blogging

Just Updating a Bit


Since tomorrow is #fridayflash, I thought perhaps I should just bring all my dear and gentle readers up to date on the goings on in my life. It fascinates me that it interests you to be honest.

Rob is better, but there is concern that his condition will morph into something chronic that will lead to surgery down the line. There are steps that can be taken to lessen the risk, but it is not something over which he has total control which his Virgo nature is not at all down with.

Edie, number one daughter, is now dealing with a douchebag roommate too. He was at one time a favored candidate for romantic possibilities, but now he is merely a cat-napper who appears to be trying to stick her with the last month’s rent on the house they have been sharing this past year. He moved out several months ago to live with a young lady who, I believe, was married a whooping couple of months when she threw her husband over to chase down and bag Edie’s roommate – who is not quite the prize one would suspect him of being if he caused a married woman to such lustful idiocy.

The cat in question is one of the many descendants of our former cat, Bouncy. You might remember the story. She adopted us and moved her litter behind a stack of lumber by our garage. Bouncy proved too crazy for us to keep and we found a good home for her in the city. The woman who took her remarked that Bouncy reminded her of her own late mother. I think it was the eyes. Anyway, the kittens have gone on to have kittens who have always had kittens. Scuzzy Roommate absconded with one of the grandkittens much to Edie’s horror. She is now in negotiations to get it back.

I don’t like to remember the men I involved myself with when I was Edie’s age, but watching her and Mick remind me of the less than stellar choices. I wonder if that is par for the experiences of women who do not meet and marry in the late teens or early twenties. Perhaps.

On the writing front, Sundogged is proceeding at a slower clip but I like the direction. I also have a new idea for beginning the memoir and a published friend of mine has offered an introduction to her agent when I have something to present – which I am planning to have by summer’s end. I need only a proposal and the first three chapters based on my research and I have way more than that.

I am not going to Williamette. The plan was to drive and with Rob’s recent ailment a long road trip is not wise. Disappointing but there is a conference in Surrey in October I am considering now instead. But I haven’t checked the dates, it may conflict with yoga teacher training.

Yes, I am inches away from committing myself to a nine month course in the instruction of hatha. At the end I would be able to teach and there are more possibilities for that around here than one would think. Trollope advised writers to have a day job, but the thought of teaching teens unappeals on so many levels at this point in my life. My wise former English supervisor, Jerry Wadden, always recommended taking breaks from the classroom and changing grade levels frequently. I followed the latter advice but was never able to do the former. I like the idea of yoga. My yogina is on holiday but one of my other favorite instructors, Ani, filled in for her yesterday. I would so like to be able to do what she does.

Blogher begins tonight in Chicago. I am strangely torn about not being there despite knowing that in the pantheon of weblogs, I matter not at all.

So, between Dee’s swim lessons, sleep-overs and her birthday, the next days are full. Especially when one adds the continuing reno and purging, a trip to the city to unload things we don’t want on Mick in her new apartment (where she should be enjoying the solitude but is dealing with a barely wanted guest) and of course, writing – there is always the writing.

Tomorrow’s flash is fantasy based. I hope you will stop by to read and comment. Next week might be more Eubie Blake. I finally got a hold of a library copy of Pride, Prejudice and Zombies which might inspire me.

Mommy Blogging


I’ve been reading about the call to keyboard for authentic writing in the momosphere for the first week of August. It seems there are camps forming with two distinct themes. The one is that being courted by businesses with a variety of giveaway goodies for the purpose of honest assessment and word of blog publicity is a good thing for women who blog. The other side is decrying the takeover of real dialogue and community in favor of poorly written and arguably deceptive posts.

My eyes hurt from all the rolling.

Most of the commercial mom blogs I read, or have skimmed, are businesses. And there is nothing wrong with a blogger taking advantage of the commerciality of their work. The net is the last frontier as far as low cost start-ups go and more power to you if you can convince someone to pay you for doing something you enjoy.

But here is the problem I have. These women, as far as I can tell, aren’t getting paid. They are taking stuff. Maybe they sell it later on eBay to recoup expenses for their time and maybe not, but since when did “stuff” constitute a living? And when a blogger is willing (and plenty seem to be) to be compensated in goods what happens to the writers/bloggers who would rather have cash? I mean, not every mommy blogger has a daddy paycheck earner to take care of the pesky expenses, and last I heard, the people who hold your mortgage aren’t keen on barter.

