blogging

it’s november


With titty concern month behind us, we turn our attention to the less nether regions of the male anatomy and steel ourselves for grocery store clerks to panhandle for

NaBloPoMo

Image by marymuses via Flickr

the prostate and endure local media celebrities’ attempts to grow facial hair in support of their other hairy area. Heavy, heavy sigh. And this on the heels of yet another study pointing out that cancer screenings for both breasts and prostates are not the panaceas they are touted to be. Not that anyone who’s done even the slightest bit of actual research or even paid attention to the fine print in the annual two month assaults press doesn’t already know.

But November is not just sweaty ball sacks and mustaches, it’s all a month of words. Lots and lots of them as the hobbyists and the real writers man up to their keyboards to pump out the volume. It’s quantity over quality month. NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo are back, baby. Worry about the polish in December and churn out those posts; pound out those daily word counts.

Because I haven’t enough real work to avoid, I decided – last night – to give NaBloPoMo another shot. They’ve found a new home at BlogHer though sadly not a better blogging tool.

BlogHer is even ponying up incentives like syndicating the worthy on the main site and handing out passes for BlogHer 12 in NYC next summer, providing the world hasn’t imploded before that as I hear the Greeks are looking nags in the mouth today.

So, check out my first day’s effort, and leave a comment. Comments are like gold stars and like most D-list bloggers, I get precious few of those. And if you are inclined, please click over and vote for this blog at the Top 25 Canadian Mom Blogs list. I am steadily dropping out of the top 10 due to lack of votes. I am annoyed enough with the constant vote whoring I have to do to not feel too honored with being nominated anymore. It’s like receiving a birthday gift that requires you to take up a hobby you wouldn’t have sought out on your own.

Oh, and happy All Soul’s Day. Decades ago in my Catholic school girl days, today would have found me bobbing up and down at an all school mass. I can’t recall if there are any rituals unique to the day. It’s not a throat blessing with candle-sticks sort of thing (which was disconcerting because Father stood up on the steps of the altar and it didn’t matter how tall you were, he still managed to jam the cross-section of the candles snug up to you throat and pinch your jaws til you choked). I do remember that most of my classmates had candy to share but not until after communion. God forbid that anyone take a wafer on a tongue coated with red dye number whatever.

It’s November. Grow a ‘stache. Feel up your balls or someone else’s. And then don’t forget to write about it.

Related articles

Get Out the Vote! … For Me


Can-vote-stub

Image via Wikipedia

Quite unexpectedly I received word informing me that I had been nominated for Circle of Moms, Top 25 Canadian Mom Blogs list. Having never been recognized by an actual award that wasn’t a product of someone’s considerable skill at badge making, I was stunned.

I am still stunned.

That people read me at all is a thrill that just never gets old. Ever.

To be nominated for blogging though surpasses that thrill, which is saying a lot.

Truth be told, I am still not all that comfortable with being known as a “mommy blogger”. My relationship with my uterus is ambivalent during the best of times, and there is a part of me that wishes the webosphere afforded me other options than leading with my womb. If you are mom and you blog – you are a mommy blogger. If you are a childless woman – you are a militant feminist blogger (which is kind of like being a cat lady only virtually). If you are over 55, well, you’ve ceased to matter regardless even in this projected reality where men pose as women and have more popular blogs than actual real women do.

The reality of these “topper most of the poppermost” lists roots itself firmly in our high school pasts when we voted for Prom Queens and courts or Student Council members based on their flawless looks, coolness and the perception that somehow the world could only be safe and orderly if we contributed willing to the rigid social caste system that enslaved us.

So one of the things a nominee must do is inspire the troops – and by troops I mean you, dear readers, to click on over and vote for me. Daily.

The rules are as follows: Only one vote per IP address daily and the voting is open until November 17th. I can’t vote for myself, but only because my husband has claimed the right to use our IP address to fanatically vote for me daily himself. Which is awesome and why he is the best husband ever.

Realistically, I know you all have lives and more important things to do than help me stuff a ballot box, and really, I doubt I can win, but I would like to avoid coming in last or worse, not making the Top 25 at all. If you could vote just once, right now, I would be very grateful. Just click this link. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Thanks! I’ll keep you posted on the results as they roll in.

Angry Birds Have Marked Me for Death


Alfred Hitchcock -

Image by pasma via Flickr

I am starting to feel like the Tippi Hedron character in Hitchcock’s The Birds because every time I go for a solo walk around our little hamlet, I get swooped on by maniac starlings and robins.

And I blame Rob. He shredded a robin last spring with the grill of the little truck. and a few days later, birds began suicide missions against our downstairs windows. I lost track of the number of stiff and reeking of revenge feathery carcasses needing to be disposed of, but the creepiest incident of all was this robin, who perched everywhere, peering into our windows. Every window I glanced out of, there it was. Like the crows on the playground at the Bodega Bay School.

Shortly after, I was targeted for eye plucking every time I took a walk.

At first, I thought “huh, weird”, and then I thought “omg it’s personal” because I was out with Dee, and they ignored her totally, which is good because I haven’t taught her the duck, cover your eyes and run bird attack safety awareness thing yet. I thought, incorrectly it appears, that “stop, drop and roll” might be more useful.

But now I am convinced I am on some avian hit list and when the flocking together feathered ones rise up – I’m going to be one of the first they make a pecked and shredded example of in the coming holocaust: