the first rule of blogging is...
The first rule of blogging is that blogging is not journaling. It can be, as long as you don't ask people to read it. But once you're promoting your blog or placing ad space, your blog isn't your diary. Unless you're really interesting (and by interesting I mean famous) nobody wants to hear about where you got that smoothie or what KIND of headache you had this afternoon.
This is what I tell myself every time I start to write a post. I ask myself if it's relevant to someone else's life, or if it's pure navel-gazing. I ask myself if a reader who doesn't know me would find this interesting, funny, or informative, and if the answer is no, then that post doesn't get published.
Until today.
It's been a week since I've posted and I feel like I'm in a bit of a creative desert - funny thing about creativity is that it's like your abs - soon as you stop working it that shit starts getting a little less sharp, a little soggier. After a week of not writing, I am soggy.
Suffice it to say that shit went down.
Literal shit.
There was not a single day in the last week that I did not survive some kind of catastrophic shit phenomenon.
Car seat blowouts. Multiple car seat blowouts. All breeds - up the back, out the leg, in the hair, on the belly. Liquid diapers in the crib. In the bath tub. On the floor. On the couch.
I have changed no fewer than 6 shitty diapers in the back of the car in the last week.
So there was that.
Plus we had family in town with their own sick, shitting toddler.
Plus I'm running my third annual toy drive for Seattle Children's Hospital, promoting the wish list, checking in with corporate participants to make sure they're rallying the troops in this the eleventh hour, touching base with the donation coordinator at the hospital, inventorying toys as they come in and breaking down the shipping materials.
Plus I had all this pie to eat.
(So everything you've read up until now absolutely violates the first rule of blogging. Watch as I try to save it by connecting it to a ghost reader so that the last 15 minutes of typing wasn't in vain.)
But you know, I don't have to tell you what it's like to feel like a human mop, damp and smelly, gray and limp.
(See what I did there?)
(Yeah, but now you don't have anything else to say, do you?)
(Not really. I mostly just wanted to break the seal on coming back to writing.)
(That's cool. You should probably go now and inventory those 7 boxes of donated toys.)
(Yeah, plus I told Ryan I would do the dishes tonight.)
(You did do that. Like an idiot.)
(OK, so. I'm going.)
(So go.)
(I am.)
(And yet you're not.)
(I'm going right now if you'd let me, goll.)
(This is the worst blog post anyone has ever written.)
(That's mean. Also probably true.)
(So...)
(So?)
(So GO.)
(I can't believe I'm still typing this.)
(There's still time for you to delete this entire sequence, babe. You can still go back.)
(Nope, I've spent 8 minutes on this. It's going on the blog.)
(It's your funeral.)
(And I'm clicking "publish" riiiiiiiiight.... NOW.)
This is what I tell myself every time I start to write a post. I ask myself if it's relevant to someone else's life, or if it's pure navel-gazing. I ask myself if a reader who doesn't know me would find this interesting, funny, or informative, and if the answer is no, then that post doesn't get published.
Until today.
It's been a week since I've posted and I feel like I'm in a bit of a creative desert - funny thing about creativity is that it's like your abs - soon as you stop working it that shit starts getting a little less sharp, a little soggier. After a week of not writing, I am soggy.
Suffice it to say that shit went down.
Literal shit.
There was not a single day in the last week that I did not survive some kind of catastrophic shit phenomenon.
Car seat blowouts. Multiple car seat blowouts. All breeds - up the back, out the leg, in the hair, on the belly. Liquid diapers in the crib. In the bath tub. On the floor. On the couch.
I have changed no fewer than 6 shitty diapers in the back of the car in the last week.
So there was that.
Plus we had family in town with their own sick, shitting toddler.
Plus I'm running my third annual toy drive for Seattle Children's Hospital, promoting the wish list, checking in with corporate participants to make sure they're rallying the troops in this the eleventh hour, touching base with the donation coordinator at the hospital, inventorying toys as they come in and breaking down the shipping materials.
Plus I had all this pie to eat.
(So everything you've read up until now absolutely violates the first rule of blogging. Watch as I try to save it by connecting it to a ghost reader so that the last 15 minutes of typing wasn't in vain.)
But you know, I don't have to tell you what it's like to feel like a human mop, damp and smelly, gray and limp.
(See what I did there?)
(Yeah, but now you don't have anything else to say, do you?)
(Not really. I mostly just wanted to break the seal on coming back to writing.)
(That's cool. You should probably go now and inventory those 7 boxes of donated toys.)
(Yeah, plus I told Ryan I would do the dishes tonight.)
(You did do that. Like an idiot.)
(OK, so. I'm going.)
(So go.)
(I am.)
(And yet you're not.)
(I'm going right now if you'd let me, goll.)
(This is the worst blog post anyone has ever written.)
(That's mean. Also probably true.)
(So...)
(So?)
(So GO.)
(I can't believe I'm still typing this.)
(There's still time for you to delete this entire sequence, babe. You can still go back.)
(Nope, I've spent 8 minutes on this. It's going on the blog.)
(It's your funeral.)
(And I'm clicking "publish" riiiiiiiiight.... NOW.)