Here’s the other thing that doesn’t compute for me. How are we a community, or cyber friends even, when you are writing to convince me to buy things. That’s almost as annoying as the friend who takes up Pampered Chef or Mary Kay or sex toy parties because now our friendship is threatened by an unspoken coersion that involves me feeling obligated to buy and you needing me to buy in order to maintain the flow of freebies and advertising. And now I am not a “dear reader” or a friend but rather a customer.

The bloggers at Momdot want moms to blog authentically for the first week of August. To just shut down the PR (it’s unclear to me if this includes all the ads in the sidebars which make pages load so slowly) and get back to basics. Which begs the question of what a mom is to do if she began blogging simply to milk the cash cow but that is a call for others to decide.

Some are not really down with this. They are proud of the businesses they have built and rightfully so. If you are blogging for profit and are good at it and your “friends” are totally cool with funding you, the fact that it is a quasi-ponzi scheme shouldn’t be an issue.

More and more I am uncomfortable in the momosphere – which, by the way, this space here is not part of – I have always been clear on the fact that I began blogging for me and it continues to be “all about me” which is probably too boring for most. And I am totally rethinking my connections with mom grogging because I am not allowed to be utterly me and write about women’s issues, wants, dreams, dilemmas, only some of which are mom-oriented. At my age, why should I care what companies think I need or should want? They are only interested in my money and will shill and wheedle and flatter their souls away to sell it to me. Their power? Lies in my willingness to buy and in someone else’s willingness to sell themselves cheaply enough to promote it to me.

I just don’t understand taking crap as payment – and if I have to dust, store, or pick it up and move it from one place to another – it’s crap. It’s like the white traders in the early days of North America buying land and goods from Native Americans with glass beads and cutlery. I don’t remember who wrote this, maybe it was Konrath, but the sincerest form of flattery for a writer, and I think blogging counts as writing, is a paycheck, and if you aren’t doing your bit to promote the idea of money as currency for writers then you are not a writer and you are hurting real writers with your posing. You are kind of like scabs who cross picket lines, under-cutting the common good for selfish gain. 

“But I am feeding my family!”

Really? With movie passes and WiiFit?

We (and when I say “we”, I mean “you”) will always be ghetto-ized as Mommybloggers so long as the majority of us are mesmerized by the sprinkles tossed our way like bootie shaped confetti decorating a table cloth at a baby shower. We will not be taken seriously as a group or a force. And the sad thing is – we (and by “we” I mean “all women”) would be a force if our more prominent members weren’t so content to be stereotypes.

Feels Like Summer Rambling Thoughts


Woke up yesterday morning to warm, sun, and what passes for humidity here, and I thought, “Summer?” The question mark is essential because Rob believes we are in for a non-summer this year. Great. Let’s punctuate that with a heaping of Swine flu when school starts up and snow before Halloween too, shall we?

I long ago lost my taste for blistering Iowa summers which draped a person in hot moist air like a towel in a steam room. Back in the late 90’s, when I was still very much on my own, I loved that kind of weather. I ran around all summer in cut-offs, bikini tops and halters, went to the pool every afternoon and took long runs in the evenings. A decadent lifestyle. 

Humidity now feels like someone is stuffing a wet towel down my throat while kneeling on my chest, and I have neither the figure for a bikini top nor the patience for kid infested afternoons at the local pool. And long runs? Not to my knees’ liking. 

Ten years. Where have you gone? And what have you done with me?

Monday was lazy. Dee and I went into town to run errands. One of them was taking deposit containers back to the Bottle Depot, a filthy, disgusting time suck of a chore. I may have mentioned that the family that runs the place have a relative notion about hours of operation. Although the sign says 10am to 4PM, open and close have a 20 to 30 minute give or take on both. Knowing this, I just did a drive by around 10:30 and found customers backed out on to the street. Off we went to run the other errands, which included fortifying Dee with take away lunch because I was sure we’d still end up sitting and waiting a good half hour when we tried the Bottle Depot again.

While we were at the grocery, Dee spied two Army light-armoured transports and wanted to go over and take a peek as the soldiers were clearly on lunch break. One invited her to climb aboard and check things out. She did. She loves heavy machinery and uniforms. Rob says this is how they begin their seduction of the youth.

As we walked away we discussed the fact that soldiers are the ones who “stand on guard for thee”. Dee takes this duty of all Canadians very seriously.

“I watch all the time except for when I blink and am asleep.”

When do we lose that? The first time we single issue vote?

Later, as we sat at the Bottle Depot (40 minutes), I watched the car ahead of me. A young man not too many years younger than the soldiers we saw earlier. Iron Maiden shirt. Camouflage shorts. Cigarette dangling from his lower lip and hauling box after bag out of this little Nissan, each filled with beer cans. I wonder if he still stands on guard for Canada?