Barnmaven

Internet, I cringe

I must start by making one thing...no, TWO things clear:

1.  I am a half-assed copyeditor.  I type fast, and make typing errors that I very often don't catch until well after I've hit the "Publish Now" button.  Just one more reason I'll never be a "brand."  Sue me.  HOWEVER:  Typos are not spelling errors.

2.  When I rant about spelling & grammatical errors I'm not talking about your Facebook updates or personal emails.  I'm not even really that concerned about personal pages and blogs.  What sends me into apoplexy are the errors I find crawling through "professional" websites like ants at a picnic, the kind that seem to regularly make it past copyeditors on major internationally-read news sites and web magazines.  So unless you write for or copy edit for one of them you are not the subject of this post and I love you dearly even if you do murder the written word on a daily basis. 

 

I've considered making one day a week an official "Rant & Rave" day here at Barnmaven.com, but one of the many things I've discovered I lack as a blogger is the ability to maintain a regular (or coherent) schedule. 

If, however, today were Rant & Rave Monday, it would be the perfect day to talk about words and what they mean and how words that sound the same mean very different things and how important it is to your audience that you use words in the proper context.

I read once that avid readers make better spellers, since the frequency with which we see words naturally increases our familiarity with the proper spelling and meaning of them.  I can only apply this anecdotally to myself, since I fell in love with the printed word at the tender age of three and have only narrowly managed to escape reading my way into poverty by garnering incrementally better-paying employment every step of my career.  If I didn't make what I make today, books & horses would have me filing bankruptcy a thousand times a thousand (Except they don't let you file that often, in which case I'd just be sitting under a mountain of debt and scrounging family dinners out of restauarant garbage cans or begging for change on freeway off-ramps).

If the digital media outlets I read are any indicator, the proofreading and copyediting professions are dying a very painful and slow death.  Is it simply that the proliferation of written media has created an amplified venue for such errors, or is it an even worse situation in which the lack of professional editing creates a compounded situation where people read works with mistakes and proliferate those mistakes honestly because they trusted websites like The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal to present professionally written and edited articles?  I mean, if the WSJ can't spell "depository" correctly, can ANYONE?  Or when CNN's front page article says that "Conversationalists" aren't concerned about the environmental impact of golf balls in Loch Ness, should we  dismiss it with a "hey, its a mistake anyone can make"?  Sure, anyone can make that mistake; NOT everyone is writing headliness for one of the largest news outlets in the first world.

Is the deterioration of the ability to properly spell and to use words properly a natural phenomena?  Am I simply unwilling to let go of an art that was doomed from its infancy?  Maybe someone with a masters in linguistics could enlighten me, but until then, I vow to go down swinging.

Personally, I think that blogging itself and the mass proliferation of bloggers into media outlets has something to do with the problem.  Many legitimate news outlets have recognized the value and power of the blogger's voice; however many also seem to be taking a pass at doing more than eyeballing submissions for spelling and grammatical errors.  Hint:  Huffpo, if you want your writers to be taken seriously, help them with their words.  Please.  When one of your bloggers writes about the "hoards of visitors" that came to see her new baby, I don't think she meant that she's hoarding the people who came by and perhaps saving them for a rainy day.  I think you might have kindly told her that the word she was looking for was "hordes" and that one word is something that TLC has a regular show about and the other is the pillaging throng she probably thought she was referring to.

To another writer who was recently touched by a story in the news:  It didn't strike a 'cord' with you unless you meant it hit the thing you pull your drapes with.   The phrase you are reaching for is "struck a chord," because the metaphor is a musical reference.

And while I'm at it, Huffpo, please fire whoever is writing your front page top news story headlines.  They make you sound like the National Enquirer.  Half the time I wonder if you haven't been hacked by Anonymous and set up to sound like a third-rate gossip rag.

Writers, you really do have a reponsibility, if you are submitting work for consideration or writing because you are paid to, to ensure the clarity and accuracy of your words.  Don't assume the media outlet is going to do a good job of editing your work; if you want to come across to your audience as a professional and a subject matter expert, you only help yourself by making sure your work is correct in its substance and its form.  If you are not strong on spelling and grammar, do yourself a favor and hire a copyeditor who is.  Pay them a few bucks per piece to make you look and sound as good as you'd like to. 

What I do for a living, what I'm paid for, I must do well.  I was hired for my expertise and experience in my field, and the people who pay me expect me to be the subject matter expert in my skillset.  The same goes for those of you who make a living crafting with your words.  Writers in digital and print media not only carry the responsibility of producing good work; you have an additional and not-small task to be the arbiters of our language.  The words you produce will influence those who read them now and in the future.  You are either helping to preserve good spelling and form or you are helping to destroy them.

I remember being young and reading so many words I'd never heard spoken aloud.  On many occasions I would attempt to use them in conversation.  Sometimes I'd get laughed at, but I truly appreciated those who made the effort to correct me.  They saved me from much future embarassment.   In the same spirit, I leave comments when I can for those writers who have erred, not to embarass you, but to save you from imprecision; may you now go forth and do the same for others. 

