Oct 15 2011
9 Comments
Entertained, funny, Marketing, Word Press

Versatile Blogger? Like, Verbally Flexible?

Yay! I Win!

I don’t actually think I can do this.   But, since I was honored by a ‘mention’ and therefore nominated for an award and because I  pretty much like to pay it forward and backward, I’m gonna’ try .  Thank you Brandon, aka music.unrenowned.

While I am not new to blogging or writing exactly, I am new to WordPress (again) and new to looking for an audience.  I have always written because I wanted to and if a reader stumbled on my work and liked it- well… let’s be honest.. it’s like a drug.  So, I have recently reached out to other bloggers to find out what people are writing.   And reading.

I discovered Tenbrokenrecords in my wanderings.  I am old enough to be everybody’s grandmother so I come from a place of great exposure, if not experience with  music.  Landing on Brandon’s page was a treat.   My favorite aspect of the blog is that its author is open to, and even requests content ideas and new bands and music to expose and critique.  Bravo, Brandon.  The site design is nice and weekly tweaking is fun to watch.   Besides all that, turns out Brandon is a nice guy and I have taken an interest in his school progress.

Okay.  I’m gonna play this.  When I saw the email on my phone this morning about being ‘nominated’

Typical rolltop desk

Mine’s bigger

for a WP award..well, I’m embarrassed to say I cut short my usual morning routine and nearly tripped on the ill-placed (but quite attractive) throw rug between the dining room and kitchen, where my old and rarely  trusty laptop mostly sleeps on the (old) over-sized roll top desk  (which takes up too much space in my kitchen but again, is quite attractive).   I forced myself to resist running upstairs where my actual PC thrives and hums and always works like an ‘effing charm because I have a fear of jinxing all-things-good by getting too excited and thinking that  maybe something good is about to happen.

In the three or so seconds it took me to race into the kitchen and plop into the ratty (but comfortable) rolling chair I had already dismissed any possibility that I had read the email correctly.  As I landed in the chair, however, I began an urgent coaxing and begging and making little deals in my mind with God  (please, please, please  let this be one of the times this POS laptop isn’t battling some scripting error).  I logged into WP to accept my nomination and thank, profusely, my nominator, Brandon.

I read Brandon’s nomination post and saw my blog link on his list of nominees and I thought, okay, this is great.  This is good.  This is.. pretty good.  Well.  This is, um.  So…. when is the winner picked?  How will I know?  Who are the judges?  What’s the deal here?

At about this moment in my cautious and slowly diffusing excitement, my husband, feigning indifference, ambled past the desk toward the coffee pot.  He’s been pissed at me for about six weeks now (his fault) and I have responded with resolute apathy.  But, I could not resist:  “I was nominated for a writing award on WordPress!”  His reaction was genuine.  He was excited for me (for a second) and I’m a bitch but I’m not evil so I felt properly guilty  (for a second).    I shrugged off the excitement and guilt and he remembered he was pissed and ambled back outside to poke around and do whatever it is he does out there when he’s pissed and trying to ignore me.

So, left alone in my ratty chair I did some poking of my own.  What is this ‘Versatile Blogger Award’ thing anyway?  I found a forum (thank you TimeThief) and got the deets.  I got the 411.  I got the skinny.  Okay (sorry), yeah, I figured it out.  I put the laptop to sleep and brushed my teeth and got on with my day.  But I was amped a little.  I’m in sales.  I know marketing.  But still… I was nominated.  And no, I did not tell my angry husband that there is no chance I am actually winning any actual trophy or anything.

Brandon

Big Project

I worked on my Big-Back-Yard-Project and having determined The Project is one of the numerous reasons my husband is pissed, decided to enlist his help on the heavy lifting and electric tool portion of the job.    He did the work without suggesting the correct (his) way to do the thing- which had to be excruciating for him – and he generally wallowed in the ‘I’m a big fucking martyr’ role all day and I found I rather enjoyed it.  I, after all, had been nominated for a writing award.

Back at the laptop (which appears to be at peace with all incoming scripts),  I debated whether I would continue with the award meme (yes, I looked it up.  It’s a real word).  I clicked on Brandon’s other blog nominees. I found some I liked. I checked out some of their blogrolls and found even more blogs I liked.  On one of the blogs I liked,  the author, Selah Aran,  invited her readers to write her a real letter.. with paper.. and a stamp, which I did.  It is still sitting on my desk with a stamp on it but I am going to mail it.   I subscribed to her blog and a few others.    I made some comments and ‘liked’ a few.  Some of them looked back at my blog.  I got a couple of  ‘likes’ on my posts.  And comments.   So. Yeah.  I win.

