Because Non-Blogging is Nothing like a Pair of Old Jeans

 

 

Sigh. My blog.

The blogging.

The overwhelming bloggity blogness of it all.

I have become the half-assed-est of bloggers.

What happened?

My blog has become like that favorite pair of jeans I’ve outgrown but refuse to donate to Goodwill because I’m convinced I’ll fit back in to them eventually. If I stick with that diet long enough, or commit to that fitness regimen I keep putting off because I always seem to have my period, I’ll be able to button those puppies right up. Never mind that the ankles are tapered or that the waist is too high or that they’re a weird shade of acid wash that will never ever be back in style again.

Once upon a time those jeans made my ass look spectacular.

Now they’re just a reminder of all the ways I’ve failed but could be better if only I could tap in to that hidden potential, if only my mommy had loved me more.

Oh those jeans…

Oh my blog.

What exactly am I talking about here?

I think I need to woman up and buy a pair of larger more flattering pants.

This metaphor is not exactly working the way I wanted it to.

Are you still with me?

How do you get past those angsty pants blogging blahs?

You’ll Barely Notice the Scars, Mostly Because it’s a Metaphor

 

When I was in the 7^th grade, I had chickenpox.

It kept me out of school for about a week. It would have kept me out for longer had I properly identified the tiny blisters that were erupting along my chest and neck. Instead I shrugged them off and continued riding the bus, attending my classes and inadvertently rubbing chickenpox juice on an unsuspecting junior high population.

The school’s outbreak was minor, but my recovery was maddening.

I had blistered on every conceivable inch of my body – my scalp, the bottoms of my feet, my armpits.

It was the longest, itchiest week of my short teenage life.

Returning to school after the quarantine was difficult, not just because of the visible scabs I attempted to conceal with dollops of fleshy colored makeup, but because the considerable absence made it strange.

The chattering in the halls, the assignments I’d missed, the familiar yet not faces, the dank smell of the cafeteria – it all felt so alien.

I’d just as soon have stopped going altogether.

But attendance is compulsory when you’re 13. And I’m glad it was.

I still had so many humiliations to endure, so much knowledge to absorb and summarily purge from my brain, so much angst to write terrible poetry about.

So, here I am, clutching my books to my chest, my face down as I enter the halls of blogging, hoping the smell of sloppy joes and tater tots doesn’t make me too nauseous as I make my way around, smiling and trying not to toss my cookies.

I’m no longer contagious, I swear.

Just try not to stare if you see me picking at my scabs.

Happy 2011 to you, blogosphere.

I may have missed you the teensiest bit.

I Went to Blogher and All I Brought You Was This Stupid Post

It wasn’t the flying I was afraid of, just the leaving. The anticipation almost killed me. I’d known for months I was going to NYC, yet I left all my shopping literally until the last minute, even as we drove to the airport I had to stop for something as obvious as luggage tags.

Part of my apprehension was that my identity, tied in so closely with my full time mom role, seemed impossible to extract. I was worried that perhaps it had shriveled up sometime after the delivery of my fourth baby, so that without my “Mommy” crutch I was just like that deflated post partum belly I had to tuck in to my granny panties for months after the birth.

My anxiety that early Thursday morning was a living, breathing entity. It was also contagious. On the drive to the airport, my seven year old threw up in to a plastic Target bag. This had to be a sign, I thought to myself, although what exactly it was pointing to, I couldn’t say. Vomit is open to interpretation. Had we been T-boned by an 18 wheeler, I might have had to relinquish my conference pass, but a little puke was mostly just inconvenient since I still had a flight to catch.

At the security check-in, I kissed the kids and husband good-bye through barely contained tears and shuffled my way barefoot through the metal detector.

Soon after that, I was fine. I was alone at an airport, waiting for my first ever flight and I was absolutely fine.

Getting on the plane. Taking off. Looking down at the ocean beneath us, then at nothing but atmosphere. I felt good. Flying was spectacular actually, while at the same time being completely ordinary. Watching TV, sitting among a group of detached strangers, listening to the hum of whatever propelled us, it was kind of like riding the bus, except it smelled better and they gave us snack food. Being suspended in midair didn’t bother me. Not a bit.

The whole experience of being in New York at Blogher was so many things I don’t know that I can really come up with a single coherent post about the experience. I’ve been struggling with the words for days. I don’t want to bog the internets down with a four day play by play. Surely by now everyone at Blogher along with their computer savvy Grannies have probably posted in graphic detail about being there. I don’t expect I have anything new to add, so I’ll pepper you with some of my impressions and hope I covered everything. I had about a million thoughts during those four buzzing days and an abundance of notebooks in which to jot them down, but of course I didn’t, so most of them have been lost to the ether, this is what was left behind.