 

Hello new header

I just adore this photo I took of Bugs and Penny the other day.  I had just put hay out for them and Penny decided she would eat with Bugs.  Bugs didn't really want to share, but he's become far more tolerant of her since the other horses moved out.  I stylized it a bit through the photo editor, and every time I looked at it I liked it even more.   I'd been thinking about revamping my header anyway, and with this image it seemed the right time to make a change.    Besides, I'm growing my hair out.  New look for me, new look for the blog. 

Finding a catchall phrase to include in the header was kind of tough.  Its difficult for me to categorize this blog.  The subjects that present themselves to my forebrain as writing topics are so disparate as to make pinpointing my "niche" nearly impossible.  I will never be a brand.  Its a good thing I don't blog for a living, we'd be living in a cardboard box under the overpass.   There are times recently that I've seriously considered quitting this venue and finding different outlets for my words, but like a lot of things I like to do, if I push them back into the realm of ideas rather than actions, I'm afraid they'll disappear.  This place forces me to find reasons to write, to find subjects to write about, to explore my life and my relationship with my life and the people in it.  In doing so I find patterns and solutions.  Besides, spring isn't the right time to lay this to rest.

Life seems more hopeful at certain times of the year, and this is one of them.  As the daylight extends its dominant hours and the winds begin to blow more warm than cold I find my mood and outlook improve greatly.  Everything is possible, and things that once seemed mired in quicksand seem to present solutions.  I have more energy.   In spring I fall back in love with everything.  Including blogging, apparently.

Its really just narcissistic navel-gazing, this thing.  Oh, its also the chance to complain or gloat in public, the opportunity to vent to a wider audience about your currently malfunctioning appliances in hopes someone will toss you a sponsorship, a platform to maybe get a post that trends and gets picked up by an outlet with a broader platform and increase your internet fame.  Its also exhausting sometimes to decide what you can and can't write about or to pick up the relationship pieces after you've said something publicly that can't now be taken back.  You can pick every word carefully but just like in real life --eventually you'll say something you regret.  With any luck, more often than not, you write things you can be proud of, things you hope people will read and think about, things that do more good than harm.

Its not like a fancy header will do anything to improve the quality of the writing, but hopefully it enhances the viewing experience.

Happy almost spring!

 

Knowing what to say

If you can explain to me why I am having such trouble writing lately I will give you a prize.  It would be an ephemeral prize in the form of gratitude, but it would be a really great big mess of gratitude.

I keep starting drafts of posts and abandoning them.  I have all these thoughts rolling around in my head.  I write great long pieces in my head in the car on the way to work and then forget them by the time I get home at night.  There's so much going on right now - a big project at work that came to fruition last week, SG starting work, new therapy and challenges with the boy, dealing with an 11 year old who by all known measures has begun her teen years early, integrating a new dog and a new kitten into the mess of insane that is our household...we really are gluttons for punishment and there's no way I know how to be any different.

I have been feeling ambivalent lately about writing about ...anything.

Autism.  I feel often that I am completely out of my league when it comes to autism in general.  My son, I know him.  When I look at him and listen to him I don't really think about autism, I just think about him.  I find myself caught up in avoiding thinking about autism entirely.  I never wanted to be part of a movement of parents advocating for their kids -- I just wanted to be  a parent.  Some of my online network of parents blow me away on a regular basis with the articulate and passionate way they write about their children and autism.  When one asks for advice on any particular matter the responses are wise and thoughtful and show just how much these moms and dads have immersed themselves in the pool of autism knowledge.   I feel like I know absolute shit about autism.  And even worse, there are times I just wish it would go away.  I want to just enjoy my son and let him teach me the ways he needs me to help him navigate the world.  On a daily basis, though, I get snapped back to reality by a phone call, a meltdown, a sensory struggle or a particular behavior.   I'm ashamed of my desire to just pretend that our daily life is normal, but I'm also keenly aware that I don't want to sound like a person who is seeking attention or sympathy because of my son's autism.  My son is special, not because of his nontypical brain, but because of who he is.  His autism is not a terrible thing or a burden.  All parents have things they do for their children, taking him to therapy or helping him when he's having a struggle is no different than any other parent taking their kid to a doctor's appointment or soothing them when they aren't coping well.  Except that it is different, but I don't want to feel all special snowflake about it.

As you can see, I am conflicted about this issue.  I am conflicted about a lot of things.

