Further Proof that I am not “the cool” Mom.

Behold, further proof that I, as a mother, cannot control everything:

 

 

I hate Barbie. Hate her. Flat out can’t stand her. Chopped off her hair and chewed her feet, so my mother forbid them.

I was pleased that Vivian had absolutely no desire for this type of toy, and still doesn’t.

Rosalyn however, has yet to meet a Barbie that she doesn’t like, and manages to see them on the days I’ve decided to buy her a new toy and they’re 40% off.

Yes, I’m a sucker.

I used to worry about the potential effect on her development as a woman. And to a degree, it is worrisome-even this morning realizing that Barbie ALWAYS has long flowing, slightly wavy hair, regardless of her ethnicity. I worry that I’m not necessarily setting the best example in front of her.

But then I remember that I AM setting the example-by trying to show her that real women come in all sizes-that some are round and bumpy and squishy like Mommy, with crazy hair, and yes, some are slim and pale with long hair. That it’s ok to be either one-that it’s a spectrum, not an either-or equation. I set the example by reminding her they are Queen’s, NOT princesses, and that Queen’s kick ASS.

I am still amused that she absolutely refuses my offer of a Ken.

They’re toys. I’ve learned this since being pregnant the first time. The Ben 10′s, the snakes, the Barbies, the ponies-they are things we love. I love Holly Hobbie as a child-and I can’t think of anything problems I can attribute to that. I have had body image and self esteem issues-and I owned all of 2 barbie’s in my life. I learned, or didn’t learn, from my mother, and from the world around me, presented without a filter or explanation.

We talk, my girls and I. We watch real women and I comment on their beauty, their talent, their power and smarts. And mine, my future women, they hear this, even as they clutch what once I found so frightening.

Pensioneering

It’s pension day and I’m grocery shopping. My brain, leaking from my shoes, battered by this new onset of crippling depression and angry, neglected to think through my visit.

Annoyed and buggy slammed, cornered in the soup aisle, I make it to the long line at the cash, where lots of stories about Michelle telling Oprah to “Back off!” lie, where breathlessly is asked “Where are the twins!!!”, an article obviously written by childless folk who don’t understand that new babies in a house full of kids get.sick.period.

No sign of my usual cooking magazines however. Pout.

The people ahead of me, a mother daughter combo it appears, split their order in two. One, a variety of items, the usual suspects in a grocery cart-milk, bread, fruit. The other, the older, the one tightly clutching her money in her hand, only has specifics. Ground beef, medium. Stew Beef. Sausage. Cheap cuts that go far.

And about 20 .79 cent pot pies.

She’s rung through, and carefully counts out even pennies from her wallet, putting a much smaller number of bills back in. It doesn’t look like much, and I’d wager it’s going to need to last her all month.

It doesn’t look like much at all. I glance down at my buggy, thinking still of all the things I didn’t buy because we don’t need them, or just plain can’t afford them, still irritated by how I’m likely blowing through 4 times her monthly food budget for 2 weeks at my house.

Mine suddenly looks like too much, even though I know it’s not that much at all. Even though I know the treats are few, the protein limited, the produce sparse this time of year.

It’s really not much at all.

******************************

I read the studies. I read the books. I know the story-eat well, be well. Be kind to the wee chicks and piggies. Be a good consumer, study those labels, choose fair labour, hormone free, organic, local food.

On the eve of losing my current job, it amuses me that this kind of “choice” is one that is privileged. Choice is given only to those able to afford 5.39 for a dozen eggs for 25.00 for a broiler chicken. Choice is for people ready, able and willing to spend the extra on those local organic potatoes. Choice is only for those will the dollars to back their conscience up.

I’ve spent years running from my lower class upbringing. Running from casseroles and ground beef, running from begging my Dad for some money for a few groceries, bread, cereal. I thought I had finally found a comfort zone, finally begun to move into middle class territory. Perhaps take a trip, fix the house. Be solidly reliable and avoid HFCS.

It was obviously a lie. Now I face the spectre of meat pies and frozen corn yet again. Now I face the knowledge that I’m eating crap but can’t avoid it because I cannot afford it. I’ll face the lecturing of spaces where people can afford all the gadgets, all the things, the cars the phones the toys, I’ll face the reproaching of those who can’t understand how I can’t afford to feed my children only the best. How I can possibly stomach eating that apples, possibly covered in something.

Worse still, it will all be veiled in “help” and “suggestion”. It’s never aimed at chastising the lower class since, well, we all know the lower class doesn’t exist online. Being online in the first place-that’s privilege! Reading those posts, those studies, it’ means you’re literate, and you MUST not be lower class! How could you be?!

But there will be smiles and cupcakes and panda bears. It won’t be meant meanly. Just to educate.

