A Year of Blogging Dangerously

$20,000 annual stipend, a brand new iMac, a pocket video camera. All of this in exchange for writing 500 innocuous words a week and occasionally handing out T-shirts and key chains at public events. Why not? I ask you, why not?!

My credit union is big on community. That's part of the reason it's my credit union. That, and they have free pomegranate lip balm in their lobby. I'll never have to buy lip balm again. Besides making sure that all of their customers have smooth, supple lips, they also have a series of blogs linked to their web page to foster this sense of community. Every couple of years they have a contest for their Mom blog. After circling it like a hyena for a year or so, I finally entered last year. Because why not?

Suffice it to say that I didn't get the gig. I didn't even make the first cut. They weren't looking for me. I submitted a post about potted plants; they were looking for potty training and wine at the end of the day. I have no talent for that sort of thing. So I decided that I would blog for free. Because why not? I didn't know anything about blogging. I read a few, wondered who their readers were and stumbled into BlogHer, where they were just gearing up for NaBloPoMo. I was amazed to discover that people actually would willingly read my stuff and share it with others. I was completely enchanted with all of these other people out there quietly doing what I wanted to do. I discovered some invaluable friends and have gotten so much feedback on my writing that I don't even know what to do with it.

I am a terrible blogger. I don't always respond to comments, I don't join blogging groups, I read posts all the time without commenting. I am sporadic and grumpy. I am not a networker, I barely understand social media and I chafe at the unwritten "rules" of it all. I am a terrible blogger, but I keep blogging. Because of you, of course. Because I read your words and I am inspired. Because I am thrilled with the knowledge of all these smart people thinking and writing it down. Because I feel connected to something larger than my own journals and notebooks and scribbled post-it notes.

I am a decent writer. Shall I tell you a story? I have written forever. I can't remember not writing. I can't remember a time when I didn't look around and make up stories in my head. I don't know what it would be like to look around a crowded room and not wonder what is happening inside the brains of others. Something happened, though. Some kind of message received through the garbled reception of my perception. Back when I was making the kinds of decisions that I was far too young to make and everyone tells you that it will affect the rest of your life, I decided that writing wasn't a "real job". I decided that I could keep my silly little hobby to myself. I decided that I must do something "useful", something "worthwhile". I had this nonstop Morse Code of negative bleeping through my brain: self-indulgent, waste of time, pipe dream, useless, immature, arrogant, self-involved, etc. And I believed it. And I went to college and got a semi-respectable degree in a field I enjoyed, but really only so much. I mostly enjoyed it because it facilitated the writing; it gave me fodder for the stories in my head.

A year ago, I decided to listen to myself for once and get serious about the writing. Not about the blogging; about the writing. There's a difference to me. Blogging is a means to an end for me. It is a space where I can make connections with other writers, explore ideas, try different writing exercises, etc. People blog for a lot of reasons. I had no clear idea what I was doing when I started. I just wanted to write every day. That has evolved over time. Most of my writing is now done off the blog. But I keep this going because I like the community. I like the lip balm in the lobby. There are Mommy blogs, DIY blogs, journalistic blogs, some read like a diary - thoughts for the day, current events, a place to gripe, to shine, to rejoice. Mine has never felt like any of those things. I have no pigeon-hole and I'm all right with that, mostly. But sometimes I feel like it makes my readers a bit uneasy.

I am a terrible blogger, but I'm a decent writer. I am writing, writing, writing when no one is looking and it is thriving. I am having some blogging growing pains. I am casting about for some direction. I don't want to give up the community, but sometimes the blogging is a distraction from the writing. I guess I'm trying to figure out what this blog wants to be when it grows up. If you're reading this now, then it's for you that I keep blogging.

What would you like to see?
What's working?
What isn't?

Be honest. I'm really asking. I am not fishing for compliments.

I Met Margi

I got my new cowboy boots in the mail today and it reminded me that I have yet to write about meeting Margi.

She was disappointed that I didn't blurt things at her. She should take it as a compliment, though. It means that I wasn't nervous and that I already considered her a friend when we sat down to chat. That's weird, right? I don't know. I'm not a twenty-first century baby. Margi and I talked about this. It's still a little weird for us to say we've made friends online. It's a hangover from the days when the Internet was only used by sweating nerdy folks in their basements - a command center of Radio Shack components teetering on leftover pizza boxes and a tangle of wires. Remember when Internet access was something that involved a series of swapping diskettes in and out and stretching a phone cord across the house? Don't call me. I'm online. You'll only get a busy signal. Whatever. If you don't remember that, it's OK. But that's why it's weird to meet people for the first time that you already kind of know and admit it. I am, in fact, a dirty old man. Everyone knows that. Now Margi has seen for herself. She didn't take a picture, so you will never be quite sure if I'm telling the truth about this.