I'm conflicted about this project we just finished at work, the end of which is the start of something new and very wonderful but also means a lot of change and I like my life the way it is.  We have spent months on this deal, weekly team meetings and conference calls and integration sessions and loads and loads of homework and writing processes and SOP's.  When the doors on the box opened for the first time I felt like we - my coworkers and our business partners - had given birth, except the kind of birth where it doesn't actually hurt and there's no blood and no poop.  It was a difficult pregnancy in that we had to plan for things we still couldn't yet visualize -- sort of like how you wonder which one of you your baby is going to look like.  There were and still are some unknowns and some things we just have to plan around when we get there.  I've gone through the gamut of fear, resentment, acceptance and finally a place of peace where I know that of all the options my company had for growth and change this was the absolute best choice.  The planning part is done and now the doing part happens, and it means just as much work - if not more - but different than what we've been doing so far.  Change for me is simultaneously hard and easy.  I like the walls of my little box quite well, thank you.  But I don't always mind if the view out of the window I cut into the side of it changes from time to time.  Eventually we all must come to grips with the fact that the old box is the wrong box and we have to move into a new and improved box. 

This post is a good representation of one of the main issues I have with writing.  There is the voice I think I have and there is the voice that I actually have, and there is the fact that I don't want to write about any one thing all the time but there are times when the obvious thing to write doesn't want to come out of my fingers or is something I can't put out on the internet.  Its not a blog about horses or parenting or relationships or autism or politics or feminism or living in the sandwich generation.  Its a blog about ALL of those things.  If I was actually writing to make a living the kids and I would be living in a cardboard box under the freeway, because everything I have ever heard about making a living on the internet is all about "creating your brand."  I don't have a "brand," I just have stuff I feel like writing about, you know?  I don't have a fancy house and I can't do crafts to save my life.  

 There are times when there isn't anything in my mind when I sit down to write, despite having driven home with a perfectly visualized finished piece in my mind.  When it comes time to commit the words to the screen, they don't sound right or look right or I can't find the right way to start or end them. 

Maybe I should get a catchy phrase to use at the end of every post.  Be like Tom and Ray on Car Talk.  You've wasted another perfectly good ten minutes reading my blog.  Then I thank my producers and turn off the feed. 

 

 

 

 

Passages

Over the years I've fallen in love with so many blogs.  Every so often I'll see someone I really look forward to reading stop posting with any regularity, and I wonder if they're OK, if this is the beginning of the long decline to the end of blogging altogether or just the silence while they weather a crisis or a dry spell.  When I first started blogging I was so enthralled with the form and the media I couldn't imagine ever wanting to stop.  I'd see someone I really like put their blog on haitus or take it offline entirely and I'd be so perplexed...why would anyone want to go silent like that? 

I also remember being a woman without children and I'd watch people who were parents say and do certain things and I'd be absolutely flummoxed why parents were so crazy.  I, after all, would never say or do such things.  I'd never buy my kid a happy meal just to make him stop crying for one goddam second.  I'd never fill my kids rooms with plastic crappy toys or ignore them just so I could have one minute of sanity in the bathroom or let them wear clothes made in third world countries by indentured servants to the smiley face or...and so on.

I gather this is the standard process for most people.  When something is new or not yet experienced, we bury ourselves under the weight of uninformed opinions and find ourselves surprised when we one day find out just how little we actually know about anything.

The good news (depending, I suppose, on your point of view) is that I'm not planning on falling off the web into that large graveyard of discontinued blogs.  The bad news, if there is such a thing, is that I have no current urge to write much at the moment and no idea how to solve that problem.  Or even know if that's actually a "problem."   My health has been a bit difficult of late, work has been very challenging and stressful, and the things that need doing far outnumber the hours of time available.  In truth, my attitude about blogging and bloggers has changed dramatically over the last year or so, and my reasons for writing, such as they were, are no longer the same.  My goals for blogging have changed significantly, and my self-knowledge of my place in the world of blogging has clarified.  I'm ok with where I am and who I am, and I'm less worried than ever about accidentally offending anyone or even whether or not anyone "important" is reading, because I DO get, frankly, that everyone who takes the time to come here and read my continuing attempts at writing has given me a great gift of time and attention, and I'm grateful for every single one of you. 

Lately I'm in a state of wonderment at the ability life has to be simultaneously amazing and awful.  Or joyous and depressing.  Or stressful and flatlined.  Pick your metaphors, they all fit. 

My friend Debbie, who has taken the reins over organizing my barn, my pastures, my horses and trying to convince me to implement ten thousand fabulous ideas all at the same time, says constantly "Its amazing how you're just so normal!"  I think she has it ass-backwards.  I think we get along really well because on a certain level we have brains that work the same (wrong, not-normal) way and we don't get frustrated by the tangential nature of practically every conversation we've ever had.  Over the course of the summer we've repaired stall doors and expanded so that I now have three working stalls.  When there was only one stall functional and three to four horses being fed with different requirements for supplements and each with the right to be able to eat without someone else chasing them away from breakfast, things were a little crazy out there.    She's also picked my dry pen clean of weeds and rocks.  She's found someone to haul away the manure pile.  She's found someone to put up wall racks for tack and someone to paint.  She's cleared the area behind the barn where all the scrap lumber and fencing materials used to get tossed (don't look at ME, the old owners started it, I just kept the tradition alive) and put down pallets and tarps and quadrupled our ability to store hay.

