Fall seven times, stand up eight.
- Japanese proverb
Warning: This post is rated PG-17 for language. I tried to edit out the profanity, just to be more agreeable to a wider audience. But it didn't work. Fuck.
Two is sleeping in this morning. Think I can write a post before he wakes up? I guess we'll find out ....
I seem to have 500% more in my draft folder this month than actual posts. Something is holding me back from publishing lately. In an attempt to get some traction, I shall resort to ... Bullets: The blogging equivalent of attempting to cough up a hairball.
I know. Such a pretty picture. You're welcome.
You're still reading? Oh yeah, you're a keeper. (Pats seat) Come sit by me.
******
I've added a ton of new blogs to my reader recently. I went on a real spree. Did you link to someone recently? I added them. It seems I can read 'em so much faster than you can write 'em (go figure). So I've concluded that it's okay to be promiscuous about "following." I call it, "Casting a wide net." Unfortunately this means I will have go and weed the reader at some point very soon. Whenever a post pops onto my dashboard now ... as often as not ... instead of thinking, "Goody!" ... I think, "Who the hell is that?"
How many blogs do you follow? Are you selective about it? Do you wish for more good blogs to read? Or do you find that you can't keep up with the ones you have now?
******
Mel wrote a post recently about being unfollowed and whether or not a blogger might take it personally. She asked us if we'd want to know why we were unfollowed. And whether we follow anyone that we don't think we would like in real life. Great questions, as usual, from The Stirrup Queen.
Rejection goes with the territory of blogging, doesn't it? You can't please everyone and that seems to be doubly true of me and my blog. I am matter-of-fact about that on good days. But rejection still sucks. Prick me, I bleed.
I go through this tail-chasing cycle with my blogging:
1. I blog because it's a healthy outlet for me, I write for myself! I think therefore I write! And sometimes, I publish.
2. (This is where I go wrong) Maybe someone will like me! Maybe they will "get me." Maybe I will write something helpful. Maybe someone will laugh. That would be nice. Company! Like minds! I know for a fact there are none of those at my children's bus stop/Helicopter Zombie Coffee Klatch, for example (You think that giant chip on my shoulder might be holding me back with the other mommies?). Perhaps I might find a few like minds on the web instead!
3. Sincere compositions followed by hope and the thrill of anticipation (Yes, I see you making the "L" sign on your forehead there. I forgive you.)
4. The clicking of "Publish."
5. The roar of the crickets. Usually a soothing sound that reminds me of summer nights. Of happy, childhood summer nights when life was blessedly simple (sort of). Blog crickets? Poisonous mutants. The stuff of science fiction + highly enriched Uranium.
6. The sting of rejection. Followed by bad thoughts about myself. Followed by anger (my standard, second-base position for anything emotionally difficult or unpleasant) and then the childish impulse to take my ball and go home. (Step six may be significantly enhanced depending on biochemical variables.)
7. Reason returns. Don't be ridiculous. I blog for myself, first and foremost. Rejection? Whatever. It's not about being popular. It has never been about being popular. For bleep's sake, George W. Bush and Karl Rove were popular. And look where that got me and my friends.
8. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The other day, I popped onto sitemeter and I saw that someone had come to my blog via the search terms "Navel Gazing Buddhism Memoir." Hopefully I was just a dolphin caught in google's indiscriminate tuna net. Hopefully they weren't looking for ~me~ and those are just random keywords you'll find in one of my posts somewhere. Hopefully. Or maybe I should just change my tagline and go with it?
I almost shut the blog down right there. Seriously. I jabbed myself in both eyeballs with a white flag. Repeatedly. Isn't blogging fun?
Of course, that's what I get for playing "Mirror-Mirror" with sitemeter. And of course, I AM a navel gazer. By my own admission. But still.
"Fuckers," I thought. Fuck the 'net. It doesn't love me back. Time to boil some rabbits.
But then later I also thought, Fuck my own insecurity. Insecurity: Blah, Blah, Blah.* I'll just have to keep working.
I have two personalities. One takes herself too seriously. The other is tough as nails. It's exhausting. Maybe for you, too. ... Okay, quick, which one am I now?
******
I bet you have some great blogger keyword stories yourself?
******
I interrupt myself here to say, Yes. You are right. I suck at bullets. I can see that now. I should go look it up in Strunk & White. I will. I swear. Frequently.
******
As a point of interest, does foul language bother you? What ~is~ the conventional wisdom on blogs and cursing?
******
So would I want to know why someone "unfollowed" me?

Do I follow people that I think I wouldn't like in real life?
This question made me recoil a bit at first ... Nice thought that people might be following me purely for snark value. I know. Let your paranoia snack on that. You were blogging away happily and now everytime you see those followers who never comment feasting on your words, you're going to wonder if they click over to make fun of you and feel superior. You're welcome.
(If the snarky follower description applies to you here, by the way, I salute you with my middle fingers.)
The short answer is, Hmmmm ... Yes, I follow people that I think I might not like in real life. Not too many. And not for snarky, trollish reasons. I certainly didn't ~start out~ following anyone because I thought I wouldn't like them. I definitely follow a few people who probably would not like ME in real life.
I read a lot of blogs in the ALI community. So many great bloggers there. But it's the nature of ALI that many would not, could not return my interest in their stories because we are in very different places.
Other than that, I follow at least one person who rubs me the wrong way regularly. Especially since she responded condescendingly to one of my comments. Punchy, much? I can't help it. That put a new spin on her "quirky," self confident disposition for me. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt and it pisses me off when they don't reciprocate. It also cured me of commenting there and it cured my otherwise abundant sympathy for her. Not that she asked for my sympathy. Oh wait. Yes she did. She was blogging about her problems. Silly me. Fortunately, I am a quick learner. Alright then. No sympathy for you, Brat.