I met the J-Half, too. He was polite and brief and had some work to do. He was carrying a mysterious black bag with headphones attached to it, so I'm pretty sure he's a spy. Margi told me about what they both do for a living, but I didn't understand. It's all right. I have a hard time explaining my job, too. Have you noticed how a lot of jobs are sort of nebulous? One of my very best friends has been extremely successful at her job for years and continues to get promotions and pay raises and goes on trips and everything. Every time I see her, I ask her what she does. She explains and I listen very carefully and think "This time I will remember." I still have no idea what she does. But sometimes she gets free espresso, so it must be fabulous.

Margi is just like her blog. She is witty, very smart - like, really smart - thoughtful, kind, and entertaining. Here's what you don't get from reading her blog, though: she smells good. I am envious of people who can smell good. Not an overpowering perfume, product-y kind of smell. Just... I don't know. This is getting weird. I don't mean it to be. I smell things, I can't help it. I wonder if she stank, would I have liked her as much? Her smell is irrelevant, really. It just struck me from time to time as we were sitting and talking: "Hey! I'm talking to Margi about things that I've always wanted to ask her about and I can smell her."

We talked about really everything. Politics, religion, kids, husbands, families, writing, grammar, depression, the Puyallup Fair, football, and my new cowboy boots. I didn't censor myself which would explain the lack of blurting. It's usually when I try to edit what I say that the weird things come flying out. I don't think she did, either. She and I come from fundamentally different backgrounds, we hold extremely different beliefs, but not really. This is the exciting part for me: I love talking to intelligent people who think about things instead of just reacting. Margi doesn't react. She listens, she thinks, she speaks with kindness and consideration, even when she disagrees. There should be more Margis. Seriously.

We talked about happiness. We talked about the ability to look around and say "I am truly happy," even when there is a beast of a dark cloud following us around sometimes. That's a valuable skill. We talked about blogging. We discussed why we do it, why we hate it, why we love it. Oddly, a lot of the reasons are the same even though our ultimate goals are very different. We talked about being able to say "I don't care what you think" while at the same time valuing the input of others. Margi likes words as much as I do. We read books and we write and we get ridiculously excited about ideas just for the sake of them.

We talked about so many things I can't remember them all. The time just flew by and all of a sudden I had to run out the door to pick up the monkeys from Running Club. I spent nearly all day talking to Margi and there still was not enough Margi in my day. I like this kind of thing. I like to leave before I'm finished. I like to have so much more to say and ask and hear. I like to miss talking to someone I just met for the first time ever. It is so much better than surreptitiously looking at my pocket watch and suppressing yawns.

Here's the deal: Margi is the genuine article. She's an incredible woman with so much to offer this world. She has a light heart and a deep impact. I never ever ever would have met her if it weren't for this bizarre blogging world. It's weird and it's wonderful and, as I discovered a few weeks ago, some of it is even real. I met Margi. And I'm so glad I did.

Gnaw Thyself

A while back, Masked Mom reviewed the movie, Catfish. So intrigued was I that I immediately reserved it at the library. I won't go into the details of the movie, you'll just have to watch it, but at it's heart, it's about who we are versus how we represent ourselves. It also explores the idea of online socializing, online personae and how these things can become tricky. This is part one of the worm that has been gnawing at the back of my brain.

A while back I had a discussion with a fellow blogger in which I tried to explain that because of the nature of blogging, there is a potentially wide gulf for misunderstanding between blogger and reader. My writing style tends to be somewhat intense and lends a feeling of intimacy with the reader. I have been accused of being manipulative and duplicitous because of this, but that is not ever the intention. I mostly write pictures of things, I paint a thought I want to explore, I want to draw the reader into that thought and swim around in it for a while. People write for a number of reasons, in infinitely different styles. This style just happens to be mine. I like the interior view and I'm not a very good storyteller, so there you have it. This is part two of the worm. Chomp chomp.

I'm reading Jonathan Lethem's Ecstasy of Influence right now. The book explores the relationship of the writer to his own writing, to the writing of others, to the art, music, and presence of others, to the writer's world, both interior and exterior and how all of these things influence each other almost inexplicably. One of the most fascinating ideas that keeps recurring throughout the book is the notion of what Lethem calls his "public avatar". He writes novels, essays, and articles, many of which contain personal information about him, about his childhood, about his life. One could conceivably sit down and piece together a timeline of his life based on his published work. One could also know how intensely he felt about different events and people throughout that timeline. He does interviews on television, on the radio, and in print. In many of these interviews he answers personal questions about himself. All of this lends fans the idea that they "know" Lethem. His reaction to compiling this public/private information about himself, from himself, is interesting. It is a separate Lethem. It is the Lethem that readers know. It is not the man himself. This is the end of that brain worm that is now crapping out this halting essay.