She also drives my husband a little batty because he is used to being along much of the time and she is by nature a very chatty person.  I can tell he likes her though. 

The kids this summer...what an amazing change in both of them.  My daughter is getting taller and more beautiful by the nanosecond.  She's taken two sessions of swimming lessons, gotten to level three and only needs to perfect two things to get to level four.  She's at that stage of transformation between little girl and startling long-legged tween and she's just stunning.  That's not even subjective mother-pride.  Its just God's honest truth.  What I find fascinating is her ability to verbalize her understanding that she knows she's growing up but she's not in any hurry to do so.  "I just want to be a kid, mom.  I don't want to grow up yet," she'll say, and my heart melts with love and pride and bittersweetness all at the same time.  She will grow up whether I will it or no.  I know that little girls can change dramatically as they age, and I hold onto the firm hope that the person she is, the things about her that make her so awesomely her will stay intact.   She gets more out of my reach every day, and as I let go with a heart that strains under the hope and fear, I simply pray that God lets life be gentle with her for as long as possible.  In les than two weeks she will be a fifth grader. 

My son is learning to negotiate.  His anxiety and ODD issues make certain things difficult.  He hates taking showers because he doesn't want to get any water in his eyes, but baths take too long and his anxiety informs him that soaking in your own dirty water is just YUCK.  So showers were always a struggle, until he came home from his dad's one weekend and announced that he and his dad worked out a deal:  Daddy bought him swim goggles and now he doesn't get upset in the shower.  I'm not sure who thought up the idea, but hot damn if it hasn't made getting the little dude clean a much less stressful event.  Hallelujah and pass the cornbread!  He's gotten tons more compliant about taking his meds, and he's learned to negotiate that as well.  We've also had to learn to listen when he starts to refuse things - sometimes we have a hard time remembering that his anxiety makes certain things far harder for him to tolerate than we can understand.  

SG has been a stay-at-home stepdad all summer and has had both kids pretty much every day of the week since their dad and I are both working, and I really believe his even-tempered nature has had a positive impact on both of them.   Their dad and I both tend to moodiness, and I sense that our unpredictability has been stressful for them.   They have evened out much, both of them, they fight with one another a lot less, and its clear that they both adore their stepdad.  School starts soon, so my husband will be joining the ranks of the employed unless I either get a highly unexpected and very large pay raise or I actually buy a lottery ticket and it turns out to be a winnah.  He's been my rock the last month or so while I've struggled physically and mentally.  That's love for you.  I am not afraid to admit that my patience is thin and my attitude bad, and he has endured it with a great deal more grace than I would likely exhibit were I in his shoes.

We lost Mojo kitty this summer.   He disappeared in the spring for a few weeks and when we finally found him he was so skinny and deteriorated we weren't sure he would make it.  He recovered for a while with special food and supplements and monitoring, but then he went suddenly downhill and we had to make the tough choice to say goodbye.  I suspect it was cancer.    He's joined Hercules, Lady and our little old banty hen Cin-Cin under the tree out in the back pasture.  I think I've learned pretty well the last few years that people and animals too often leave our lives far sooner than we are prepared for them to do, and it reminds me to make a point of taking time each day for each animal to have some attention, for me to be more vigilant about picking up the phone, and to treasure every opportunity to play with my children and create memories to sustain me when they have grown up and begun lives of their own.  It will happen sooner than I think.

How's your summer been so far?

 

Random happystances

"Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe."_{-John Muir}

A couple of weeks ago or so I was reading comments on a post on The Mommy Psychologist's blog, a blog I found and added to my reader when she commented on a couple of posts I'd written here.  The comments I was reading were responding to the question of "Why do you blog?"  One commenter's response led me to go read her blog, and then in reading some of her blog posts I noticed she mentioned another blogger she had met and who had been very supportive through a loss.  The blogger had a name I've only known one other person to have, and sure enough, when I clicked through the link, she was referring to someone I actually know offline.  She is a former coworker who left my company early this year when she and her husband decided to move to the other side of our state.  We had vanpooled together, and she's a lovely woman who I enjoyed every time we had a chance to talk.   She'd done some interesting things in her life and she's one of those women who is enchantingly beautiful in a very fresh-faced sort of way - thick, curly hair, features that need no makeup, tall and athletic.  Not stuck up, and no Debbie Downer.  She's got a positive and upbeat nature, and even when she and her husband were dealing with some issues over living situations and jobs she would always find something to smile and laugh about.

So I found myself in the position of finding a blog of someone I know sort of peripherally, and she's someone I worked with but don't work with now.  But the thing is that I find her bright and refreshing, and the next thing I know I'm reading her blog from her earliest entries onward, smiling at the posts where she talks about meeting her husband and getting a little misty over the wedding photos.  At first I was just curious, but then I realized I really like the way she writes and the things she writes about.  And yet the whole time I'm thinking to myself, "Is it weird that I'm learning more about this person through her blog than I learned about her in two years of vanpooling together?" and "Gosh, I hope she doesn't look at her pageviews and sources and think I'm stalking her..."