I’ve been tired for awhile of the sanctimony connected to food, to class. I’ve done it myself, and it’s wrong, as I’ll quickly realize while lying awake recounting the deeds of the day. As I grow closer to lower class, to the fear of a buggy filled more with junk than with health, I feel it more. How dare I!

I don’t like things. I don’t like stuff. We don’t own a car, most of our larger belongings are old, and wear out before we replace them. Surrounded by a world, even online, of MORE MORE MORE!!!! stuff but then at the same time MORE MORE MORE!!! “healthy” foods, I feel bereft, I feel cheap and I feel like I shouldn’t be here.  Like the voices of those who must, even unwillingly, open and use that casserole book, who can only afford the free run eggs occasionally, that they aren’t heard, aren’t spoken, and can’t be, because the privilege of new cars and homes, optimal food choices, even if bought on borrowed time and dollars, they speak louder than I ever could.

I know better they’d say. I’m smart (but not educated-can’t quote that B.A. I never finished after my name) I read and I know the difference between the bleached white and the whole wheat flour, I know the difference between buying local and buying from Chile. I know better.

The implication that class done gone made me smarter, or would, is what only deepens my frustration. Because I may never rise above where we are financially.

But does it matter, at the end of the day? The money in your pocket, the food in your hand, the car that you drive, does it REALLY make it as you as day to day life might make it seem?

************************

It’s one of the last grocery trips on paychecks from this job, the buggy is interspersed with fair trade grapes, Canataloupe from Guatemala, local bread, chips from who knows where. I can be choosy, still. I can make decisions based on conscience, to a degree.

But the pot pies….they loom. Along with a healthy dose of shame.

Things are gonna change, my dear.

I thought it was the cold weighing me down, the incessant, doesn’ t matter how many sweaters you wear or how high you crank the heat cold that’s clinging to my bones lately. I thought maybe it was sunlight, a lack thereof, a lack of sleep perhaps, sick children, sad children, not sleeping children. I thought perhaps the spectre of my job disappearing very soon was eating at me.

It’s all of those things. Maybe it’s none of those things. But I’ve got this low level depression building in my chest, and I can’t remove it, clingy like plastic wrap, stubborn in it’s whispers. I’m grateful it’s not the “jump in front of a bus” kind, that it’s more of the type of depression average people get, sadness, an inability to get excited or do anything. I feel like a little hamster stuck in the corner of the cage-I can see the wheel-it’s over there and pretty and WEEEE! it would be fun but damn, I just can’t work up the energy or will to care.

It’s emotional atrophy almost. Spend a few days not caring, a few days unable to work up the will to finish that bloody green blanket, unable to do more than the least amount possible, answering the phone becoming difficult. Then everything contracts. You’re fine on the outside, but smiling almost hurts, like your hair when you’re down with the flu. Finding a kind word takes a deep breath and thought. It’s just…a second more effort for everything.

I’m not complaining. I just realized on the bus this morning, I’m not just tired. I’m sad. Sure, I’m handling this whole losing my job thing with more grace and calmness than even I expected, but I’m numb almost. I worry that this sadness will morph into more, and I sing when I can to banish the darkness. I’m waiting for the shoe-I shouldn’t be this calm to a stressor so large as losing a job after 8 years.  I should be something more, right?

At least though, I’m still mostly ok. The 10% sad can be buried under everything else, made better by sweet touch and words, ignored while life is lived, and smiled at in mirrors. After so long, it’s so simple and pure, to just be sad, to just be touched by life and really feel it without the overlap of voices muttering.

Strange that sadness might be showing me the path where I get better.

*************************

Vivian has been having nightmares the last few nights, where she comes flying from her bedroom sobbing, reaching for me. She wouldn’t tell me what they were about. Last night I asked her to please tell me today, if she could, that I’d like to help her chase the bad things away.

This morning she tells me she’s afraid that her Daddy and I will die.

I’m not big on lying. But, I’m also not big on making a 5 year old cry. So I chose the middle ground, much as my parents did, long ago.

“No one is going to die until you’re all grown up, with kids maybe, and we’ve pooped on your carpet. No one is going to leave you.”

Do I believe this? No. I know full well that this can be a brutal lie, that parents can and do leave, or die. But, I think it matters when a parent says “I will never leave you.” Because none of us ever want to, even if circumstances change and force the hand.

I reminded her that what happened to my mother is rare, an odd freak occurance, and that it wouldn’t happen to us. But that also, my mother never really left, and lives in my heart, and in the air around us, forever. That she loves me, and even her. That parents don’t leave.

We ventured further down the path of what happens at death, what I believe, what others believe. I explained that some people, including her grandmother, believed in heaven, and hell, but that I didn’t believe it. Then from her mouth comes:

“Mommy, baby Jesus isn’t real is he?”

