blogging

Who Can I Offend Today?


It seems my ranting about mammas who rant got me unfriended on Facebook. Between my pruning and my offensive nature, I will soon be left with just family and that is the realm of the truly uncool.

I think I must have slipped in a whole truth or two about family recently because my sister-in-law unfriended me too. Not the lousy one. The other one.

And in other social networking news, I have greatly annoyed an old high school chum who has grown up to be someone who would have made a great next door neighbor for my parents. Passionately to the right on nearly any topic you’d care to name. My feed must be an eyesore to this friend.

I rated a mention over at Ye Ole Widda Board the other day in the old timers quarters. A friend, thank goodness, who confessed to still peeking at my blog in her five year update. The goddess must have been smiling because no one noticed me and I wasn’t ridiculed or barbecued in absentia – though you can be perfectly present and roasted for the titillation of others while the multitude stands by as silent as collaborators. A recent perusal of the main forum there revealed another posse had run someone out-of-town. And good riddance to non-conforming grief too.

Mostly this week I have been memoir writing. A project that is sure to offend in-laws but possibly my own family too. In earlier drafts/attempts I tried to keep my point of view as non-committal as possible on the subject of those I didn’t care for or when I was recounting events where I was simply left to sink or swim, but in its current incarnation, my memoir is not holding back that much. I am not trying to be mean, but honest observation is sometimes painful.

So four chapters and probably closing to the point of having caught 20,000 words.

Yesterday was the chapter on Will’s final hours. It was ouchie to say the least possible. Another two chapters of widowhood, which won’t sting as much because I was mourning myself more than him rather early on in the process and then on to the rediscovery of joy, love and regrouping. Nicer though not always easy times.

Which brings me to something. While catching up with my bloggy friend as she shared what’s been going on in the last year, I noted that there were several other four and five year updates. So I read them too. It shouldn’t have surprised me but a senior widow or two managed to slip a snarky line in here and there because if there is one thing on the Ye Olde Widda Board that just don’t fly – it’s remarried widowed folk who grieve out loud. Maybe it’s jealousy. There are one or two I might comfortably accuse of that, but I think it is more that they just don’t want to know that there isn’t a magic pill that makes it all go away. They give lip service to the idea that grief is lifelong really, but they don’t really want to believe it. The remarrieds are proof that there is no “all better now”. Who wants that knowledge?

Today is a PD day at Dee’s school, so we are out and about having some of that quality time together I read about on the mommy blogs. Library, shopping for a new skating helmet and lunch with Rob.

TGIF, people!

Condescension


So a while ago now moms blogging in the great ‘sphere were offended by an ad that Motrin put out there that – really – wasn’t all that far off the mark if one has spent even the tiniest amount of their lives reading blogs written by mothers who deal primarily in motherhood.

This weekend Uma Thurman gears up to sell her new comedy called Motherhood which topically is about the totally hot ole “profession” of mommy blogging.

Will the fact that Uma is beautiful and sexy in spite of make up and wardrobe’s best attempts to frump her up by darkening her hair and making her wear really big clothing appease the fearsome lot who took on, and k.o’d Motrin ? Or will it feel like the condescension it sorta looks like? Because it looks like a rather cutesy dismissive pat on the fanny to me. You know, unappreciative of the gift of SAHMommyhood  Mom tries to boost her flagging self-esteem by creating a  precious little writing “career” via blogging, gets too wrapped up in the “business” of it all and comes crashing back to thanks to the epiphany laden grounding realization that motherhood is all – and that passion really does flow up from, and out of, one’s uterus.

Okay, now I am a bit offended.

It looks a bit Erma Bombeck to me. Erma Who? The mother of all mommy blogging. My mother had a copy of her book, The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Septic Tank. She’s to blame for this. Her and Dave Barry milking his family exploits via a column and then a sitcom. Pre-net one had to write on paper and run it past a publisher. Not like today when any woman looking to reclaim what motherhood has stolen from her show the world what mommies are made of can publish themselves. Which is why mommy blogging and this movie feel dated.

Dee watched the trailer with me and said,

“She’s a writer (Thurman) and you’re a writer. Is that just a movie?”

Think. Think. Think. So much wrong with this picture. Yes, it’s just a movie. I don’t write because of Dee. Writing, the actuality and the need, predates her by decades.

My guess is that mommy bloggers will not see the put down in this film but embrace it as some kind of homage. Comedy is not about paying homage. It’s purpose is to expose.

Saddle up, Motrin Moms? Probably not.

A Random Update


The paperwork from Care2 arrived in my inbox last evening, so after I fill them out and fax them back I will officially be a freelancer under contract. And then I need to get to work on my first couple of posts. I am considering the following: the effect of state budget cuts on the classroom, what parents think needs reforming and trying to coerce a union rep I know into giving me her take on the current mood in terms of reform in the coming lean years. Compelling, eh? Probably only to people in the industry, politicos and anyone with a kid still in the public education arena.

I am also charged with making comparisons between the Canadian and U.S. systems and I am going to look at online delivery and home school. The latter two are, in my opinion, done much better here. Oh, and I am going to explain the funding system in Alberta. It’s different.

Wow, I just reread what I wrote and I have a ton of work to do. Especially in light of the fact that I promise a live NaNoWriMo for November and I am working on memoir.

November will be chick lit, by the way. I have decided to tell the whole story of Julie and Walt. FYI.

Memoir has been keeping me from the blog this past bit. Not that the words aren’t flowing. They are drenching pages. Every chapter I have worked on has doubled its word count. But I am mining that painful year and a half from hospice through meeting Rob. It’s not pretty stuff and I was not a wonderful person and I have harsh assessments of myself, my family, his family and friends and the whole process that surrounds dying, death and the aftermath. I am also startling myself. The rear view is an interesting one and I am beginning to see why people were either put off by me or marveled at my fortitude. I can see too now that my way was the right way for me. The widely held notion that there are givens/milestones in the process cripples more people than it helps – but that is just my opinion.

I will be glad to get to the chapters on Rob and I. Not that there weren’t obstacles or that what we did was easy. I think people get the impression that ours is some kind of fairy tale ending. That we are anomalies. Not so. Relationships don’t spring up from magic beans. And contrary to popular (widowed person) opinion that new love distracts from grieving, it more often highlights it and forces you to give heed.

Anyway, I am working. A lot.