And its an interesting question, isn't it?  Because in the very act of making a blog public, she and I and all the other bloggers out there, we're putting some of our lives (hopefully not all) out there in the public view.  And how does Ru or any other blogger feel when she realizes that someone she knows offline, somewhat in passing, is now reading her blog?  (I did out myself in her comments, it felt somehow wrong to be ninja-reading.)

I know that it surprises me when in-laws or family friends bring up my blog in a conversation.   It makes me feel far more undressed, as it were, than when I think the people reading my blog are folks who live somewhere else, who've never met me in person - or who aren't my mother.  I forget that there are people in my small audience who actually do know me offline.  Its just...odd.

I'm tickled by how I found Ru's blog, though.  I love those moments in life when we are happily surprised by a connection we didn't even know existed.  I remember realizing that my friend Steph, who I've known since I was pregnant with Race Car Man, also reads Adrienne's blog and  vice versa because Adrienne commented on one of Steph's posts.  I get unreasonably excited about things of this nature.  "Look, this friend who I think is so cool also knows this other friend who I think is so cool, and we all know each other and we didn't even know it, isn't that freaking COOL????" 

So Ru, I hope you're not discomfited that I'm reading your lovely blog and enjoying all of the pictures of you and your hubby and your family! 

BlogHer Book Club: I am not an artist!

DISCLOSURE:     I am being compensated for this BlogHer Book Club review; nevertheless, the opinions contained herein are truly my own. 

I don't look for sponsored content for this blog.  I'm not good at reviewing things and I'm not good at writing things on a schedule.  Plus, that's not what this space is about.  I don't blog for a living.  I work for a living; writing is something I fit in when I have time to sit down and allow the random thoughts in my head opportunity to morph into words on a screen.  Book reviews are an exception, simply because I'm so passionate about reading.  The concept of I get to read a book and talk about it for a small reviewer fee -- what's not to like? 

This program is a little different; instead of reading a book and sharing my thoughts with you, the BlogHer reviewers were asked to test out a new online service designed by author Julia Cameron.

The Artist's Toolkit is an innovative and interactive program designed to stimulate creativity and to provide structure and discipline to the creative process.  I've already told you my writing process.  Something has to come to my mind first, then I can write.  If I try to force the process its like turning squirrels loose in a nut factory.  There's either nothing there, or the resulting mess is not worth clicking on the 'publish' button.   I was eager to see if The Artist's Way Toolkit would give me the structure I felt was missing.

At first glance, the toolkit is inviting and encouraging.  The site design is clean and elegant.  Cameron has weekly Artist's Exercises and Artist Dates designed to move you out of your routine and into the act of living outside of your box.  The exercises ask you to consider questions pertaining to yourself, your beliefs, the ways you are encouraged or discouraged by self and others, and requests you to write your responses.  An online journal is provided for each week's activity.  There are thoughtful daily affirmations, and the exercises are refreshing. 

Thoroughly daunting, though, is the contract with yourself you are asked to sign, committing to writing three pages (longhand) each morning - the 'Morning Pages.' 

Every exercise you take on to improve yourself is good, but not every exercise is going to work for everyone.  If I were committed to becoming a for real writer, if I didn't have special needs children and a full time job and a one hour each way commute to work everyday, if I didn't have a husband and a horse and so many other beautiful things in my life that I'm already committed to, this would be an enriching program. 

When we decide to do or become something in life, we have to make a level of commitment to do or to become in order to facilitate the process.  The Artist's Way Toolkit combines a fine structure with Julia Cameron's provocative exercises to create a helpful pathway for the committed writer, painter, sculptor or composer. 

If your passion for art is something that you can commit the time to growing and nurturing, The Artist's Way Toolkit is a service with your time to consider.  If you can't commit to a daily investment, but still have several hours a week to devote to the practice, Cameron's toolkit will foster your creative abilities.  

If you're more like me in terms of your ability to invest, you'll either need to be satisfied with the current status  quo or be willing to make significant changes to your life in order to get everything you can from Cameron's wisdom and insight.

I guess I'm not really ready to be a writer.

 

You can read other reviews and participate in discussions about The Artist's Way toolkit here:

http://www.blogher.com/bookclub/now-reviewing-my-artists-way-toolkit

 

 

No quarter

I may or may not have had a wee lil' bit of wine this evening.

This perhaps does not bode well as a prelude to a blog post, but I have it on good authority that you haven't filled your bucket list until you've written a blog post after one (mebbe two) too many glasses of cheap chardonnay.

