community certainly helps to make the giant world seem smaller.
Blogging is really fun and it’s great to see you and other professional writers (like Smacksy and Jennsylvania) taking up the torch. Makes the rest of us amateurs feel a little more legit. Thanks for upping our stock!