I tell her he’s a story some people believe in, that I was raised to believe in. But that I just don’t.

I talk a little more about life being a circle, that life, like seasons, follows a path of change. That death is change, and even though I miss my Mommy dearly somedays, she’s here, somewhere, with us, inside us.

“Does this make sense Vivian?”

“Sorta.” she mumbles, “Can I go to J’s after school today?”

She skips off ahead of me for awhile, processing I’d imagine, forming her world view, slowly, until it comes back to bite me in the ass in 2 months or 6 years.

So many people are horrified when I talk of speaking to my children of death, or sex-but these are two certainties in our lives, two changes, events, continums we cannot alter. We will all die, some sooner, some later. We will hurt-so why not begin the conversation young, when it’s relatively simple, and yet not so simple, because death, it’s never a quiet movement, it’s not as simple as the change I describe, it really is as a season, the color dropping from us, falling to only our bones in a silent concerto.

I believe we continue, and death is not so sad. And I never want my children to fear this one last act.

Spring…pffft. As if.

I begin to doubt that green exists about now.

 

It was -38C this morning. (That’s about -31F for you yanks) For some inexplicable reason, I made my daughter trudge to school. (I’m thinking it’s that whole “I did it, so why wouldn’t you?” idea…uphill both ways and all) Lordie it was fucking freezing, and of course, the snowpant, 4 layer clad kid dawdled the entire.way.there.

Only Vivian could make 1 km take 20 minutes in the cold.

It’s been the kind of cold that makes you long wistfully for burning your feet on asphalt, for heat that pounds on your head until you nearly collapse. I hate summer. And yet here I am today, dreaming of sweat beading down my spine, building up even when I’m not moving. Dreaming of a soft wind through the maple tree behind the house, the one just begging for a swing and a treehouse.

Someone pointed out today that living in this climate makes no sense-why would we? Why live somewhere you can’t be outside safely half the time? Who the hell settled this place? It had to have been summer when someone pointed and snickered “Great land! Really!” before running off to Florida or Texas.

It’s enough to make me sell everything and move to Australia.

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.

We gape, opened mouth, at the line reaching back towards us. Sunday afternoon matinees are usually foolproof. Low volume, quiet theatre’s where one can stretch long legs and lay coats on seats.

In the line for snacks it begins to mount, the silent wave squeezing my lungs, methodically. I push back, ignore it, snark about speed. The man in front of me comments that everyone is going in the theatre, the same one we’re going to need to be in. Everyone. A full house.

I can feel my eyes pounded out of my sockets. I foolishly left my Ativan at home, by now adjusted to and good with the slight crowds. I hadn’t expected this, though I should have on a -16C day. I stare intently at the tiny piece of down feather escaping from the jacket in from of me, willing it to let go.

The noise is like a surf, rising and falling, cresting and slamming against me. It becomes so loud I can feel myself getting ready to bolt, suddenly each single noise has joined hands to play red rover, the incessant beeping of some machine, the low level hum of conversation, the shrieks of laughter from far too many pre-teen boys, the inane chatter from the girl-women behind me, popcorn, change on the counter, footsteps, sighs. It rolls over me and I start to panic and can’t breathe. I feel my legs begin to buckle, turning to jelly.

“Holy fuck.” I mutter, and it breaks, passing through me and around me, coming down, rising again ever so slightly then lying down, prone on the floor. Strength returns.

Watching two women who spent 15 minutes in line need to have bag sizes explained to them, as the cashier so obviously plots their painful death, breaks the panic. Brings me back.

In my head repeats a mantra, even as my thumb threatens to break the skin on my arm. “Nothing is wrong. All is fine. Noise is noise. You can do this.”

There’s something depressing and humiliating about having to tell yourself you can hack a crowd at 31. Something sad about feeling like you might faint in a public place for no more of a reason than it’s loud and overwhelming.

Finally, we grab our snacks, head toward our show. The only seats we can find quick are, thankfully, on the aisle, and at the front so my legs are free to roam. I’m ok.

***

Sometimes I’m fine, and it makes this all the worse.

I woke up this morning, finished a book, came downstairs to a contented family. I reached for the peanut butter in the cupboard and thought “I feel happy right now. Nothing magic, or extreme, just normal, garden variety happy.”  It was so simple and pure that I wanted to hug it until it bled. I stood inside the moment and realized that it was the one thing I wanted for my life. The singular goal of just having a life full of this basic need.

At the risk of sounding trite, it was lovely. I so rarely am afforded a moment of peace like that. I grab it as fiercely as I can. I felt normal-I said to myself “THIS is what everyone else feels, in some cases, all the time if they’re lucky.”

I spent my time feeling normal for once. Normal mom doing normal mom things.