Where, exactly, in this whole mess is the Self? How often do we presume knowledge of another person based on scant evidence? What if the evidence is copious but not complete? Would the evidence ever be complete? I can confidently say that my husband knows me better than anyone else. One of the things that I have adored about him from the start is that I can be fully "myself" around him. I have maybe two or three other friends with whom I feel the same. I have plenty of friends with whom I feel comfortable and amiable, but I spare them the full disclosure. I have someone I consider a dear friend, whom I have never actually met in person. I am completely open and candid on a variety of subjects in our written communication, but there again, is it complete? Is it possible to know someone without having ever spent time in their physical presence? There are people in my life with whom I spent way too much time in person, but never really got to know who they were. There are several men that I've dated that never, ever even had the tiniest idea who I was. All of these people, however, see me in different lights. Their assessments of my characteristics would overlap to some degree, but would each paint slightly skewed pictures. If this makes me duplicitous and manipulative, then so be it. But I don't think I would be alone in wearing those descriptors.

Perhaps the Self is the person we, and we alone, know? Fair enough. But do you know anyone who seems to be completely deluded about their Self? A talkative person who says "I'm shy." An intense and tightly wound person who tells you that they are easy going? Who has made the errant perception? You or your friend? Are they perhaps privy to interior information to which you have no access? On the other hand, I have known several people throughout my lifetime who spent a great deal of time and energy telling people how wonderful they were. This is a behavior I find off-putting and strange, but in almost every case, people believed them. "Oh, So-and-So? She's wonderful." I have nearly bitten off my tongue to keep from asking "Why?" Is it just that this sort of person is better at PR? Or are they really as wonderful as they tell everyone they are and I just can't see it? Maybe it's just me, but I find the greater the dissonance between my perception of a person and what they say they are, the less I like them. In these types of situations, is it I or they who don't know that Self?

Is this whole concept of Self further muddied by our assorted profiles and online accounts? Blogging is a relatively new means of communication. It's less personal than an email, longer than a status update, and virtually limitless in its reach and subject matter. We post the pictures on Facebook of the days when everyone's smiling. We list the preferences and hobbies that we want. We expose only the dirty secrets that we feel like exposing, some not at all. We use screen names, acronyms, nicknames, pseudonyms. We tell stories, divulge information, give the impression of intimacy, but there's a difference, isn't there? For one, I think it would be pretty boring to look in on people's every move. "Going to the can now, probably should bring a magazine." We paint with broad brushstrokes the pictures we want others to see: for some it's a constant string of dramas, a litany of woes; for others it's the opposite - everything's great, the children are adorable and I never sweat. For most of us, it's something in between. Does all of this add another layer to the Self that didn't exist ten years ago? Or is it just a digitized facet of something that was already there?

I have no definitive answers to any of these questions, in case you were wondering. They've just been composting back in the waste heap of my brain and I throw the worms on when they come up and they gnaw away, turning it over and over, hopefully into something more viable. If I had to hazard a guess, I would suppose that the true Self lies somewhere in the middle of the perception gap. That if we took all of these varying accounts and lay them one over the other like overheads on a projector (remember those) that the picture that emerged would probably surprise us all. Maybe most of all, my Self.


This was written for GBE2's topic this week: Self

Guest Post: Why Do the Russians Want Big Melons?

Why Do the Russians Want Big Melons?

A Beginner’s Guide to Blogging Theory

First, an enormous thanks to the extraordinary Tangled Lou for allowing me to take over her blog for a day. I feel very much as if I have been given the keys to a vehicle much nicer than my own. Or moved in with a really nice, normal family and lived as one of them for a day. I will try very hard not to leave any dings in the exterior, Lou. Or any nail clippings in the family bedroom.

What I want to share with you all today is a Beginner’s Theory of Blogging. Blogging, like everything, has discrete stages which can be expressed as trite textbook psychobabble. I only personally know about four of them, so I may be projecting forward somewhat. However, I am sure what I have described are the obvious final stages.