• New York city smells. Not bad, necessarily, but walking down the streets of Manhattan, the wealth of competing odors was a little overwhelming. Meaty, roasting street foods mixed with exhaust and sweat and urine and garbage. One minute my appetite was intrigued, then I’d turn a corner and almost immediately want to wretch. I kind of loved it. Nausea and all.
  
• Having everything within walking distance was pretty amazing, the pace of the foot traffic, the teeming people. Initially it’s exciting. I knew my teenager would love it there and I told her as much, but by day four my calves hurt and I was sick of humanity (nothing personal) and crowded elevators. Seriously. I don’t want to see another elevator for at least a year. I’ll take the stairs…as long as something isn’t on like the 42^nd floor. I don’t hate elevators that much.
  
• I love my kids. I do. With every ounce of my being. But being without them for four days was bliss. I spend a majority of my waking moments herding children who bombard me with questions and requests. It’s my job, which I embrace with gusto (sort of). But holy mackerel jeezus, having only myself to worry about as I woke, showered, walked and ate in peace. PEACE? Was a life altering experience. Not that I’m going to pack my conveniently wheeled luggage and disappear again anytime soon, but some alone time does a psyche good, people. It really does.
  
• Being social is HARD. Probably not for everyone, but for me it was emotionally taxing. I loved meeting all the lovely women whose blogs I frequent and some which I didn’t. But by the end of the weekend I just kind of wanted to be somewhere where someone loved me best of all.
  
• Swag…Oh the rivers of swag. I walked in to this experience believing I was indifferent to the free wares being showered upon the conference attendees. I was wrong. Going in to the Mom Select expo at the Warwick hotel and receiving that first Webkinz was like becoming infected with a fever. That plush giraffe was gateway swag. After that I couldn’t get enough. We spent an entire day hoarding products, filling our recyclable bags, emptying them in our hotel room, then going back for more. We NEEDED more. How have I existed for so long without Play-doh scented cologne!? GAH! That purple Firefox tee is the epitome of cool, I will wear it ALL the time. Of course I need a travel cereal/milk container! I travel all the time, don’t I? I eat cereal, DON’T I?! The abundance of useless useful junk stuff actually had to be packed in boxes and shipped to ourselves via UPS because it would not fit in our luggage. We totally needed a swag intervention.
  
• I was also reminded over the course of the weekend that a party girl I am not. Dark rooms, crowded with rhythmically swaying bodies and loud music are decidedly not my thing. At some point during one of the late night celebrations, we retired to a dimly lit corner to assemble on the carpet and watch from the fringes. It was a little too much like being at a middle school dance for my taste and I bordered on sheer panic, but a slice of cake and a quick exit aided in me not completely losing my shit…The view from the carpet, you ask?

• The Good – Irish bartenders, Angelo’s Pizza, Bagels and Beans, MOMA, PB&J filled unicorn cakes, complimentary pedicures, creating condom wrapper jewelry, watching scantily clad women get flung off mechanical bulls.
  
• The Bad – pinky toe blisters, hotel pillows, closed subway lines, hobos that charge $$ for photos, unstable floor lamps, locked public restrooms.
  
• The Jury is Still Out On – taxi cabs, Matisse, airport restaurants, street meat.
  
• Some of the charming ladies I was lucky enough to make the acquaintance of: Keely, Jenni, Becky, Gretchen
  
• The delightful gals I clung to like a life raft: Andrea, Anne
  
• My supremely awesome roommate, conference partner, and wing-woman extraordinaire, who lived for making people uncomfortable at feminine hygiene displays: Casey
  

Would I do it again? Definitely. But it might take me a whole other year just to catch up on my sleep deficit.

Yawn.

Way to make me feel old, Blogher.

A Bloggy Play Date, a Wardrobe Malfunction, and a Rain Check

Holly and I had been meaning to meet up for months. We’re only a county apart and our boys are the same age, so it seemed the logical progression of a bloggy friendship.

We chose a nearby county park that sported a water playground in addition to the dry, mulchy kind, even though we were undecided as far as which type we were going to unleash our offspring upon. While I wasn’t thrilled about wedging myself in to last year’s swimsuit, I was able to acknowledge the fact that the climate of late almost dictated a chlorinated water setting.

It has been hot. HOT. Steamy even. Like a world sauna.

By the time I pulled in to the parking lot at 10:30, I knew I wasn’t going to survive the out of doors without routinely dousing myself in chilly water. That they had a waterslide for preschoolers was a bonus, I was perfectly prepared to just stand under a shower nozzle in my street clothes.

Luckily I brought a bathing suit.

After introductions were made and enthusiastic boy hugs swapped, we ushered everyone in to the ladies room to change. I dressed my three year old quickly while managing to keep his bare feet from making contact with the bathroom tile, then proceeded to cram slip into my tankini.