You know, I write here about my personal life, and people are nice enough to stop by and comment here and there, and there are some folks who come by and almost never comment but stop every day or so and give my words a gander.  And that's so incredibly nice.  It feels good.  We all like to have someone pay attention to us.  Sometimes I think that blogging is my way of garnering a "hey girl" and a shoulder pat from time to time when my real-time life seems slow on handing out such badges.  And blogging keeps me from focusing my efforts on any sort of real adult writing effort, because everyone who has ever wanted to write "for real" but wasn't sure how, likely shares the same fear I carry that I'm not really as good a writer as I want to be and I lack the time/energy/resources to really focus myself on becoming as good a writer as I want to be.  This is my little outlet, this small wee blog toddling along in the margins of the world wide web.  It gives me the illusion that I'm doing something worthwhile with my words, but the reality is that it just allows me to piss away time better spent doing other things.  There are stalls to be cleaned, lawn to be mowed, dishes to be washed and floors to be scrubbed.  So instead of going to bed at 9:30 when I actually should, I go to bed at 11 so I can do the chores and still have time to see what's happening on the damn internet.

Some people who are better writers than I, and some who are both marginally worse and sometimes (I know, this is not nice) terribly worse, these people have found a way to make an actual living blogging.  They heavily pursue ad networks, they run giveaways and contests, they write more sponsored posts than original content, they bend whichever way the internet winds do bloweth, because at heart they all want to be the next Heather Armstrong or Jessica Gottlieb or Penelope Trunk.  And before there were such things as sponsored posts and giveaways and ad networks, those bloggers were out there creating the path that eventually made it possible for them and for others to make a crapload of money by putting their words up on the web. And others came along and saw the way the wind was blowing and took note.  The path to the Emerald City was glowing golden before them, and they hesitated not a moment before they embarked on their merry way to internet riches and fame (hopefully).

Hey, there's nothing wrong with having a goal, folks. 

But success inevitably breeds contempt.  And I have written before my feelings on the value of criticism and the necessity for strength in ones own beliefs and opinions as a precursor for successfuly surviving the inevitable negativity that presenting ones' life and opinions in a massively open and public forum will inevitably engender.

Just like here at home, though, no one ever listens to me.

I follow the drama and while at times it provides a respite from the actual serious drama of the minutiae of raising two very special people and trying to make sure every hungry animal on this small farm is fed  before it starts feeding on the other animals on this small farm, sometimes it just makes me want to put my face in my hands and weep.

This fall we will vote for the next President.  And while for most of us there is a clear distinction and a clear choice, I think we all know that the reality is we are choosing someone who, for us, is the lesser of evils, because our two-party system does not afford us the ability to effect real change by voting for this presidential candidate or that or by supporting this senator or that congressman.  We all must realize, deep down, that our government is a vast wasteland and our country is in terrible crisis. 

In our own cities and suburbs, in our country, around the world, there are men, women and children who are coping with violence, with hunger, with poverty.  We have more able-bodied people than we have jobs.  We have an environment in flux, whether you believe it is caused by humans or by a natural shift in the earth's weather patterns is irrelevant, because there are whole regions and millions of creatures who will be required to undergo significant change - perhaps even die out as a species - because they environment they have adapted to live in is disappearing.  It doesn't really matter WHY the problem exists, it only matters that it does exist and that it will affect us, affect our children and our childrens' children.

This world is painfully full of parents who are struggling financially, emotionally, phsyically.  Parents trying to raise a family on too little income, or parents trying to get services for kids who have needs beyond what most insurance companies and school systems can meet, parents trying hard to take an active role in their children's lives but who are struggling just to pay the bills and God knows its hard to find time to help with homework when you've worked all day and had a long commute, and then you've had to make dinner and do baths and do homework and yet you still feel like shit because you should have also gone to the PTO meeting like the rest of the parents who ARENT single or who have spouses who work locally.

And yet, the drama on this internet, it carries on.  It supplants our very real and personal dramas, it tries to distract us from the deeper thing.  We bloggers, we open our veins and bleed our lives out here for all and sundry to read.  We relate truths or we invent truths, we have terrible problems which always result higher pageviews whether that was the intent or not.  And yes, some bloggers invent drama just to create pageviews.  I look for the good in people but we all know that this happens.  And there are people who have bullshit meters or who don't buy into the fairy glitter of A list blogging, and they have the need to vent their spleens, and from time to time there is an event where the Ghostbusters accidentally cross the streams and the internet explodes.  

Don't cross the streams.

Why?

It would be bad.

Thank you, Egon.

(And thank you Ghostbusters)

We need our entertainment.  We love our celebrities and we love to hate them.  We need sports and violence and for HBO and network TV to come up with the next hottest show because Oh My God if we don't have the distraction we won't be able to cope with our scary and difficult lives.  We don't want to think about the million ways that humanity is suffering, because we can't do that 24/7 and still function in our lives.  We need the drama like we need our oxycontin and our crack.

I am not taking sides.  Or maybe I am taking both sides. I just don't get the need for the posturing.

And it all just makes me feel so jaded and cynical and tired.