The (Heretofore) Officially Accepted Stages of Blogging

1. Begin blogging because one vaguely recalls that once one was known to be a writer. Technology, it seems, now exists to project this writing onto the internet where other people can see it without one’s mailing it to each of them in the form of creepy anonymous letters like a serial killer.
2. Become thoroughly amused by oneself.
3. Learn, to one's utter amazement, that some acquaintances are also amused by one's writing. At this point, visions of quitting one's job and simply writing essays to amuse these people become prominent.
4. Discover something such as Blog Her, Facebook blogging groups, or Twitter that puts one in contact with other bloggers. As a result of activities there, start to develop a readership and community greater than one's acquaintance. This is the stage where one usually installs Google Analytics. (We'll discuss this later.) This stage is both exhilarating and profoundly humbling. One learns that one can be part of a community of writers without ever leaving the comfort of the underside of one's own cat. One also learns that there are a LOT of bloggers out there and many of them are quite good. All of them, seemingly, have a larger readership and much better lay-out on their blog. This can be depressing.
5. Do you remember that Bruce Springsteen video Dancing in the Dark, where at the climax of his stage performance, he reaches out a hand and lifts Courteney Cox onto the stage, alone among the throng of audience members at his show? I think success as a blogger is something like this. Bruce Springsteen is probably played by a publisher.
6. One writes books and continues to blog. At this point, the job is to be professionally awesome. A throng of tiny sparkling stars and singing bats accompany one wherever one goes.
7. Death. It comes for everyone.

Where, you ask, do big melons come into this? Well, here is how. (Don't be so impatient.) One of the primary quandaries of bloggers everywhere involves the results of their Google Analytics (see step 4 of The Officially Accepted Stages of Blogging). Here is a sample from my own:

One might wonder why people who Googled "dark life" were landing on my blog. Apparently, though, they are not finding what they want there and are quickly leaving, at the rate of 80% to continue their search for "dark life" on the internet. (The other 20%, apparently, are happy with what they find on my blog.) Even more concerning, a recent spike in my page views seems to have been explained by people who were searching for "Michele Pfeiffer's hairstyle" rather than a sudden increased interest in my writing. These things tend to obfuscate my sense of self as a writer.

Additionally, I am jealous because Tangled Lou's Analytics apparently show that people find her after Googling "sleek jowled" and "big melons", which is infinitely more interesting and less depressing than either Michele Pfeiffer or other results I have such as "dark horrifying woods".

A subject of some concern to many of us newbie bloggers has been the great interest we all generate among Russians. My husband, who is a Computer Person, says that all of our page views from Russia are due to the hub of Eastern European cyber crime. In other words, people are somehow using our blogs for nefarious means, and so I can't even emotionally own every one of those page views I work so hard for. Most of them, it turns out, are probably generated by searches for hairstyle tips and Russian spam-bots. 

All in all, I prefer then, to believe that we are a huge hit in Russia. Countless Russians are seated, as we speak, at their computers, happily Googling "Michele Pfeiffer in the horrifying woods" and "sleek jowled big melons" and then reading us post after post, commenting in broken English and laughing great belly laughs. Soon, one of them will come for each of us and, lifting us like brides out of the crush of bloggers, offer us handsome book deals.

Because we're THAT good.

Guest post by Tara Adams. Read her beautiful and dazzlingly funny blog at Faith In Ambiguity.

The Gift of Imperfection*

One of the things that has stuck with me from elementary school Social Studies - besides the rap about Andrew Jackson that my friend, Sara, and I wrote and performed for the class ("My name is JACKS-on from WAX-haw!") - is a little fact about a particular Native American tribe known for their intricately woven blankets. Apparently the master weavers would intentionally weave a mistake into each of their blankets so as not offend the gods by being "perfect". (Now that I'm thinking about it, I may have learned this from Antiques Roadshow. No, I couldn't possibly have. I think I've known this longer than that show has been on. I digress. I will continue this discussion with myself later.)

Anyway, this notion of the intentional mistake is something that has really appealed to me over the years. I point to this concept whenever I am confronted with my own knitting errata. Oh, that? I did that whole row of lace backwards because I wouldn't want to consider myself equal with the gods of knitting. It works for just about any sort of situation, actually. Burned dinner? Can't have the kitchen gods angry with you. Wedged your foot between the bus step and the curb and fell flat on your face? Gotta remind the public transportation gods that you know your place. Wore your shirt inside-out all day? Lettuce stuck in your teeth? Garlic breath of doom? The personal grooming gods are a vicious lot and you certainly don't want to mess with them by daring to be perfect.

I am, by nature, a bit of a perfectionist. Far from perfect, but a perfectionist. It's not the sort of perfectionism that drives me to keep a spotless house or match my socks to my underwear every day. I have a lot of hairs out of place and the whole grunge movement got their look from me. I have always wished I was that sort of perfectionist. The kind that looks good. But no. I am a perfectionist in the things that I believe (whether they were or not) were entrusted to me. If I make a commitment to do something, by golly, I will do it and I will do it right, and I will do it the best I've ever done it. Whether it's recycling or knitting or smoking or breastfeeding or walking to school or reducing my carbon footprint or folding laundry or making birthday cakes or folk dancing.  This serves me well most of the time. It's exhausting sometimes, but generally means that I get things done. It certainly helps with the whole parenting thing. And the spouse thing. The flip side of this, however, is the crushing self-inflicted guilt for not measuring up to my own, bizarre, somewhat randomly determined standards. The hubris of this whole way of life does not escape me.