As I squeezed my arms and head through the shoulder straps, I heard a distinct snap and the sound of something plastic hitting the floor. I looked down to see a markedly familiar ring that had been split in half. I pulled my top the rest of the way down and noticed something was off. My left strap had flopped back over my shoulder leaving my front coverage oddly asymmetrical. The ring had been an integral part of my bathing suit, joining the back straps to the bust. It was the part that kept me from frightening young children and being banned from schools and playgrounds.

Crap. Double crap.

The minutes stretched on as my decrepit brain struggled to find a solution. Leaving didn’t seem like a viable answer, neither did standing by the water’s edge sweating while everyone else in our party splashed mockingly in my general direction. The straps weren’t long enough to tie one to the other, but they did have eyelets I could use to string them together. A shoelace might work. Maybe there was something useful in my purse.

Gum? No.

Pen? No.

Keys? Aha.

Not the keys specifically, but what they were joined together with…

I actually high fived myself in the stall.

If there hadn’t been a fidgety three year old next to me repeatedly flushing the toilet, I’m pretty sure I could’ve used the remaining contents of my purse to assemble a thermonuclear device.

Of course, Holly was impressed.

We celebrated by going down the waterslides and chasing down our children who kept wandering out of our sight line. Fun was had by all, until of course the lightning alarm went off, at which time we were given the option of leaving, or taking shelter under a palm tree or beach umbrella.

All signs pointed to “Go”. Including the boys, all three of which had reached their fun limit and were dipping dangerously in to the tired and hungry category, which everyone knows is only a blink away from the tantrum and give mom a migraine territory.

Nature knew what it was doing, almost striking us down with high powered electrical charges.

And we got free passes to come back.

You know, after I purchase a new bathing suit of course…

Fear of a Blank Page

This is me trying to bulldoze through my block, my bothersome blogging blight, if you prefer alliteration.

It started on a Tuesday two weeks ago. I was in a funk when I sat down at my keyboard, willing myself to write. Nothing came.

Nothing.

The impatient blinkblinkblink of the cursor. The stark white page staring me down, daring me, “write something, you coward.”

I wouldn’t.

At the time I felt that I couldn’t, but that would be a fallacy. Everything is a choice, isn’t it?

I didn’t want to. I’m not entirely sure why either. The long answer would probably sounds like so much psychobabble, more than I’m willing to explore in a single tenuous blog post.

The short answer is probably depression.

Also, my inner critic is somewhat of a psychopath.

“You suck,” it tells me, rather nonchalantly. “What you’re thinking about writing, is trash. It is simply not good enough, even in theory. Quit while you’re ahead, you nitwit.”

My inner critic frequently calls me a nitwit. It will then proceed to burn my thoughts in a steel drum, crap on the ashes, then laugh maniacally before disappearing to get itself a tall steaming latte.

It might pop back in to tell me I’m ugly or to note how my pant size is steadily increasing.

Jerk.

Every time I thought about writing, I didn’t.

There is always something else that needs to get done. Laundry, dishes, floors. Someone is always demanding my attention. It’s not like there was a glaring opening in my schedule that invited creativity. It was easy to busy myself with other things.

Sadly, not-writing is self perpetuating. The longer I stayed away, the easier it was. The less I ventured to create, the less I felt inspired to. Yet, it wasn’t like I was giving myself a break, there was always this anxiety. I missed writing. I needed to do it.

So, I’m doing it. For me. Because it actually makes me less crazy, if that’s possible.

I had a writing teacher tell me once, there is no such thing as a block. There is doing and not doing.

I’m doing.

But he didn’t say anything about doing it WELL.

Sigh. Stupid inner critic.

Like Mother Like Blogger

She wanted to get her feelings out, but diaries are so passé.

So she did what any other modern, 21st century, emotionally vulnerable teen girl would do. She started a blog.

Then proceeded to splatter the Internets with her tender guts, spewing her innermost feelings on a public forum for the whole wide world to access.

Of course nobody really knew it existed.

So she sent out a link.

To?

Cue the dramatic music.

None other than.

More dramatic music.

The object of her affection. The Busboy of her dreams. The kid who dominates a good 95% of her brain power and who of course was the only subject of said tortured blog post.

Her crush.

Who did not respond or give any clue that he’d read it.

If she’d asked me, as her mother, I’d have advised against it.

But she didn’t.

She asked a girl friend, via text, who after reading the post said, “Sure, do it, if you want to.” Teens can be so ambiguous.

Sigh.

She’d been obsessing ever since.

What would happen next? Would he read it? Wouldn’t he read it? Would he forward the link to 20 or 30 of his good buddies who would all share a good laugh at her expense?

Would the Earth ever stop its infernal spinning?

Wait, that’s not for another two years, right?