I don't FUCKING CARE about your drama.  I don't care. 

You all make me so fucking exhausted sometimes.

 

 

If you've read this and you have no clue what I'm talking about, GOOD FOR YOU.  The internet has not yet had its way with your innocence and beauty and I respect you so much for being innocent and pure that I want to kiss you on your face and throw rose petals at your feet, because you're still pure and you represent what we all were before Eve ate the apple.  Don't you ever EVER change.

 

 

 

Curated, whatever that means

It used to be you'd get a request to be syndicated, they'd pay you for your post and feature it.  Now you get "curated" and they feature your post, but you don't get paid for it. 

Mommyblogging ain't what it used to be.  Long drawn out exaggerated sigh.

Still.

BlogHer picked up my post on bloggers and criticism.  I'm flattered, and absolutely convinced that I'm going to generate my first set of hate mail from this one.  Can't wait.

 

So sensitive

I think of the bloggers I follow as friends.  Some of them know that, and perhaps feel the same way about me.  Some don't.  I feel they are friends because I have shared in their lives through the medium of their words and in them I have recognized myself. 

But sometimes I don't understand their sensitivity to the slightest insult. 

Perhaps my experience as a blogger doesn't lend to understanding.  It helps to have a small audience.

It helps to not be (s0) sensitive (anymore, after years of therapy and, one must say, getting old).

It helps that in almost five years of blogging I have probably only had one truly negative comment on this blog and one or two on posts elsewhere.

Even so.  I've had negative comments in other places that mattered way more than this space.  At work.  From friends or in organizations I belong to.  I'm no stranger to hearing really remarkable things being said about me - some true, some not.  Some nice, some ugly.  Whatever.

I don't care if you want to criticize me.  It's fine.  Go ahead.  I can take it.  If I weren't prepared to be disagreed with I wouldn't be putting my words on the internet for the world to view.  Offering opinion invites scrutiny.  Invites differing opinions.  Invites others to be amused, outraged, insulted, offended, enraged. (With any luck, not so much of the enraged. One hopes.)

Rarely am I critical of other bloggers, at least publicly.  I tend to be a supportive person, and I think that life's challenges for other people are for them to work out.  I think most people know what they really need to do to solve their problems, and the best way I know to help them is to just let them know I care.  I might have my own opinions about why they're in the pickle they're in, but personally I don't know that its helpful to share those opinions.  Besides, unless I know the person intimately, there are details of their particular situation that are invisible and unknowable to me.  That's the point where sharing an uninformed opinion might just make me an asshole. 

But just because someone's being an asshole doesn't make them a troll.

Very rarely will I leave a negative comment on another's personal blog, with the notable exception of Penelope Trunk, who absolutely makes me want to weep in frustration.  Other than that, mostly I believe I'm benign.  But I believe very firmly in the value of the critic. 

Insulting for the sake of insult is childish.  Taking umbrage or offering a different opinion is something different.  Perhaps others don't dialogue the way one would like them to, always, but the opinion that is offered is nonetheless often quite legitimate. 

 My sincerest advice to any blogger ( or friend on facebook or person on Twitter or coworker or RL person I love) is to let the voices of the angry horde blow by you like so much dust in the wind.  Listen to your own heart.  Do what you think is right.  It might not be right for me, it might be a bad choice that you make, but you have the right to make it and you have the right to ignore all advice to the contrary.  This is, though, only a first step.  Learning to put your life out there for the world to comment on means starting at step one:  Let it go. 

You could stay there forever at step one, learning to let what others think mean just what it does.  Staying at the first step is an option, certainly.  There's another place to grow, though, if you're up to it.  If you are secure enough to handle a little criticism, hear what is offered.  Receive it from a different place than one of defensiveness.  Listen to criticism with ears that are not  emotionally engaged.  Sometimes the simple act of doing this will grant you the ability to garner insight out of what you might have one time dismissed.  You don't have to take everything to heart, you don't have to take anything to heart. But don't be afraid to sift through it.  Dismiss what doesn't resonate, accept what might be worth digging in to a little deeper.  Do it without apology, without anger, without judgment.  Without EGO.

I appreciate the sense of community that being online offers.  I have a deep and abiding sense of gratitude to so many bloggers who have made me laugh, made me cry, made me think, made me mad.  Every interaction I've had has helped me to know myself better, helped me to grow.

But I think many times some of us fail to make the distinction between those that are critical of us and those that only wish to make us be quiet or be hurtful.  I think it is too easy to lump all negative commentary into one big cooking pot and label it "troll soup."