So, if I.... well, let's just say... make a commitment to post on my blog for every single day in December and then the day after Christmas, decide that my time would be better spent playing board games with the monkeys and curling up on the couch with a giant burrito and the Chief Lou and watching Harry Potter instead of writing something, well, then there's a bit of personal hell to pay. The strange self-recrimination for skipping a day. For being "lazy". For failing on my commitment to... what? At about 11:57 last night I said "Oh no! I forgot to post today!" and the Chief Lou said "Oh well." He's good for me that way, you see. He reminds me that I don't have to go full bore charging into everything in the whole world and that I sometimes can just take a day off. And he can gently remind me with two words ("Oh well") that while he's proud of me for the whole blog thing, spending time goofing around with my family is not exactly failing at anything.

Neurotic perfectionist that I am, though, I thought I'd just let the blogging gods know that yesterday was my intentional mistake. It is my flaw in the blanket. Because heaven knows this whole blog thing is serious stuff. Can't be messing with the gods of blogging, making them think that you think you're one of them or something.

*A note on the title. There is also a book of the same title by Brene Brown. It's a pretty good pop-psychology read for those of us folks who drive everyone crazy trying to be perfect and failing at it. This post has very little to do with that book, but I thought I'd mention it in case someone stumbled upon this post by Googling the title and was confused. And if you're the person who Googled "sleek-jowled" and found me, please leave me a comment and explain how that all came about. 

Choose An Identity

This is not an actual photo of me.

In the movie, You've Got Mail, Tom Hanks has this voice over scene in a designer coffee chain where he's talking about the modern obsession with fancy coffees. It's been a long time since I've seen the movie (I was so disheartened when I got my hair cut like Meg Ryan's in that movie and instead of looking like the adorable girl next door, I kind of looked like Elvis Presley. I digress.) but he comes to the conclusion that our exacting coffee orders are a way for us to be someone. I'm not just some poor schlub waiting for overpriced coffee, I'm triple! nonfat! venti! cappuccino! (Incidentally, I am so not that. I am Double Tall Latte, should you ever be buying.) That scene never fails to crack me up because as my husband likes to say in his "Dr. Phil guest" voice: "It's funny because it's true."

As society becomes more homogenized, we find ways to delineate ourselves, stand apart a bit. In high school, I had a lot of friends that went to British schools and wore uniforms. The point behind the uniforms being that it is less disruptive socially to just have everyone wear the same thing. Except that even so, you could still tell who was "cool" and who was not. Things like whether or not you pulled up your socks, or how close to askew your tie was became status indicators. We can't help it. We're hierarchical animals. We seek out others who resemble us and we use tiny, sometimes trivial clues to identify our comrades.

I resist being pigeon-holed because I like to believe I am a unique snowflake. Not really. I resist it because I am claustrophobic. I believe it is unfair to boil people down to a few outstanding characteristics and think of them only in that way. I put off blogging for nearly a year because I had no idea how to fill out the profile information. I can put a list of my favorite activities: cooking, knitting, sewing, playing with my monkeys, long walks in the rain, listening to music, reading books, writing nonsense, stalking people, taking naps, learning intensely personal information about relative strangers; and it leaves a very incomplete picture. It actually paints a picture of some sort of deranged old lady. (Or old man, as the email spammers seem to believe I am. So many solicitations for golf memberships, penis enlargement and AARP memberships.) I also resisted the label "mommy blogger" because while I love being a mom (or Mama, never Mommy) it doesn't entirely define me - a fact for which I have fought hard these last seven or so years - and while I will write about my monkeys from time to time, that's not all I write about. The profile is like the turned down socks on the private school uniform - one look and you just know whether that's someone you'll be friends with or not. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

One of the many wonders of Facebook is that it is an opportunity to hear from people you would otherwise never have bothered to keep in touch with. You get to hear who had a crush on you twenty years ago, who used to be afraid of you, who thought you were fabulous way back when. It's kind of like bookends on all those old insecurities. But one of the most amazing things about some of these Facebook reconnections is that people I haven't heard from in decades will pop up and say "I always respected so-and-so about you" and they are things that are still pretty true today. It's that link to something other, something prior. I have friends that I keep around because they knew me before I donned the identities of wife, mother, contributor to society, adult, taxpayer, etc. And oddly, they still know me now.

After this month of blogging every day and connecting through BlogHer, I am once again amazed at the ready connections that people make. I have been stunned speechless (almost) that some of the things that have been rolling around my noodle have hit a nerve with other people. I have been surprised and delighted to find so many wonderful bloggers out there doing just what I do - just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. I don't even know a lot of their real names, I don't know what they really look like or where some of them live, but I know what we have in common.

