June 2008

Papier-Mache, Connectiveness and Seinfeld

by MomGrind

paper-mache

My friend E. took this photo of a paper mache mannequin on Madison avenue, New York. She took it with her iPhone, then emailed it to me. Needless to say, I immediately asked for her permission to post it here. It’s GORGEOUS, isn’t it?

I also thought to myself, that just a few short years ago, we couldn’t have done this. She would have taken the picture with her non-digital camera, and if I were lucky, I would get a print of the photo a few weeks later. Times sure have changed.

I love how fast and connected the modern world is, even if the fast pace is sometimes tiring.

Another random thought: “Paper mache” made me think about the Seinfeld episode where George dumps his pretentious girlfriend. Remember that one?

George tells her, “The truth? You want the truth?… It IS your earrings! It IS your chopsticks! But it’s so much more than that! You’re pretentious! You call everybody by their full name! You called my doorman Sammy “Samuel”! But you didn’t even say “Samuel”, you said it “Samuelle”! Papier-mache? WHAT is pah-pee-ay-mache?”

I stopped watching TV a couple of years ago. Just lost interest. But I do miss Seinfeld.

Do you watch television? Are you happy with your TV-watching habits? Do you consider it a huge waste of time, or a legitimate tool for winding down and relaxing?

Blogging Break

by MomGrind

vered-deleeuw

It’s time for a bogging break.

It was obvious to me right from the start that blogging is highly addictive. When I read about bloggers who put in 70 hours per week, work so hard that they forget to drink, and sometimes even drop dead, I promised myself that “real life” would always come first.

I do have a life outside blogging. I am a mom, a wife, a friend and a daughter. After a few years’ break, it looks like I am back at my career too, this time around as a blogger for hire. So, the more I fell in love with blogging, the more important it became to find a balance.

I can’t say I found my balance. I still spend too much time in front of the computer. I still think too much about blogging, commenting, stumbling and tweetering. As you can see, my vocabulary has certainly expanded over the past few months, and not necessarily in a good way.

However, the next three weeks are going to be very busy in other areas of my life. I will tell you all about it later, but right now all I can say is I am going to take a short blogging break and post less for a few weeks.

See you later!

In the photo: waiting for some friends to arrive for brunch at our place. Looking fairly relaxed. NOT blogging. SEE? I really do have a life. :)

Online Friends: Just as Good as Real-Life Friends?

by MomGrind

Friendship
Photo credit: pensiero

Are your online friends as important as your real-life friends?

I used to consider my real-life friends as “real friends,” while my online friends seemed more, well, virtual, and since they were less “real” to me, I didn’t consider them as important.

But this blog, and the relationships I am gradually forming through it, is making me rethink my initial attitude towards online friendships.

What other bloggers are saying about online friends

Anyone who ever doubted that an online community can be a real community and provide people with real support, should read Jenn’s BlogHer post about going through a stillbirth and a miscarriage.

Jenn says: “Today, there are amazing resources to help a Mom go through such a horrible time. Support groups. Online groups. Blogs. Friends you have met through blogging. You can say what you need to and find love and support. I wish I had that 16 years ago.”. Jenn makes an important point: sometimes, especially when you go through a trauma, you find that your real-life support system fails miserably. In a situation like this, finding online friends that have been through the same experience can be a lifesaver.

Zoe makes a similar observation about people who belong to a minority group. Zoe is a lesbian. She started blogging in an attempt to find others that are like her: “I started blogging to find me, and to find a place where I fit in. I started blogging to find other 30 something, long term coupled, RPG playing, video gaming lesbians, with less mainstream taste in movies and music, because in my town they don’t seem to exist.”

Suzie doesn’t feel alone anymore. She writes, “I had discovered that even though I live in a big city I had started to feel really alone… So I started blogging and I met people, all different types of people. I started feeling like I wasn’t so alone anymore.”

Denise values her online friends at least as much as she values local ones. She says: “The internet has helped with that whole friendship thing, for me and my older kids. And, I’ll just be really honest and admit that it’s been a long time since I formed really strong bonds with members of my local community.”

Barbara writes about the power of an online community to transform a life. “Something about that online communication began to “fill her”, not with food, but with a sense of belonging. A sense of value.”

Joel mentions the benefits of participating in an online community. “Becoming a part of the online community isn’t just great because you can ease the feelings of web-worker loneliness and have some laughs, it’s great because it leads to long-lasting relationships and even new opportunities as far as that work-from-home career goes.”

Robin says, “when I began this blogging adventure 3 months ago I didn’t anticipate the feeling of community that has come with it.”

Amy acknowledges the importance of her online community of moms. She says, “through blog posts, comments, emails and tweets, I’ve been fortunate enough to become part of a community of women who truly care about each other.”

Speaking of Twitter

I used to be a BIG skeptic, but Twitter is a great tool for networking and for keeping in touch. In fact, since none of my real-life friends uses Twitter, I sometimes feel more in touch with my Twitter friends than I do with my real-life friends, because my real-life friends and I get together probably once a month or so, and email weekly, but my Twitter friends have a constant presence in my life through their frequent tweets.

Bloggers who meet in real life

In July, I am planning to attend BlogHer Conference ’08 in San Francisco. I am excited to meet face to face with several bloggers whom I have really come to admire over the past few months. The BlogHer Conference illustrates the way in which my “online” life as a blogger for hire blends with “real-life.”