As for the seven things about me.. do I have to?  I’m not really in to that.. besides, there are at least seven suggestions about me in the above blog post.  Assume anything you wish.  Clearly, I can tolerate being ignored, not liked, not appreciated, endlessly nagged and all my faults pointed out constantly –  oh, wait- that’s not you –  either way.. I’m not that interesting.   I prefer to tell you the reasons I am nominating the following blogs:

  • unremarkablecontradictions: Dry. Witty. Succinct. Funny.
  • Beetches Love This Site: I don’t know why this site makes me laugh.  I raised girls.
  • Neva Paints: Hilarious.  Smart. A work in progress but the blog posts are funny.
  • Searing Education:  Health.  Spirituality (not religion).
  • Shenanigans:   Random anger and humor.
  • FML:  Not really a blog but it makes me laugh
  • Burk Krohe:  Good writing.  A little uptight and always grammatically excellent but pokes enough fun of himself to make it interesting and ..funny.
  • The Gypsy Paints: More of Neva Paints.. funny..
  • Brainrants: Funny, funny.. is there a pattern here?
  • Lisakusko: Funny and informative. There.. I do have a brain..
  • Talker96: I’m not really sure what the deal is here but I kept reading and reading.. it was.. yeah, funny.  And for some reason I like that guy..
  • Flehman Response: .. yeah.. funny..
  • I just can’t do this anymore.. It’s nearly 2:30 AM and tomorrow is punkin’ patch day.  10 is plenty.  It has taken me a week to write this and find ten blogs I would actually read here.. not that there aren’t plenty of good blogs.. but I’m busy .. and since WP won’t allow click ads I still have to work sometimes.. So that’s it.  Here are the rules if you should decide to play along.. thanks again, Brandon..

If you choose to accept the award, the following are the rules:

1.  Thank the person who shared the award with you by linking back to them in your post.

2.  Pass this award to 15 recently discovered blogs and let them know that you included them in your blog post.

3.  List 7 things about yourself.
_________________________________

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Sep 13 2011
4 Comments
Brain injury, child, Darkness, fear, grief, recovery, regret, rehab, TBI

Traumatic Brain Injury

The facial expressions of pain and human weakness I have read about for years in literature and could never really visualize, I can see now on the face of my friend.   The mixture of fear, regret and barely controlled hysteria is too rich.  It nearly makes me sick.  Her freckled and pale face is deeply wrinkled and drawn and her normally green eyes have been swallowed by the black of her pupils.  She looks her age.  Her chin and neck are stretched in a constant state of cringing.  She is afraid or unable to make eye contact and just as well.  Her pain is raging in there and it’s easier for me not to look.   Her back is humped like an old woman’s as if protecting the soft center of her chest, where I imagine her heart beats and aches in a perfect, stabbing rhythm that is too deep to think about for more than a second.  Tiny hands curl toward her center and she appears to be hanging on, barely.  She is an old woman.  She is my age.

Bleary eyed and still heavily drugged, her son turns his head toward her voice and may even recognize it.  This is ‘tracking’ we are told.  We don’t know. We know nothing.  The brain is clearly functioning on some level.  He can turn his head.  The legs on this six foot-three-inch boy thrash randomly, violently.  This is ‘neurostorming’ we are told.  He squeezes our hands.  But what does he know?

A month ago he knew everything.   Now his eyes are blank and dilated and he responds to questions with simple answers: rote memory.  What is missing from this child’s brain and what is just bruised for now?  We don’t know.  It is a waiting game and nobody is guessing.  Anything could happen.

The decisions that ultimately created this scene for my friend is a conversation for later.   For now, we wrap his fingers around a fork and encourage him to navigate the food toward his mouth.  And chew.  And swallow.  And, ‘do you want a bite of carrots or potatoes?’   Is he really hungry?  We don’t know.  At 20 years-old he must be hungry often, we reason.  So we offer food.  But we don’t know.