One of my very best friends from college came about because we both ended up in the same coffee shop one night completely fed up with ourselves and the people around us. We went someplace quiet to talk for a few hours and that few hours turned into all night. It wasn't really until we watched the sunrise from my car that we remembered that we were actually two distinct humans of different genders and the awkwardness that can arise from that. But until then, we were just two sets of ideas, eager to share, our words being our only identifying characteristics, and the comfort and sweet release of honest, uninhibited communication. I've thought about that several times over the last month of "meeting" new bloggers and reading new blogs. It's that same meeting of ideas and experience without the complications of "real life" but somehow, real life seeps in and you get a far fuller picture of people than if you simply met them on the street.

I laugh every time I leave a comment on Blogger because it always instructs me to "Choose an Identity". It cracks me up because I did that ages ago. I could be anyone I wanted to on this little blog of mine, but over the last month, I've discovered that I can't be anyone except who I am. I'll enter my log-in name and my blog address, because I know that Blogger isn't really asking me an existential question any more than Facebook is really asking "What's on your mind?" (although I must admit to a certain amount of mischievous desire to create alternate identities just for fun). My mom always says "You can't hide who you really are for very long." A notion that's both scary and liberating. Even when we try to hide behind intellectualizing or humor or whatever, who we are leaks out between the cracks. So this intense month of daily posting is over for most of us (I signed on for December because I need external motivation sometimes) but my hope is that the connection continues. Stay tuned. There will be a lot more crazy leaking out through the cracks and if you're very careful, you just might catch some magic out of the corner of your eye.

I'd like to thank the Academy...

Wow... I can hardly believe it... I don't have a speech prepared... let me get out my glasses... [deep breath and shaky hands]... unbelievable... I don't want to leave anyone out... and so on.

Seriously, though. After a day of avoiding my blog like the lurking, oozing pile of nonsense that it is, I logged in to beat it down. (Once engaged in a steel cage grudge match, I'm not one to back off.) And what should find in my comment feed but some extra-special love. I am new to blogging, still getting used to the idea that other people even click this way. I still am amazed that people not only read, but take the time to comment. So imagine my gaping awe to discover that the lovely Nicole had tagged me with the Liebster Blog Award. "Thank you" doesn't even begin to cover it. Nicole said, "there's no money or trophy or free cookies, but at least you know I think you are great." I love money and cookies as much as the next guy, but having just ventured out on my wobbly Bambi legs to do this thing, knowing someone thinks I'm great is way better. It was the kick in the pants I have needed these last few days. Especially coming from Nicole, whose blog is magnificent.

Now it's my turn to honor some of my favorites. Here's how it works, it's the nice kind of chain letter:


'Liebster' is a German word meaning dearest, and the award is given to up-and-coming bloggers with less than 200 followers.

If you receive this award, here is how you continue spreading the love...

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

2. Reveal your top 5 blogs (with under 200 followers) and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3. Post the Award on your blog.

4. Enjoy the love of some of the most supportive people on the Internet.



So here are my current top 5:


Wait, first I want to take a second and say that when I started this whole blog thing, I felt like such an outsider. I still do in some ways, but I have found that fellow bloggers are some of the most interesting, encouraging people I have ever not actually met. OK, now my top 5:


Oh. One more thing, I apologize in advance if I seem all weird and gushy and kind of stalker-y. I just love to read what other people write and I am completely enamored of the idea of people out there just hanging out, doing their thing and being fabulous. Now, really, Top 5:


Southern Fried Children - Sassy and foul-mouthed and oh-so-funny. Also brutally honest and boy, can that girl tell a story. She comes in just under the 200 readers thing, but I think she should have millions more.


Masked Mom - and not just because she leaves me comment love. She is suuuuuch a good writer, has her finger right on the pulse of something very real and funny and smart. She is always a day ahead of me with posts I was thinking about writing and does them so much better, I just make lists instead.


Frazzled and Frumpy - whatever her blog's moniker may be, her writing is fresh and funny. I am fascinated by her big family and her ability to keep it all in perspective and remain mostly sane.


Columbibueno - Two words: amazing poetry. Even the comments she leaves are like little poems. She's got a gift for breathtaking imagery, both literary and visual, that make me want to throw out my pens and paper.


The M Half of the M-n-J Show - She writes about the random ephemera of life and that makes me happy. She's got this whole balancing act of simple and sweet, funny, timely, and interesting. And she can write fiction which makes me extremely jealous.


I'm thankful for my gentle, long-suffering readers. But most of all, I'm thankful for the other writers. The ones that inspire me and cheer me up and make me laugh and make me want to crush my fingers with a mallet and never write again.