But you don't always throw the blogger out with the bath water. At least not this one.
If I follow someone, bottom line, I am sympathetic to them or at least I respect them (even if it's not mutual). I respond to their writing and/or their story ... or some aspects of their story, in one way or another (though not necessarily in the exact way that they might expect to be heard). I am interested and not in a destructive way. I may disagree with their POV or their philosophy occasionally ... or they may be suspicious of me or put off by me because of who I am or how I look. But I am not so black-and-white when it comes to people myself. My experience has been that sometimes the most difficult people you meet end up surprising you. I like it when that happens. I like a little complexity and contradiction.
Do you follow bloggers you don't like? Why?
Have you ever met someone who made a terrible first impression on you, but then turned out to be the best person ever once you got to know them better?
******Why might I unfollow someone?
When there is no connection. There is a mountain of better, more polished writing to be found almost anywhere else (not saying all blogs are poorly written, quite the contrary), so blogs have to be about connecting. No sparks? No connection? No fascination? No laughs? No follow.
But if that's the case ... as they say ... it's not you. It's me. I know. So cliche. But true.
******
Have you heard about this? "Tweeting Your Miscarriage?" If you want to hurt your head about the nature of blogging and other social media, this one's for you:
A career woman named Penelope Trunk posted this on Twitter:
"I'm in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there's a f***-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin."
The author of the article linked above summarized the reaction of one feminist blog:
"[D]o you want to hear about your male co-worker's hemorrhoids in the workplace? Or the details of his wife's miscarriage? And, unfortunately for everyone, now that this has gone national, the context and way in which Trunk framed this confirms the worst and most fantastical ideas of the anti-choice movement: that women (especially career women!) who have abortions all do so casually and callously on their lunch breaks, the way one might get a manicure.''
All I will say about this is ... are we sure Trunk ISN'T anti-choice? Are we sure we know which team she is really playing for? Any more sure than we are about Jon Gosselin being suddenly, genuinely concerned about the impact of reality TV on his children now that he's been cut from the show?
Just askin'.
Updated to add:
You can see an interview with Penelope here, posted on her blog, The Brazen Careerist. The secretly-batting-for-the-other-team theory is out. But still, with advocates like that ... who needs enemies? Even if she has her valid points, that wasn't the way to make them. JMO.
In a bizarre twist, apparently she is (self?) diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. Which sheds new light on the whole thing. Her blog and her writing are excellent, btw. As usual, there is much more to her story than meets the media's eye, including the fact that she is already raising two children with disabilities/medical issues.
******
Now for something completely different:
The chronic fluid in Two's ears has finally resolved, and just like Seven before him, he's had a language explosion. The kind of leap forward that ends all speculation about his speech development.
I can't tell you what a relief it is to hear him stringing the words together, because after that wretched preschool teacher had her way with me (the one who implied, in her UNexpert opinion, that Seven might be on the autistic spectrum because he couldn't sit still all the time, required a lot of redirection, had poor handwriting and took many months to connect with the boys in her class), I became a jittery mess of milestone mania. Me! The dogmatically non-competitive parent who was so quietly confident before ... I've been holding my breath over Himself for two years and now I can finally exhale. The world will not end today. At least not this way.
Now he's bossing the big kids around in complete sentences that sound eerily like my own. He's mastered so many turns of phrase. I asked him if he was ready to go the other day and he replied, "Lets rock-n-roll!" I almost fell down the stairs.
DH has been working crazy hours and late the other night I was hand-stitching my fingers bloody trying to hem some pants before Seven's picture day (not my favorite chore ... it's like digging a ditch with a spoon -- the story of my life lately). Two was chattering away loudly, threatening to wake Seven. And then I fouled up a row of stitches and I lost my patience because I was tired and I couldn't hear myself think. I told Two to be quiet. To which he replied indignantly, "BUT MOM! I WANT TALK YOU!!"
Like, How can you tell me to be quiet?! I have so much to tell you!
Holy shit. I know how he feels. How can I argue with that?
*DH has a brilliantly passive aggressive way of diffusing unwelcome comments and advances. It's such a good trick that we are trying it to teach the kids, because it's remarkably effective for dealing with bullies. (He perfected it while dealing with his own mother.) Unfortunately, it will also work on the parents of teenagers and you know it will come back to haunt us later on.
Me: Stinging, long-winded criticism. Stinging because I've reached the very end of my rope and the vultures are gathering in my tight, little head. I'm beside myself and desperate to be heard.
DH: What?
Me: Repeats stinging, long-winded criticism. Maybe with a dash of bait-as-warning-shot. The flames singe DH's eyebrows. My eyeballs are hairy.
DH: What?
Me: Frustrated and angrier than ever. You could smelt lead with my aura.
DH: (smiling now) What?
It's check and checkmate. A playful-yet-infuriating and effective defense. You may be a bitch, but I'm not listening. If a bitch screams at me in the forest and I ignore her with a smile, are we fighting?
This I-Can't-Hear-You method also works on the negative tapes in your own head. On a good day, I can manage to click away from the bad place. Bad thoughts? Sorry, our connection is bad. I think I'm losing you ...
In Tae Kwon Do, Seven is learning the RAD principle: Recognize, Avoid, Defend. It occurs to me that sometimes you have to defend yourself from yourself.
How's that for navel gazing?