Occupational therapists and speech therapists and physical therapists and nurse’s aids rotate in and out and speak to him as if he is three years old.  I cringe when I hear them. He is not three years old.  He is a junior at Kansas University.  A 4.0 Dean’s Honor Role student.    A future defense attorney.  A month ago he would have beaten them all handily in a game of chess.  A gifted musician.  Brilliant.  He is not a three-year-old.  He is handsome and humble and passionate about his world.  He commands a long line of young women who are completely disarmed by his perfectly white teeth and brutal charm.

Two months after his accident, he is finally able to smile and laugh.  It may be the most difficult part of his progress to see him affect what was once normal.  His bald and scarred head is too heavy for his shoulders.  He sits slumped and slack-muscled, drool suddenly rushing down his chin.  He knows to wipe it off and the corners of his mouth are cracked from the constant drooling, wiping, drooling, wiping.  But he laughs.  I tease him about President Obama, his hero, and threaten to bring my bowling ball and take advantage of his situation by finally beating him at it.  He laughs hard, his head bobbing.  His teeth, now too big for his head, still beautiful and white, are fully exposed behind his grin.   My friend beams from across the room.  Her son is alive.  He is smiling.   It takes everything I have to not cry.

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Sep 13 2011
4 Comments
Darkness, Death, grief, Shroud, Uncategorized, Writing

Death

Life is occasionally interrupted by reminders of the direction we are all going.  Make no mistake, we are all going to the same place.  whether you call it heaven or hell or just 6-feet under, we are all going there. Alone.  And, as far as I can tell, for good.  The world ends permanently for people, one by one.

When a friend dies, a heavy gray shroud wraps itself around your life for awhile. Eventually it may slide off your shoulders and your life reappears as it was before, minus the love and friendship of the deceased. Well, maybe not the love.  The love stays here with you and you can drum up memories and emotions and be enriched by the love that stayed here when your friend left.   And your friend may seem to be lurking around near you, laughing at your folly or giving you strength when you are weak.   That may be the love your friend left behind.

When a family member dies the shroud is black and heavy and does not slide off as easily.  When it is a child who dies, I assume the shroud is never removed.  Possibly occasionally, briefly, but it never leaves you completely.  This is not just an interruption.  It is a life changer.  There is no recovery.   The longing, mourning, aching and even dread are surmountable, I suppose, but the darkness within the shroud, the grief,  is so enveloping, so stifling and airless it may seem unending.  And it is.  It would be.  For me.

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Aug 29 2011
6 Comments
funny, Stuff I like, Uncategorized Image

This is Just Funny

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Aug 17 2011
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Uncategorized

I love LA

I love LA. People mind their own business.

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Aug 06 2011
3 Comments
fat, funny, Illogical, Maddening, nonsense, peeved

Get Out Of The Way!!

Whaaaaatt?Okay, so I get that great care should be taken when driving a 4000 pound vehicle where pedestrians are milling around – like the Walmart parking lot.  But seriously.  Get the fuck out of the way.

I mean, is it just me or has the flow of traffic in parking lots taken a turn for the worse?   When 7 cars are stopped for two or three slow, fat, smart-assy pedestrians who would actually be going backwards if they walked any slower, I cannot be the only driver thinking, fuck it, hit them.  Or at least drive up really close to their fat asses  and honk like hell.

Courtesy, safety, caution.. I get it.  It just doesn’t make sense for 7 cars to stop for 1.5 minutes to wait for these inconsiderate pukes to lolly-gag their asses across the driveway when it would take only 1/2 a  minute for all 7 cars to get past the cross-walk making it perfectly safe and convenient for them to stroll at their leisure any old way they wish.

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Jun 29 2011
6 Comments
Offended

Leave My Words Alone

So, I read this whole blog about how people should no longer use the word gay to describe something odd or funny or off the mark.  Or homosexual. 

Here’s the thing about that:  People can’t just hijack a word and assign it to a group or event and then be offended because the rest of us use the word as it was meant to be used, or for that matter, in any way we choose to use it.  That’s just bullshit.  And gay. 

If somebody says, ‘I hate you because you are homosexual and ugly and have creepy blue eyes,” well, that is offensive.  I guess.  Although, it would not offend me if I were homosexual, ugly and had creepy eyes.  I wouldn’t care. 

