I am a #RealAmericanBlogger

I am human. Sometimes I win, and sometimes I fail. I am a wife, mother, employee, friend, daughter, smartass, and writer.

I am a Heinz 57 of ancestral backgrounds. I have wide hips and thick legs and high cheekbones and round cheeks (either pair). I am not blond, blue-eyed, skinny, young, or looking to be.

I am a mother. I have the c-section pooch and the stretch marks to prove it. Oh, yes, and the natives. Mustn’t forget the children.

I’ve heard/read the word multiple times, but never cared enough to know what ‘chevron’ truly was, until this week.

I’ve never owned a maxi skirt. I don’t own a fedora. I get my beachy waves by wearing my hair knotted up in multiple ponytail holders, and then refusing to actually brush it.  

I do own a home in the suburbs. Nothing in it really matches. It’s never—and I mean NEVER – truly clean. I don’t own throw pillows. I do have a desk, but the children have stolen it from me for Minecraft, so the vast majority of my writing is done from my phone, with Siri’s help.

I like Pinterest, but mostly for funny shit, and many, many Doctor Who references. I love social media. I have found my tribe there. And I think the blogging community is wonderful—it’s witty and diverse and teaches me things I would otherwise not encounter.

I am a nerd, both academically and otherwise. I revel in the fact that I am raising nerds. We don’t take Easter pictures together dressed in our Spring best and with our manicured lawn in the background. We take pictures of one another playing Scrabble and participating in cosplay.

And I am a blogger. It’s not the only type of writing I do (not in the least). I have wrestled with the greater musings regarding our overall existence, and I’ve wrestled with what blogging means to me and to the blogging community. I do not fault anyone who wonders about it themselves, and seeks to find their place at the table.

I am, however, NOT represented by the new movie trailer for American Blogger, and that saddens me, deeply. It saddens me that so many of my tribe, my community (men, people of color, middle-aged of all types and sexes, nerd bloggers, humor bloggers, and all the rest) are not to be seen anywhere in that trailer. Because CHANGE is actually garnered when we show multiple perspectives and possibilities, not reinforce standing stereotypes.

I am a Real American Blogger. I know you are, too. I hope this helps you to understand why so many of us feel ignored. 

I wrote this post in response to the following trailer: 

New Gig, New Look, Renewed Blogging

I seriously thought about giving it up. 

2013 was a rough year, with my grandfather passing, my being ill, moving to our new house, and all the rest of that daily life which crops up. Most evenings, all I wanted to do was eat, collapse on the couch, and watch mindless television until I fell asleep. And yet…

Something was missing. That something was writing. I wasn’t in the head space to actually accomplish regular writing, but damn if I didn’t miss it.

So, for the last few weeks, I’ve pondered and considered and waffled and finally, picked myself up and decided to begin again. This, in the midst of others shutting down and stopping; Sprocket Ink, Schmutzie, and others you may or may not have heard about.

I’ll leave others to meander around the idea of whether blogging is dying. I’m still narcissistic enough to continue. Plus, there’s so much I still want to document. We have K in the house for about 18 more months, and I’m certain shenanigans will ensue as we visit schools and he fills out college applications. Plus, writing about it for you is much healthier than finding a corner and curling up in the fetal position to ride it out, I’m sure.

To that end, I thought it was time for a new, simple, clean look. Voila! I now have one. And while I cut down on many of my writing obligations, I also picked up a new one: Lefty Pop. A brand new site, in its first week, and my first post pops up today.  You should totally go and check them out. I even have a cute new button over on the right.

Later on, I will write more about how my endocrine system tried to kill me, and how I’ve given it a shockabuku. I will write about J’s nefarious plan to make me cook all the things. I’ll update you on Ant, aka, Ferdinand the Bull, and the second season of basketball. I’ll, of course, do some whining about winter weather. There’s much to talk about, but baby steps, baby steps.

I hope you’ll stick around for the ride.

Ramblings from THAT Place

I spend my days in that place right now—the place where I have a million ideas I want to write out, and no ability to actually write them. Whenever I’m on the roller-coaster of emotions this happens to me, and I like to think I’m not the only one; that many other authors have visited that place. Perhaps I’m lying to myself—perhaps it’s just me who goes to that place. 

