I started this blog in late-June 2009, two short weeks before I left to spend a year working in Singapore. I originally intended for this blog to be a means of updating my friends and family while I was abroad. The ups and downs of living in a foreign country also provided plenty of fodder for this space, though I’ve never executed the blogging bit all that well. I returned to the U.S. in July 2010 and began working in North Carolina the following month.
Since then, this has essentially become a blog about nothing. In the interest of not losing my job, I don’t write about what exactly I do. I have, on many occasions, mentioned how stressful my job can be. In this post, I recounted telling my interim boss that “this job blows!” Not exactly my most mature moment.
I chose this blog’s title based on a very superficial understanding of the flaneur, a persona I learned about in a college course on photography and the city (in fact, I think the course was called “Photography and the City”). The flaneur, as I remembered, was in the scene, in that he was depicted in a photograph, without being of the scene. He might be considered the projection of the viewer into the photograph, if that makes sense. He was the representation of the viewer, accounted for within the actual picture.
There is apparently a whole wealth of online literature about the flaneur. In no way did this literature inform or influence my blog’s title. What does verisimilitude matter to me? (Dear reader, that is the first time I have ever used “verisimilitude” in writing or speaking.) I didn’t even know that a flaneur is male until Pater Familias (my dad) pointed it out to me. Oops. (Would this be a good place to say my parents made me take Latin?)
I chose to identify as a flaneuse because I often feel like I am on the outside, even when I may be in the thick of whatever is going on. I like to observe my surroundings and don’t like to be the center of attention. I also like walking a lot, which somehow fit in with my idea of the flaneur/flaneuse.
I offer no wisdom here, but I do have plenty of ridiculous observations to share. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you’re not too disappointed.
