Now Back to the Regularly Scheduled Blogroll

I changed my Blogroll back to a smaller, bit more personally representative gig, my blogs and the blogs I couldn't live without.(though if I seriously thought I was going to make life time decisions, the list would be MUCH longer. The BlogHer Blogroll and instructions on how to add it are both available here. Definitely worth exploring. (although I definitely NEED MORE TIME because my Bloglines Blogroll has more than doubled in the past week and it isn't getting much better. In fact, it is no doubt getting worse because I keep discovering new blogs to add.

Blogher, blogroll, Bloglines

Bert and Community

I have a Betta fish named Bert. He lives in a vase with a plant on my desk. (I know, I know, cruel and unusual fish treatment but I didn't know that when he moved in and well...) Bert is almost 2. (so probably 2 1/2 since he came from a pet store) Bert has always seemed to be a pretty happy fellow for a Betta fish. At my original desk he was privy to being visited by everyone who came down the hall. He enjoyed this interaction quite a bit. Then I was moved for several weeks to a cubicle which he didn't seem to like as well. No good place for him to watch me, no good place for him to enjoy his admirers, so not his thing. Now I have my own office(with a window and a door I hear chanted in my head...my family is a little sick of hearing about this...)and Bert has a nice place where he can hover and watch me type. This does seem to interest him, but there aren't so many walk-by visitors.

Bert has been doing something interesting the past few days. He often does interesting things but this of course is something that connected in my mind with community and blogging. Bert, being a Betta, rarely swims around and around and around. He hovers. He does swim up when someone bends to see him and he does swim over to watch me type. The last few days he has been doing this odd thing where he goes and tangles himself in the plant roots, hangs out there for a while, then practically FOLDS himself in half to slither out. At first I thought he was getting stuck which seemed odd since he has never done that before, so I would take his plant out. He usually would give me his baleful Bert look not unlike my children when I do something dumb. (hey, what is a community post without some anthropomorphism? If we can have Friday Felines, we certainly can have baleful bert)After a few of these 'rescues', I noticed that much like a cat in a tree, he got in there, he can get out.

I think a blog can be very much like a pretty fish bowl on a desk. It is a great place to hang out. You can build a routine, a community of visitors, and life is good. You are excited when folks drop by...swim over to see them as it happens.(I could bring in the surfing metaphor but fish are enough for now.) But ultimately small. Sometimes, you get stuck. You might accidentally get stuck the first time, glad for a hand in your community giving advice or more. Then you might just decide you like hanging out stuck in your cave. It is a nice friendly nest after all. You can leave it for a breath of air but then it is back to your tangle of roots. Pretty soon your community doesn't want to come see you, rescue you, either. It is no fun after a while to watch someone in a tangle when you know they can get out, but don't.

All it really takes though is to stretch, find, maybe bend in half, to remember the why and what makes internet community so essentially important. Sort of like clean water in your fish bowl.

Bert, betta, burnout, Blogs,community

Change the System

Cliterally speaking: A wise old bird: "'Go to the people at the top—that is my advice to anyone who wants to change the system, any system. Don’t moan and groan with like-minded souls."...Maggie Kuhn, Founder of the Gray Panthers (and you definitely should go read the rest of the quote.)

Thank you id! Such a perfect quote for all the post BlogHer madness. Change? Play by the rules? None of the above. Well, why not check out what a smart chick who has done such a thing before says?

My Active Fantasy Life

I have a confession to make: I have an active fantasy life. This fantasy life started when I was very young. I would have to say my mother was at first responsible for this fantasy life. I am not ashamed to admit this because I know there are millions of women out there who share the same active fantasy life. This isn't about Mel Gibson. This isn't a fantasy life spun from reading Harlequin romances. This isn't even a fantasy life about sex at all. Well, sex was involved but that is only responsible for ramping up my fantasy life.

You see...my fantasy life is about well, my family. As a teen babysitter I had all sorts of mental commentary that was along the lines of "When I am a mother, I will not have a baby who is up past 8 pm. Ever." Soon Fantasy Mom arrived; she continued to visit and harp in the same vein for years and years pre-children. She moved in permanently once I actually started a family. Fantasy Mom said "Snotty nosed toddlers...nope, my children will always have clean faces and clearly the medical issue behind snotty noses can be cured promptly." She said: "No kid of mine is going to suck her thumb or one of those pacifiers." Fantasy Mom had a whole list of things she was going to be: neatly dressed, no bad hair, no lost car keys. Fantasy Mom also had a list of appropriate standards for every age from infant (no crying when left with a sitter, no diaper rash, no sugar, fried food or preservatives before age 1) to school aged (no backtalk, clean rooms, sibling harmony, interesting hobbies) and beyond. There were of course the standards that applied to all ages...clean clothes, neatly dressed, clean faces, no scuffs, scabs, snot, all those s words. All of that is well and good.