The thoughts and story-lines fly through my mind so fast that I don’t even have the chance to jot them down in my journal. Instead of writing stories and blog posts and diary entries and book outlines, I write and rewrite the obituary, work emails apologizing for my delayed response, and bullet-point to-do lists filled with items that should each carry the ubiquitous “IF” in front of them.

If he’s alive tomorrow. If we’re not traveling back tomorrow. If I’m able to make it in to work tomorrow...

Dying is hard work. It’s hard work for the one who’s dying, and it’s hard work for the family surrounding and supporting them in their journey home. We are never left without something to be done. Sometimes I wonder if we, as a society, should talk about this more often—what dying is like; what is involved. Sometimes, I think I should write a book about it, but those thoughts lead me right back to my underlying frustration.

Plus, I don’t know who would actually read it. Those who have been through this before-- and would know the significance of placing those words on paper for the world to see-- are already in the know. They don’t need a book to tell them what they lived through. Those who have not witnessed this firsthand would have no reason to feel inclined to read it.

Digressions…

When I’m not trying to keep my head above water at work, and when I’m not coordinating new medicine schedules and updates from nurses and learning about comfort care, I’m keeping the house clean and the laundry going (let’s face it; it’s never actually ‘done’). Those are the worst times: when I’m washing dishes or folding laundry the thoughts race through my mind. I calm them by dreaming of taking two weeks off this summer for a writer’s retreat: just me, a hotel room in someplace that is not here, and room service. Do I want to be by the beach or do I want to be in the desert? Do I want to go to the mountains where’s it’s cool or someplace south, where it will be hot and sultry? I don’t know if it would matter, as long as I was holed up and doing nothing but writing. 

I know this will not last forever, and I’ve felt guilty for my selfishness many times in the past two months. My grandfather is not going to be here forever—hospice didn’t expect him to be here a week ago. The semester will end. The boys will be out of school. The house will sell and we’ll move to a house where J and I plan to spend the next eight to ten years. That house will finally have an office for me, and I—at the very least—will be able to escape there, on occasion.

And yet… I may not be the great American author, but writing is so very important to me. It’s a significant part of me. I realize I am not doing my best in other areas of my life if I deny myself this one outlet—it’s like I lose one dimension of myself, the whole framework becomes unstable, and the other dimensions of my life come crashing in to the finite point.

So, where is that place? What does it feel like? It feels as if I’m crossing over a barren land, searching for the source of the running water I swear I can hear in the distance. It feels like I’m lost in an overgrown corn field, looking for the end of the rows—just so I can get a glimpse of the horizon. It feels like I’m walking on a tightrope between two buildings, but I can no longer see the building I’m walking towards because of low-laying clouds. All I can keep doing is to keep walking, keep searching, keep balancing.

Photo Source

Photo Source

Photo Source

Self-Promotion is not my Strong Suit

I may not be good at it, but I’m going to give it a shot, nonetheless. I am going to pimp myself out for a moment. And I’m going to ask for your help. 

This picture of Wil Wheaton helps... Photo Source

Someone, please hold me.

J has been after me to take myself more seriously this year; as a writer, as an employee, as a person interested in learning everything I come across—in general, as a human being. I may not be big on resolutions, and I wouldn’t categorize J as being big on them, either, but what he keeps cramming down my earholes telling me is that this is my time now. This is the time for me to grow. This year, I need to make a leap.

So, I did something I would never consider doing before. I submitted some of my own work to the BlogHer13 Voices of the Year competition. And yes, this means I’m strongly considering attending this conference for the first time in my life. Please let me know if you would be willing to hide in the corners with me—I’d like to know I’ll meet some like-minded individuals, in person.

If you are so inclined, I would ask you to take a look at my submitted posts, and vote for them if you like them. If you are even further inclined, please feel free to share one or more post with your people, and ask them to vote as well. Even constructive criticism would be helpful; I’m currently in that place where one sits in the corner of their mind in the fetal position, wishing someone would tell them that this will all be okay, because they’ve put themselves out there in a very public way.