Exploding Unmentionables: An Intensely Personal Book Review (Sort of)

 If you've ever given birth, you'll understand what they mean when they say "the urge to push". Urge is putting it mildly. There is no wondering whether, perhaps, you may or may not be ready to push. There is no weighing the consequences. There is no sense in telling you not to push. There is no worrying about what people will think of your pushing. There is nothing in the world to do except push.

David Foster Wallace's description of a work in progress: “a kind of hideously damaged infant that follows the writer around, forever crawling after the writer (dragging itself across the floors of restaurants where the writer’s trying to eat, appearing at the foot of the bed first thing in the morning, etc.), hideously defective, hydrocephalic and noseless and flipper-armed and incontinent and retarded and dribbling cerebro-spinal fluid out of its mouth as it mewls and blurbles and cries out to the writer, wanting love, wanting the very thing its hideousness guarantees it’ll get: the writer’s complete attention.”

There's no way to know what truckload of mental suitcases the reader brings to any bit of writing at any given time. As a compulsive writer and an avid reader, the most gratifying experience for me is when I read something that collides with me and has me screeching on the brakes and sending that mental baggage flying: exploding unmentionables in a colorful, embarrassing mess all over the place.

Mrs. Hagstrand was my 6th grade teacher. She was so beautiful to me with her flowing skirts, nubbly sweaters and thick ankles. She was Jewish, and therefore exotic in our small Vermont town. She wore chunky, ethnic jewelry and a sleek bob. I wanted so much to be her. I tried to dress like her, write like her, talk like her. I wanted so much for her to see the potential "her-ness" in me. I wrote a book of poems for a creative writing project. I barely remember the poems - a vague recollection of one about a unicorn - but I remember working and reworking them to make them sound just right. Earlier that year I had won a state-wide creative writing contest and had my story displayed outside the governor's office. Full of 11-year-old anxious excitement, I awaited my turn for a private conference for the teacher; for the praise of my latest literary endeavor. Shattered and sick to my stomach, I listened to her explain meter, rhyme scheme, feet, stanzas, all a blur of her red pen and the tears I tried to swallow. "Well Suzanne, I've seen you do a lot of things well, but this isn't one of them."

At some point, the diary I have kept since I was 6 years old became less a record of events and more a blank space for experimentation. Fragments of thoughts, poems, I'm sure a lot of angsty feelings, ideas about things outside my small existence, quotes from songs, books, conversations, magazine articles that resonated with me. I wrote frequently and abundantly, a place I could not only be wholly myself, but also to try out who I might want to be, how I might want to think. When I was 14, my whole family moved to China. Rather than fly out of New York or Montreal, we drove from Vermont to Los Angeles, stopping all across the country to say goodbye to family and friends along the way. A month in the minivan with my parents and siblings, drifting farther and farther away from my childhood home toward what might as well have been another planet. I kept myself busy with Aerosmith and my journal. My older brother kept himself busy reading my journal while I was asleep and repeating parts of it back in conversation while I was awake with a gentle, mocking smile.

The year I dropped out of college, my roommate and I spent all of our time in a coffee house. Writing and letting each other read it. We met some other aspiring writers (who wasn't an aspiring writer? Perhaps the aspiring rock stars?) and spent many a caffeine fueled night - bleary eyed, half-starved, electric - talking, writing, creating with the pretension that only 21-year-olds or established writers can pull off. That roommate remains one of my closest friends. In a recent email, she told me "Your words have kept me afloat this year."

I have the skeletons of short stories littered throughout my journals. Ideas I wanted to explore tangled and left to die in the brambles of poorly developed fictional characters, stilted dialogue, and broken plot lines. I stopped writing much because I didn't like to write fiction. I had stories to tell, but I wasn't famous enough for an autobiography, "important" enough for a memoir, but I got bored with fictionalizing it all. I started this blog as an outlet for that pent up writing. Every time I go to press "publish", my inner censor says: "Why are you publishing that? So much navel-gazing twaddle. Who would want to read that?"

In a prose creative writing class in college, my professor told me I could write tone very well. He told me I could make the reader really feel something, but that my plots went nowhere. I said wasn't it enough to make the reader feel? "Well no!" [pregnant pause in which his ruddy, jowled face seemed to reconsider] "No. No it's not." [quietly, as if to convince himself].

A few months ago, I said "screw it" and started this blog.

I read Reality Hunger: A Manifesto by David Shields when it first came out. I had never heard of him before but I read a review by accident as I was stuffing the newspaper into the wood stove and I was intrigued. In part, the book explores how the literary vehicle of the novel somewhat outmoded and tedious. Our current culture craves reality because it seems to be in such short supply. The literature we crave is the real or seemingly real. He speaks of elevating non-fiction from mere memoir or scholarly pursuit to the lyrical essay, the literary collage. I read it all in one night and couldn't sleep for the fire it started. A writer, a good writer, a published writer had defied genre and the literary world with this manifesto, this justification for my journals. It was as if, like my brother, he'd read my journals while I was sleeping and was repeating my thoughts back to me. Except instead of mocking, he returned my thoughts to me in this amazing, eloquent, intelligent, resonant collage. Serendipitously, he sent me a signed copy of the book which is now dog-eared, annotated, underlined and full of coffee stains. "For Suzanne - Good luck with your own writing - Glad to hear this book pushed you in interesting directions."

I went to hear him speak the other night at the library. I shook his hand afterward and told him thank you.
"Your book has liberated my writing. Thank you."
"You're welcome. You're the person I wrote that book for."

What If Wednesday

What if?
whisper slips
winking wordless
distant misty
dream shores.


What if?
screams
choked sobs
sweats
opens up the night.


Above is a cheery little poem fragment I've been working on for exactly a year today. I came across it in my journal and thought... what if? What if we play the What If Game today. If nothing else, it's an exercise in imagining alternate universes. Might come in handy if someone is writing a sci-fi novel this month. So here are a few that have been kicking around the noodle. Feel free to add your own. Feel free to provide answers if you have them, too.

There's a handsome devil

What if Florida had declared for Gore in 2000?

What if, like in a dream I had once, I had a small hand growing out of my left index finger that gave me advice?

What if the whole world simultaneously decided that Kim Kardashian has nothing to do with anything?

What if all my Facebook "friends" were actually all in the same room together?

What if my dad had gone to Canada instead of Viet Nam?

What if wishes really were horses? Can you imagine the smell?

What if I had married the first person who asked me?

What if I ate only bean nachos and sushi for the rest of my life?

What if my kids were horrible and annoying? Would I know? What if they really are and I just don't think so because I'm their mom?

What if suddenly there was no more electricity, ever? What would we all do?

What if someone actually read this blog and commented on it?

When Words Fail

Words are my medium. The ability to construct sentences and string them together and convey some sort of message is kinda my thing. Sometimes I'm quite good at it. It is often soothing for me to sit and write. My preferred method is good old journal and pen, but the computer works, too. I've been recording observations about people and life ever since I could hold a pencil. I can't really remember a time in my life without my journals. My silent friends that beckon, open leafed with blank pages for me to fill; or that sit patiently where I left them, never complaining if they're neglected. My empty space to let off fumes, make lists, think in ink, to doodle, rhyme, jot, scribble, store important scraps of other paper, to bleed. These reams of playgrounds for my words, where I can make them twist, jump, spin, climb the monkey bars and slide. But sometimes, as soon as I get to these magical play lands for words, the words just sit down and pout. They don'wanna come out and play! [Insert stomp and pout here]

I get pen-tied for any number of reasons, most of them mundane. Regardless of the cause, the effect is always the same. The words are swimming for their lives in all directions, just churning the murky waters of my brain. It's like a shipwreck in there. All screams and bobbing body parts and splinters. The lifeboat's gone mysteriously missing, so the only sensible thing to do is to let them all drown and then pick over the carcasses later for treasure. 

Today's one of those days. But it also happens to be Day 4 of NaBloPoMo and I'm determined to see this thing through. I've been rendered speechless today by the nattering of a thousand things that will not wait their turn for my attention. So while I wait for them all to settle down and stand still, I'll let the Brothers Avett do my talking for me. Those sweet boys from North Carolina hang out with me in all kinds of weather, but they really came through with flying colors on this otherwise gray day. Here's the song they sang for me a lot today. 

"Decide what to be and go be it."

The Deep End

I've been faffing around with the idea of a blog forever and today's the day. Just going to dive right in. I'm a mom, but not a "mommy-blogger". I am interested in just about everything in the world and things that don't exactly interest me, at least provide some sort of horrid fascination.

I am intrigued by public dialogue, especially the type generated in the semi-anonymous, fictitious world of the Internet. I'm a completely hypocritical Luddite. I believe too much of our life is governed by assorted technologies that remove us from interacting with our world, our work, and with other people.
But here I sit at my laptop, listening to my iPod. When I finish typing this, I'm going to check my library account and my bank account on line and send a few emails to the parents in my daughter's class. So, yeah, I see the inconsistency there and it fascinates me.

Before I chose to stay home with my monkeys, I worked in mental health. I still work in mental health, I just don't get paid for it anymore. I knit, I sew, I cook, I read voraciously, I dabble in gardening and writing, I camp, I hike, I spend a lot of time listening and watching. I choose to believe that most of life is pretty funny and enjoyable and even the parts that really suck can be useful.

So there's my sort-of resume. It's all a bunch of nonsense, really. We're not a list of interests or careers or books read or favorite things. We are all of us complex, contradictory, wildly erratic, insane, beautiful creations. We're made of the little things that make up our every day - the things that happen out of the corner of our eye.