There were even higher standards though for Fantasy Mom, herself. Fantasy Mom is a cross between June Cleaver and Mary Poppins. Fantasy mom would cook healthy, preferably organic from scratch meals. Fantasy Mom has a sparkling home. Fantasy Mom would be the mom all the other moms hated because she was the best room mother, had the most clever ideas for birthday parties, volunteered at the school, head of the PTA but still had time to bake homemade cookies for after school snack. Fantasy Mom always has an ear and understanding for social drama, as well as school drama. Fantasy Mom has the answer when a teacher is unfair, when kids are mean, and when the hamster turns up missing and the cat looks happy. Fantasy Mom knows exactly what to dress the children in so they fit in. Fantasy Mom always knows how to listen so kids can talk. She is always calm, collected and of course uses only the latest and greatest methods to guide and train her children (who of course will never need any more discipline than that) Fantasy Mom never hands the kids a bag of M&Ms so she can get 10 minutes to herself. Fantasy Mom always has engaging age appropriate after school activities. Crafts mostly...culled from the pages of Family Fun and the hundreds of 365 ways to spend time with kids in the best fantasy mom way books she owns. Weekend outings are always fun, usually educational. Fantasy mom sure never turns on the tv for an hour...or two. She doesn't call out for pizza. Fantasy Mom is fit. Fantasy Mom never has a haircut, clothes, shoes or says anything that may embarrass her children. Her car is clean, has no dents, scratches, dings. It isn't out of the ordinary but isn't embarrassingly ordinary. Fantasy Mom is one amazing woman and her life is amazing.

Unfortunately, I am not Fantasy Mom. I want to be. Wait, let me take that back...I do and don't want to be. There are some Fantasy Mom fantasies that are just lovely for daydreaming.(i.e. no tv fantasy mom directly conflicts with well-adjusted children who can talk about popular culture with peers Fantasy Mom)

I am a real mom. I am a mom whose children have gone out of the house with dirty faces, marker on their hands and/or face. I am the mom who let her preschooler wear pajamas, princess costumes, backwards, not matching clothes to preschool. I am a mom familiar with the various corn dog options in the freezer case, who has been known to buy bizarrely colored food products, who even shrugs and hands an apple to her children in the morning with the Frosted Flakes or worse...Pop-Tart. I don't always know what the stats are for a Yu-gi-oh card. I sometimes forget which one of my children doesn't eat catsup. I have been known to forget it is snack day. My kids have slammed doors, picked on their siblings, cried in public, have had potty training accidents in public. I have lost my keys, my purse, my grocery list. I have picked my children up from school in a messy car. I have kissed my kids at school (thus violating all sorts of Fantasy Mom rules most importantly the embarrassment one).

Sometimes you have to come to the realization that Fantasy Mom doesn't and shouldn't exist. My children, all my children, are amazing. They aren't perfect. They wouldn't be perfect even if they had Fantasy Mom full-time. What makes the best mom changes from moment to moment, child to child. The right strategy for a child doesn't mean it is the right strategy for every child. Children are unique. Mommies are unique. I think it is the blend of child and a mommy who just keeps working at doing the right thing for that individual child that really makes the best mommy. At least I hope so. I keep working at being a fantasy mom...can't give it up now. But I realize that each day, each minute, each child, that Fantasy Mom doesn't know best. Real mom doesn't always know best either. But real mom is there every day and keeps trying. Fantasy Mom...well like all good fantasies, skips out leaving the bed unmade. She sometimes has great ideas but is never there in a pinch.

I think that is why the televised "supernannies" are so popular. Fantasy mom comes in and turns every family into the fantasy family. One week and you are living the fantasy. We can watch and laugh. We can watch and go geez, my family isn't as bad as that. We can watch and while being entertained get fresh ideas or fresh reminders of Fantasy Mom problem solvers. But in the end...it is all a fantasy like all tv. The perfect fantasy for all the imperfect moms out there who called for pizza and forgot to buy new shoelaces at the store. The New York Times felt it necessary to tell us that these shows are fantasies. I think we all knew that...but a little fantasy is a good thing...for us and our children.

Celebrity Gush...

The famous Dooce (who apparently the lucky BlogHer gals got to gush over): “You’re Heather Armstrong? Really? I thought you would be more…more sophisticated. More put together.”

I am sympathetic to her chagrin...but I have to admit something here.

I get really tongue-tied and tend to say really dumb things when I meet someone I admire. At a reading/booksigning for a famous book author, (a children's book author...who had written books I had by that point memorized and could recite in my sleep to a toddler) I said to this lovely lady. "I am so excited to meet you. Great reading. I didn't know you wrote REAL books" (she had read an older children's book selection and an excerpt from an adult book) ugh.

Then at a cocktail party at a rather wealthy big boss' home (the big boss who I can still gush about upon occassion for her very progressive BlogHer-like personality and goals): "Thanks so much for inviting us. I love your house, it reminds me of home with all the stuff stacked all over and the battered furniture"

To the poet laureate...great inscription, I never know what to write. Maybe you could give me tips. (She did actually.)

I could go on with examples...but I won't. Too terribly embarrassing for me.

I have to admit that as many times as I have foamed at the mouth...all were incredibly gracious. I always hope that they got that I was just overwhelmed and do such things under stress when expected to speak. From the other remarks regarding the Dooce celebrity at BlogHer, I expect Heather probably was as well though bemused at some, if not all of it.

Tags: blogher Dooce