In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s been a lot more activity here on swirlspice since it relaunched a month ago. Partly because it’s nice to have the back end working so I can actually post stuff when I want to, partly because my spiffy new front end just makes it enjoyable to be here.

As much as I love swirlspice, it’s kind of set in its ways and the vague sense I’ve got of who reads me is that not everything I want to write about fits here. Or, conversely, if I published everything I had in my brain here, the range of topics would be too broad for a lot of folks. I’m trying to maintain some separation of “church” and “state” here. This is the chief reason why I started writing for Metblog.

That in mind, I’m announcing the launch of two new projects: cinna.mn and fresh.mn.

#1: cinna.mn
You may have already heard a little about cinna.mn from me. I soft launched it a few weeks ago (where by “soft launch” I mean I Twittered about it and mentioned it on Facebook).

I created cinna.mn primarily to be a place where I (and others) can talk about the sometimes strange experience of being a person of color in Minnesota. While the Twin Cities area is known for its schizophrenic progressiveness, the fact of the matter is it’s still pretty damn white here.

And while that’s a rather specific topic, it speaks to the broader subject of identity. I identify as a few different things that fall into the minority. As such it’s entirely likely that I will wander off into issues of LGBT experience; issues relevant to gays, people of color, and gay people of color beyond the confines of Minnesota; and other elements of who I am and where I’m from.

The funny thing is cinna.mn was kind of an afterthought. I was brainstorming domain names that end with .mn and Missy mentioned it and I just had to buy it because I liked it so much. I thought it could probably be about brown folks in Minnesota, and then when I sat down to actually write out the “About” the above is what came out. So it’s got a queer/people of color/Minnesota sensibility. I think you’ll find value in it if you identify with and/or are supportive of any one of those three groups. I’ve already had some conversations with other folks in said community and I think there will be a lot of exciting things coming up for cinna.mn soon.

[cinna.mn on the web] [@cinnamn on Twitter] [cinna.mn facebook group]

#2: fresh.mn
After 3.5 years or so of blogging and 2.5 years or so of captaining, I have decided to hang up my Metblog hat. My cityblogging efforts will continue at fresh.mn. I couldn’t give the cityblogging urge up, but I needed a place to call my own.

Metblog is in great hands with Greg, David, and Art. It’s not a big group, but they’ve been steady and reliable since March when David and Art came on board (or whenever that was). I have no doubt they’ll carry on just fine. They’ve been a great team and I’m pleased to have been a part of it.

I don’t have any specific plans for fresh.mn in the immediate future other than what you see there now and to continue doing what I’ve been doing at Metblog all along. It’s a strange paradox in that I have both more and less responsibility now. But I can do what I want with it. Or I can do nothing else at all. We’ll see what happens.

[fresh.mn on the web] [@freshmn on Twitter]

Related posts:

1. Obligatory Look Back at 2008
2. grok – Wikipedia
3. The Tinkering Continues
4. A New Deal for cinna.mn and fresh.mn
5. The Inquisition