Here are the posts I submitted:

Head On

Prevention

On Strike

Common Ground

An Hour in the Life Of…

Now, I solemnly vow to not bug you relentlessly, begging for votes.  Also, I promise that upcoming posts will involve an update on my grandfather, a snapshot of Ant philosophizing while on pain medication for a sprained shoulder (no, sadly, I did not record it), and things that are, in general, much more worthy of reading.

Of course, if you have any BlogHer advice, this would be a great time to share it. Seriously. Chatting people up at conferences for work has never bothered me, but the idea of talking about my boring-old-self…

Observe. Interpret. Chronicle. Might I Add Repeat?

Over the past few months, whenever I needed to go back to the well, so to speak (God, I wish I still had well-water in my life—Jesse and I have decided that lead tasted wonderful and we were only marginally diminished), I’ve caught up on my Maynard James Keenan reading.

Yeah, you read that right. Not only does that man front some of my favorite bands and make a kick ass bottle of wine (and some pasta my husband is desperately trying to convince me to eat, STAT), but he also writes a column. Insert contented sigh of admiration and hero-worship here.

After we tried what J termed my ‘rock star wine’ (Caduceus: Anubis) and found it delicious, my husband looked squarely in my eyes and said, “Some people have too much talent stuffed into one body.” Don’t I wish I had that problem. Don’t we all?

Yeah, the other thing you’re reading right is that I have another hero-worship thing going on besides The Bloggess. Don’t judge. I excel at hero-worship. There’s more than enough to go around.

One of the little tidbits of reflection I read today brought the point I need brought home. I’d seen him allude to this line of thinking once during a concert, but the written word is more resonant for me. In the post he speaks of the time when the mundane and the creative were more closely aligned. He speaks of how important the creative was to each and every one of our ancestors. It allowed them to live. It allowed them to think of ways to survive the threats of their world. It allowed them to transmit their cultural knowledge to younger generations. They did this by using the three steps listed in the title of this post. They did not limit creativity, block off time for it, or create compartmentalized encampments in their mind between the ‘real things’ to be done and the creative things to be done.

I tend to be guilty of all of the above.

As of late, the creative has been lacking a bit in my life. Know what? My life has sucked a bit for the lack of it. Granted, yes, there’s been school shootings and elementary school lockdowns (Ant was in one this week; his report of the event is heartbreaking, and I cannot write about it yet) and broken furnaces and holiday retail hours and all the other crap that can drag a girl down… but I think the fact that creative time for Momma has dropped off the family calendar altogether has taken the largest toll. Hard to brainstorm around a broken furnace when your mind lives in this constant state of to-do list.

We’ve already established that Momma ain’t spending enough time on herself, now haven’t we? Although I’m happy to report that I broke the ugly UGG cycle and have lost the clip (the ponytail band is a bit harder to relinquish, but I did yesterday; today is second-day hair, and all bets are off) and even put on lipstick, just as Liz Taylor intended…

You can't see the lipstick here. Mainly because I've had
three cups of coffee at this point. And yes, that's a
legitimate SWEATER...

So there’s some movement there. I need to make sure there’s movement on the creative front as well.

I am a very fortunate woman. I have a supportive husband and older children capable of entertaining themselves and an amazing boss who demands we take the time off we need. I also have 16 days of vacation, starting today. There will be holiday machinations during this time off, to be sure, but there will also be days and days of unfilled time in which I can be creative to my heart’s content. I’m really looking forward to it.

At this time, I’m placing no limits on myself. I tend to do this. I tend to tell myself things like, “Well, you should at least catch up on laundry while you’re off” or “Why don’t you write several posts and schedule them?” or “Why are you even thinking of a new project? You have so many other things you’ve never finished!” No limits allowed this time around. I’ll do what strikes me when it strikes me, and if it appears in blog posts or short stories or finishing a project or just plain crafting, that’s fine. That’s what I am doing. It’s important work, after all—allowing the creative juices to flow, allowing the problem-solving channels to become unblocked, allowing serendipity to walk in and do its thing.