Death of a Blog

The time has come to make a choice. I began a second blog for two reasons. As its name suggests (not fully cooked yet), I strongly identify with an idea of myself that is forever evolving, improving, deconstructing and rebuilding. But on another level, the name of my newer blog is broad enough to encapsulate anything I write. This is critical. When I sit down to write, I don't always know what I'll end up saying. It's important for me to have a catch-all. So discuss amongst yourselves, or drop me a line on FB. Should I kill off one blog to save another? And kidstodayoyvay fans (all ten of you), don't despair. I can still write about my kids. God knows, they're not fully cooked yet either. Do you favor one blog more than the other? Tell me what you think. 


P.S. This is a big decision for me and I want feedback, so you may notice me post a link to this blog on FB more than once. Sorry.

My Childhood Circa 1970s

When I was a child, I really got into it. Most days, I was beyond earshot for hours at a time, playing outside, and I got dirty. I wore plaid pants with striped shirts, polyester from head to toe. I watched lots of television with my family, and I ate meat and potatoes six nights a week. The only ethnic food I ever ate was pizza and lasagna and I doused my morning cereal with whole milk and white sugar. My house had wallpapered rooms and a kick-ass pool table in the basement. I joined a Brownie troop and lasted for about two weeks and one craft. While still in grammar school, I was known to quote Dan Aykroyd, "Jane, you ignorant slut", and routinely stayed up until 1AM on Saturdays to watch SNL. My parent's social life revolved around their church group and the highlight of my year was the annual church holiday bazaar. I rode my bike and roller skated on the sidewalks all over the neighborhood, and never once wore a helmet. I learned to ride horses at a nearby barn for ten dollars a lesson, and had to work every Saturday morning cleaning the chicken coop and mucking out the barn. By the time I was ten, I vacuumed our house every weekend, emptied the dishwasher, set the table and washed the dishes. I organized my dresser drawers and rearranged my bedroom constantly. I took baton twirling lessons, dance classes, and gymnastics for one six week session a piece. At school, I took flute lessons and quit after less than a month, no questions asked. The thought of playing a team sport didn't occur to me until freshman year when a friend suggested field hockey. I never had so much as an educated guess at my family's income, but was told "we can't afford it" more times than I can count. I don't ever remember going for a family hike or bike ride, and I spent weekends begging to have a friend over to play. They were good years, but more to the point, they were my years.

Violated

In my lifetime, I have been robbed thrice. (You're welcome Conan O'Brien.) The first time was in 1990 when my precious Toyota Corolla was stolen right out of the driveway of my apartment in Providence. Two years later, the radio I had gingerly bestowed beneath the passenger seat in my Jetta was ripped from its hiding place. And in 1993, Brendan and I watched from the window of a Burlington, VT restaurant as our mountain bikes were snatched from the rack on my car. Heady with adrenaline, we gave chase to our "his and her" thugs, eventually getting our bikes back. In every instance, no matter the value of the stolen goods, the violation felt the same. Heavy and unbelievable with an undiluted dose of adrenaline for good measure. I felt completely blindsighted and betrayed and every related detail was beyond my scope of understanding. Last week, it happened again. Someone impersonated me on Facebook. Someone (presumably one of my Facebook "Friends") invested the five minutes it took to guess that my password was rowanaidan (how clever Claudia - let's string together your eldest children's names to create a FB password) and post a bogus status as me. Let this be a cautionary tale. Always choose passwords with great care and never be afraid to remove your rose colored glasses every now and again. Wow, I can see clearly now.

Social Networking / Networthing

Ahhh, Facebook. It is such a delicate dance - call it the social network dance. Some of us are crazy ego pods while some of us are timid voyeurs, with the moderates sandwiched in between. The self-promotion piece is the biggest challenge for some, jamming themselves down your throat every time you check your feed, offending as a means to an end. Thank God for the business page option. By all means, define yourselves using the extra business page. In the words of Martha Stewart, "it's a good thing".  Facebook is a lot of things. Most of all, it is an ultrasound of your friends, real and imagined. I say imagined because so many of us "friend" people whom we barely know. Now I am guilty on this one if only because I friend people I once knew really well. Yet, I sometimes think that the friends I had in high school know the real me as well as anyone I've met since. After all, we are questing for so much at that age. I know that I wore (and wear) my heart on my sleeve. Some people really get the whole FB culture. For instance, I love it when people show a photo of some noteworthy event like a birth or a graduation. I love to see pics and videos from a school event, and ALWAYS appreciate a laugh. The birthday posts are awesome and there is no better virtual format than FB for when things aren't going so well for someone or when soliciting advice or a need. But let's be honest, we all want to get something out of Facebook. It is a true give and take community. If you make me laugh at your clever post or help me stay connected with a reference to your recent milestone, we both get something out of it. There are infinite posts, however, that just seem really useless. As busy as we are, do we really need to know that your coffee is especially strong this morning? It's a tightrope walk.

Good Jeans

I spent a ridiculous amount of time shopping for jeans at West Farms yesterday. While not typically on my radar, I have known for some time that I infrequently step out in style. Those occasions are usually aligned with a holiday or black tie affair (in which case I borrow something from a friend). I had been told by some that my jeans were not helping me maximize my assets if you know what I mean. So off to the mall, first stop J. Crew. I felt like such an idiot because the sizing was completely foreign to me and I got nowhere fast. At the next stop, I grabbed a pair that were size 00P. But I wish that I had realized sooner what it actually means: oops, wrong size. The petite thing is definitely the way to go for me, scraping the underside of 5 feet and 1 inch in height. By now I was practically sprinting through the mall. I would not leave without jeans. I covered the Gap, Banana Republic, and Loft, and then I changed course and walked into J.C. Penney. No exaggeration, I grabbed 12 pairs at a time and headed to the fitting room. By the way, did anyone know that Gloria Vanderbilt is still in the game? I spent under an hour at my last stop and bought 3 pairs including Liz Claiborne, Gloria Vanderbilt and St. John's Bay. I was happy. They looked good and fit well. And all three pairs totaled less than one pair at J. Crew. I got them for seventy bucks. So next time you see me around town, check out my maximized assets.

Prolific Not!

I am not prolific. Really, really not. Some days I have good intentions to accomplish great things. But I usually run out of steam well before I get anything done. By 8 pm, I'm up and down the stairs, rubbing ointment on cracked hands, bribing the dog onto some one's bed, and generally waiting on people. By 9 pm, I'm sitting on the couch (yes, even if the kitchen isn't perfectly clean). My husband and I need this time to regroup and laugh together. The networks don't always cooperate, but Netflix does. We can almost always find something funny to stream. Oh, and there's usually a glass of wine in the room. Sometimes I can actually accomplish a small pesky thing from the couch. Folding laundry is a perfect example. We often stay up later than we should, shutting it all down around 11 or so. But what of all those inventors and geniuses; writers, poets and artists - when do they get all that great stuff done? If it's during the evenings, I am in deep shit.