Some bloggers choose to hit the road and meet their readers in person. Bossy chose to do it on a large scale, others quietly find a way to meet online friends, then blog about it in their blogs.

When Robin and I jokingly talked, during a recent discussion, about my readers coming over for a dinner party at my house, I realized that it wasn’t really a joke. I would have been so happy to do that. Just imagine – a group of intelligent people that have strong opinions about anything and everything, yet know each other and share a common respect for each other. Wow. What a dinner party that would be.

The bad news

Since “online” and “real life” are becoming one, the other side of the realness of online support is that online meanness is also very real and has a way of affecting one’s real life. And, since online meanness tends to be unfiltered, it can be even more devastating and cruel than real-life unkindness.

A Final thought: should we ditch the dichotomy?

Maybe we should just stop using the term “real-life friends” as opposed to “online friends.” Isn’t online just as real? Isn’t it part of of our real life? Beth Blecherman points out: “I am a true believer in online social networking for social and career development. I feel that people who don’t have an online presence will miss out the ability to keep in touch with large networks of people online – as well as the “real life” events and invites that are outcomes of those networks.”

I completely agree.

Women Are Stupid

by MomGrind

Is it possible to look more STUPID than she does?

car-ad.jpg
1970. Image credit: dklimke

Apparently, the answer is a resounding YES, as demonstrated by this 1953 sexist vintage ad:

stupid.jpg
1953. Image credit: dklimke

Would You Put A Dinosaur In Your Front Yard?

by MomGrind

dinosaur-sculpture

I’m assuming I can safely make fun of this over here.

Right? RIGHT?!

There’s no way one of you will yell at me in the comments “I have one exactly like this in my yard and everyone thinks it is BEAUTIFUL and a lovely addition not only to my house but to the entire neighborhood. Home values in my neighborhood have sharply risen since I’ve placed this in my yard”.

Photo taken on a recent trip to Half Moon Bay, California, where the roadside is filled with local farmers selling fresh produce, nurseries selling flowers and plants, and shops that are selling tasteful outdoor decorations.

A Letter to Dad

by MomGrind

You were only 24 when I was born. How solemn you look in this photo, holding me – a tiny newborn – in your arms, in Jerusalem of 1971.

But you shouldn’t have worried. You did well. You were good to me, and taught me to live and to love fully and passionately. You taught me to enjoy life. When I felt anxious or worried, you smiled and reminded me that life is short. When I was sad or upset, you told a silly joke or tickled me and made me laugh.

You are an inspiration to me. You are artistic and creative. You are spirited, passionate and incredibly funny. Sometimes I look at you, and I am amazed that anyone can have such a great attitude towards life. You look at the world like a child: with wonder and amazement.

Sarcasm? Cynicism? Melancholy? Those would be a waste of your time and energy. You don’t dwell on the negative. You always find the good and the positive – in people and in life. I wish I were more like you. I am so proud to be your daughter. I love you, dad. Happy Father’s Day.

Profanity in Blogs: How Do You Feel About It?

by MomGrind

How do you feel about profanity?

I sometimes THINK profanity, but I can never say it, let alone WRITE it. In fact, profanity makes me so uncomfortable, that when a regular reader of this blog, that I happen to really like, used mild profanity in a recent comment, I emailed him and asked for his permission to edit his comment and remove the offensive part.

Some bloggers seem to be quite comfortable inserting the occasional (or frequent) profanity into their blog posts. A few fairly recent examples are these posts by Naomi Dunford, Heather B. Armstrog, Sweetney, and Dave Navarro.

According to the hilarious blog Cuss-O-Meter, MomGrind’s “Cuss Level” is LOW. “0% of the pages on MomGrind contain cussing. This is 100% LESS than other websites who took this test.”

profanity

The Cuss-O-Meter reports that the average percentage of pages that contain profanity, for all the websites that have taken the Cuss-O-Meter, is 9%.

Zoe was disappointed with her low score.

I am not exactly disappointed, since I pretty much anticipated these results.

But I wonder. If there’s a tool for measuring profanity levels, maybe there’s a tool that automatically inserts profanity in strategic places? If I use such a tool, I’d be able to spice things up over here with a little profanity, without having to actually TYPE IT DOWN while blushing and choking, so to speak, on my own words. And then maybe I wouldn’t be authoring a PG-rated blog anymore. I’m not necessarily aiming for R, but PG-13 would be nice.

I was curious to see how the Cuss-O-Meter rated other sites. When I wrote the first draft for this post, a few weeks ago, Dooce’s “Cuss Level” was HIGH at 15.7%. Now it is down to LOW, with 14.5% of the pages containing profanity. All those mild posts about stuff she bought in Canada are likely to blame.

Sweetney’s cuss level remains HIGH at 24.6%.

IttyBiz, on the other hand, is a mystery: when I first checked, it was at 94.2%, which meant that 94.2% of the pages on IttyBiz contained profanity. I thought that was impressive. But I just checked it again, and it is now at 100.5%, which means that around 100.5% of the pages on IttyBiz contain profanity. To me, it seems like a math miracle.

blog cuss o meter

No wonder I enjoy IttyBiz so much.

How do you feel about profanity, in blogs and in general? Do you use it in your own blog? When you see it in other blogs, do you find it refreshing and funny, or distasteful and offensive?

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