Yes, there are those that simply leave nasty words because for whatever reason at the time they wrote them, they felt joy in being destructive.  So what?  Unless they're threatening you bodily harm, their words mean nothing.  Hell, when I wrote the piece a couple of years ago about my daughter punching a boy  in the junk, the secondary syndication of that post on a nationally read platform actually had one commenter suggesting readers look me up via my BlogHer profile and pay me a visit.  (You bet, pal, I welcome you into my yard, so long as you're fine with really big dogs and if you don't mind the police officer who lives across the street may wish to handcuff you if you get out of hand.)  That kind of crap is out of line.  But whatever.  Someone calling me a jerk or a bitch or saying I'm a terrible parent or a terrible human being?  Those are just words.  Those words don't carry any more power than I lend them.  The ability to cope with the virulence of others, the responsibility to cope with the opinions of others , lies not with others.  It belongs to me.

Those who put their words in the court of public opinion have known this truth for as long as the written word has existed.  People will never as a whole respond to my words in the manner I hope they will.  I can deal with that.

I don't have to be angry with people because their opinions of me or my writing aren't what I hoped they would be.  Neither do you. 

On understanding why life is sometimes a mountain of crap

I just posted a comment over on a blog I read fairly regularly.  If you want to read some exceptionally beautiful writing, go read Finding Your Voice.  Jennifer Lawler is a gifted writer, and everytime I read one of her posts there are three thoughts that go through my head.

1.  She has an amazing talent and prose that gives shapes to words, makes sentences into concrete things and describes feelings that punch you right in the stomach.

2.  My writing, in comparison, is crap

and 3., most of all 3., the petty things that I tend to complain about are hangnails taken in the context of what she and her daughter live with and go through.

Go read her blog, really. 

I was commenting on her most recent post and as I was considering what she had written, I thought of that old saying "you always get what you deserve," and I thought to myself, no, that's not really true.  And typed instead, Nobody ever really gets what they deserve, do they.

But then I wonder, what is it we really DO deserve?

Do we deserve anything?

And where do we cross the line, either way, into accepting what it is we've got or not got, or into being either smugly entitled or sadly feeling as if we earned some kind of terrible karma?  When is it OK to say "I earned this, I worked hard for it, and I'm proud of myself," and when is it better to just shut up and be thankful that you've had opportunities maybe other people didn't get? 

There's no universal great equalizer that I can determine.  There is always the potential of equalization, either via natural disaster, coincidence, or consequence, but the fact of the matter is that in this life, at least so far as I can see, there are always people who have more and people who have less.  And perhaps its a simple twist of fate that one person who has a great idea finds the right set of circumstances to turn that idea into wealth and fame, and another person who is also full of good ideas never finds exactly the right opportunity to make it big.  That one couple has lots of healthy babies and another couple can't have any, or they have a baby who is desperately ill or who dies.  That someone who is less capable gets into the college of someone else's dreams.  That one baby out of six other babies gets to go live with parents who were for the most part gentle and loving and the other five got a brutal existence at the hands of a pedophile and their abusive mother.  That one guy steals other people blind and lives the high life and doesn't get caught, and another guy can't steal a gallon of gas to get to work on time without getting nailed and jailed.   That a faithful spouse gets cheated on.  That some folks are unbelievably wealthy through no real effort of their own while others live in brutal poverty simply, each because they just happened to be born to a particular set of parents.

And what is it, exactly, that we are supposed to learn from this?  What's the takeaway, kids?

Damned if I know.

Or maybe, I'm not sure yet, but I'm trying as hard as I can to understand.

I am then reminded of David Richo's Five Things:

Everything changes and ends.  Things do not always go according to plan.  Life is not always fair.  Pain is part of life.  Poeple are not loving and loyal all the time.

Richo presents a philosophy that says "I can either be crushed, possessed, devastated by the circumstances in my life or I can become a witness to them."  This doesn't mean being a beaming ray of sunshine "Oh, hey, everything's great! Yep!  Never mind that my marriage ended or I lost my job or I have a terminal illness, don't worry -- I'm just FINE!"  No, what he means is that we neither stifle nor give in to the emotions that are an inevitable part of being alive and human, but that we feel them so fully that they move through us and move on. 

Neither stoic nor overwhelmed.  And accepting that there is a big pile of awful, unfair things that happen in this world that we have no control over.  Living with compassion for others and being moved by their circumstances, listening to their pain and caring what happens to them.  Caring about what happens to us. 

I don't know sometimes how I'll find that balance.  Richo and other writers like him often recommend meditation as a path to mindfulness.  Which sort of makes me feel left out of the game, because meditation and I are not close acquaintances, not now and not likely ever to be.  But I find myself more often turning the radio off in the car and using the silence to ponder life's great mysteries (and try to decide what I'm making for dinner).  I'm trying to be less of a "fixer" of other people's lives and more of a witness and a companion to their suffering.   I'm working on being willing to let my feelings be what they are and to let go of the need to assuage them somehow. 

Maybe I'll never get there, maybe I'll spend the rest of my life looking for pocket gurus to answer my questions and tell me how I'm supposed to live.  

I do believe that I'm never going to actually become a truly enlightened being, not on this earth, anyways, but I hope I at least grow and learn enough to find the beginnings of understanding.  Because I would very much like to understand.