I am tempted to do the whole disclaimer thing where I say I know and love a bunch of ‘gay’ people but really that’s not necessary.  All the gay and straight people I know and love – know I love them  whether I call something  gay or call it something else.  So I won’t bother with the disclaimer.

I refuse to allow a word to be removed from my posse of words because somebody has changed the meaning of it and decided to own it for themselves.   

Of all the things I am sick and tired of – offended people top the list.

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Jun 26 2011
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Offended

Gay?

If calling a straight person ‘gay’  is offensive  –   is calling a gay person ‘straight’  super-duper offensive??

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Jun 25 2011
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Offended

I May Be Offended

I am not easily offended. .

Whaaaaatt?

I read a lot of blogs.  Some are writers whose content and ideas I seek out to assist in my own understanding of some obscure or relevant issue.  Some are just funny.  A couple are hideous examples of what I never want to be, say or write.  And one or two are monstrosities that I read- I guess just to start an internal argument with the writer.  I rarely respond to these last few.  Sometimes I am surprised and occasionally irritated. But, I am rarely offended.

Mostly, I am amused, as I imagine the blogger writing what they consider to be edgy, intelligent and uber trendy vernacular that will spark some collective gasp in their audience who will happily exclaim, “Finally!!! Finally somebody expressed my thoughts exactly- in a way that I am just not able to – because I am just not the super-smart and intelligent genius that this writer is!!”  And I Laugh.  Usually.

Often, these bloggers will extol the importance, the necessity, the absolute mandatory rule for other bloggers (and most certainly for the morons who are not able to express those universal truths as this highly qualified writer is able) that in all blogging, social media, casual Facebook-like dialog, and all that is written and spoken in public be so absolutely grammatically  correct as to appear nearly God-like in it’s essence – that grammar, syntax and spelling rules be adhered to -or- said moron shall be banned from any further communication or possibly killed.  In lieu of the ban or killing,  the moron shall be publicly humiliated and ridiculed by this highly (self) acclaimed writer whose intelligence (and ego) knows no bounds.

Okay, this is just a pet peeve.  I have read plenty of these kinds of blogs- where the writer fancies herself to be superior both in writing skills and certainly intelligence.  Most of them find a an audience of friends and family who will happily cheer them on no matter what is written and how offensive the actual message (if there is one).

As you may have guessed, I am tinkering with the idea of actually being offended by a recent blog.  I will develop this idea and check in later.

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Jun 25 2011
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Family, fat, Word Press, Writing

Just When you Thought I’d Learned my Lesson..

This is not my eye

I’m back.  Older, fatter and yes, smarter.

Not a day has gone by that I haven’t imagined myself sitting here, as I am now, blasting the author of some ridiculous opinion, some hideously crafted article (complete with misleading headline and obviously incorrect data) or a random comment heard accidentally in a conversation of which I was not even a participant.  To be perfectly frank, sometimes it all comes down to a stupid Facebook post.   I am constantly writing a response.  In my head.

I think of writing nearly all the time.   Whether it is a response to the above mentioned events or some evolving thought of my own which, as I am driving or pushing my shopping cart or cooking a meal or otherwise trapped somewhere without a keyboard, develops and snowballs in my mind until I am nearly chewing my teeth into dust because- as I said- I am so often trapped without a keyboard.   Or, I have a keyboard but I am somehow, inexplicably, adhering to the rules of survival and actually working.  It’s an FML kind of thing.   I want to write.  All the time.

Unfortunately (depending on my perspective at any given second), I have to shop, cook, work and otherwise fulfill my obligations as a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, friend, blah, blah, blah.. you know the deal.  You have the same deal, if you are lucky.  If you don’t have the same deal, you are either unlucky or smart (…depending on my perspective at any given second).

So, I’m back.  I have several blogs and websites.  I have not even added up my annual expense to maintain these sites.   I don’t care.  I need them.

It’s nearly midnight and because tomorrow I am booked solid with events that do not involve writing in any way, I have to go to bed.  It will take me 30 minutes to get to sleep once I get there because I will be crafting my second blog until I finally cark it for the day. 

If I stay up and write, which is what I would rather do, my other events tomorrow  will be attended with raw frustration and bitchiness.  My second goal in life is to enjoy doing things that do not involve writing or wanting to write.  It’s healthy.  I need it.  So I am going to bed.

In the words of the once revered and now scandalized ex-governor of California, I’ll be back.  I promise me.

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