He must have read it, she told herself. Things were awkward between them. A new tension existed.

“So did you see the link I sent you,” she finally managed to ask, feigning nonchalance after a week of hand wringing.

Said the boy, “What link?”

Oh. The. Drama.

An Existential Dilemma

I’m in two places at once today.

I’m here.

And also HERE.

Because the undoubtedly cool Sprite’s Keeper, thought I was cool enough to blog sit for a day while she and the fam celebrated year’s end off the bloggy radar.

And while I’m THERE and here, I am also home with a suddenly nauseous six year old who is curled in to the fetal position on the sofa, barf bucket at the ready, although no spewing has taken place…yet.

So while I’m busy worrying myself in to a frenzy and possibly mopping up buckets of vomit, please head over to Sprite’s Keeper, I’m much funnier over there today than I am here. The me over there has no idea what’s waiting for her over here…

And in case I don’t see you before then -

Rhymes With Froggy Dump

It seems I’m in a bloggy slump. There’s no other way to describe it.

I don’t want to write.

I don’t want to read.

I don’t want to comment.

I don’t want to document my life in photographs hoping they’ll provide the perfect visual to my clever anecdote.

I’ve been struggling lately, suffering a kind of blogger’s crisis, an existential dilemma in blog terms. If a bowling ball strikes a pin in a crowded bowling alley and nobody blogs about it, does that mean I didn’t break 100?

It’s been a year since I started blogging. In May my blogoversary squeaked by unnoticed and I started to wonder why I was still doing it – contributing my own share of noise to the vast chattering empty, clinging greedily to every little comment nugget one of my posts generated, staying up for hours trying to keep up with my Google Reader.

Somewhere along the way, I think I lost my bloggy identity. Maybe it’s the pressure to produce, the pressure to participate, to join in and be funny and hope beyond hope that someone will notice, it’s taken away some of the fun of blogging for me. It’s become too much like work. Somewhere between now and then the fun got sucked out of blogging.

I think I need to take a step back.

It doesn’t mean I’m sliding off the bloggy radar, it just means that I need to examine my motivations and figure out what I really want to put out there instead of just adding to the noise, instead of just talking to hear myself talk.

In the meantime, maybe you could share your stories. I can’t be the only one who feels like they’ve lost their blogging mojo. So many people on my Reader seem to slip off the map. Do you know any? Are you one of them? How did you get the magic back? Reignite your bloggy spark?

Maybe there’s hope for me yet.

Summer’s Putting a Damper on My Blogging

My blog is getting cob-webby.

One week in to summer vacation and my fifth child is lost in the shuffle.

Ah yes, dear little Bloggy. Don’t worry, he can handle himself. I’ll visit with him later.

The blog is getting less attention than my dogs and that’s saying quite a bit.

We spent five out of seven days last week frolicking in the sun, baking poolside and seaside and letting the rest of the world fall away. For the most part, that is. I spent a good majority of that time counting heads and ensuring my little chickadees weren’t drowning like rats (which on occasion they actually were) but fun was had, that much is undeniable.

And in spite of our frequent sun-block slatherings we’re also sporting one helluva collective tan.

This morning, we’re off to the water playground to waste yet again another summer day.

I apologize for my absence. My Google Reader has been neglected along with my housekeeping, which means that I haven’t been getting to your blogs to comment and for that I’m truly sorry. The dog hair tumble weeds I’m less regretful about, since I completely blame the dogs for being so damn sheddy. But I promise to carve a hunk of time out for myself later today, when I can sit down uninterrupted to read as many of your posts as I can before exhaustion takes hold and I nod off, jaw agape with my laptop opened uselessly in my lap…oh yes, it does happen that way.

Like it never happens to you… 

Relocating

It’s weird.

Moving the blog doesn’t seem like a big deal compared to physically relocating – there’s a lot less packing involved, no heavy lifting, no sorting through my clutter to figure out what stays and what goes. But strangely enough I’m still struggling with it.

I’m out of my comfort zone.

Being the creature of habit that I am, diving in to unfamiliar territory is a little distressing. And this first WordPress post seems a daunting task. What do I say? Should I reintroduce myself? Should I explain my reasons for splitting with Today.com? Do I put out an elaborate spread of cheeses, crackers, and possibly some warm crab dip, in the hopes that readers will start trickling in, admire the decor, and strike up some relaxed conversation?

I’m at a loss.

For sure, I’ve got to let the kids out of their respective cardboard boxes, regardless of how happy they look in there.

For now, I’ll just say I am here, I am spreading the word about the new address, and I am waiting for someone to show up and make the party a little more interesting. To tell me I’m not alone, binging on crab dip and playing Trivial Pursuit all by myself.

At least my husband will be grateful he doesn’t actually have to paint the walls.