Cringing in a line waiting for fucking popcorn-it destroys whatever grasp you have on normal, rubs your face in the fact that you most certainly are not normal, points and calls you crazy. You wait for the people around you to notice that you’re nearly coming out of your skin, imagining the whispered giggles to be about you. You remember that your brain is fucked up and doesn’t work like most of the other people in the room and you suddenly feel like a pushpin on a map, a place people might have been but will never stay.

Suddenly your normal happiness is gone, leaving only the shame.

But. But this time, I focused on the fact that not too long ago, I would have taken one look at the crowd and taken off. I would never have stood so long, touched and bumped by so many strangers, I would have never been able to sit in a full theatre without leaping to the worst of panic’s. I would have given up at the first sign of that horrible bully seizing my innards.

I still hate it. I still hate these little jarring reminders of how fucked up shit is. But it’s nice to know that sometimes, I can almost win one.

Twice

For the record:

I have now had TWO cops visit me regarding the “incident” after being “tipped” off by strangers.

I have now had TWO cops say “nothing to worry about here” and leave without further incident.

I have now had TWO cops examining me, and my house in that way only the police can.

I have now felt invaded more than a lot over less than 140 characters on a random website.

Have I learned enough of a lesson yet?

Have I proved my love for my children enough yet?

“The ending of sorrow is the beginning of wisdom.”

The questions are simple and familiar. I respond in a cadence I’m not acquainted with. The woman speaking, the woman sitting there, in the most hated of black tights, she’s not someone I’ve known. The answers pour from her mouth like oil, slithering, her laughter meant to charm and bewitch, entwine. Her entire demeanor screams “Like me. I’m fabulous!”

Where the hell she came from is news to me. I haven’t seen this woman in, well, ever.

Days later, having “a serious conversation” about stuff like end dates and payouts, I hear her again, making it clear that I expect what’s deserved by law, and also, by courtesy and fairness. The voice also stands firm and lets it slip in a very subtle way that if the letter of the law isn’t followed, there is no concern in taking it somewhere that could get very complicated.

Her entire demeanor screams “Go ahead. Try and fuck my shit up. I’d enjoy the fight.”

She’s news to me as well. But she fills up my chest like nothing else and I’m perversely proud of the woman who finally found a hill she’s willing to die on. Her back is straight and for moments, I imagine this to be the woman I should have been all along.

Fearless, breathless and utterly charming.

****

Kate wrote  a post last night that hit upon something I’ve been thinking about all week. Sorta.

2009 is twenty years since my mother died of cancer. Grief has underpinned my life so much in the past 20 years it’s not funny-it’s crawled into bed with me, held my hand as I brought new life into the world, rattled my cage at any sign of newness. And it hangs with me still-my need for attention after those formative years spent worrying about everyone else, everyone else thinking I was strong enough and didn’t need to be weak. My fear for my children, my fear for them because of me, my worry that anyone I come close to will screw me over, not might, WILL.

These are itches in my brain that I’ll spend the rest of my life attempting to negotiate and move past. They are part of me. They are no longer strange glitches to acknowledge and then push off the coffee table, they are part of me, and learning to worth with them-that’s the struggle.

But the hardest part, the plain grief, the shuddering quake in my chest, it’s long gone. There are days when I feel wrong almost to be ok with what was, sullen and rude to not still feel that cold hand inside me. Days where it’s easy to imagine she is gone from me, totally and irrevocably lost to my ears and fingers.

The pain allowed the mystery to stay true and follow. Strangely I miss that, the only communion we had, her voice lost amid the trees and the ducks in summer, my ears deafened by children and chili and Sunday mornings lazy in arms.

20 years now, and she is really truly gone from me. I see her everywhere, her image, her doing, her will, her morals, rising up in my like some terrible voice. My thoughts are sometimes her thoughts, and it’s like the years have compressed and for just a second, we are the same people, just two young mothers trying to make it all work. Moments as these are understanding and forgiveness, as years ago they were anger and sadness.

I get it now. Perhaps that’s why the ache is gone. I understand, fully, the sacrifice she had made for us, for herself. I understand the woman who stared at her child, wondering about the years ahead. I understand that for the woman in me to unravel and become, I had to start letting the child die, let her free after holding on to her for dear life for so very long, the only thing I had known was safe and loved me back.

They had to tell my mother to die. In no uncertain terms my father asked her doctors to tell her to let go. Her will was that strong, the fire in her belly and heart so warm and unwavering that she wouldn’t believe she was leaving us, not until there was really no choice, and she made the long trip home to die.

I understand now, that she spoke with a voice she had never heard, and felt it buffer her from the inside, to stay, to last just a little more, the sweetness of life and love just so right. I understand now that this voice is more than just the woman i was meant to be. It’s my birthright.

The last, and most tender gift a mother can give her little girl.

Pray for me.

Yes, I know. I’m being facetious. I don’t pray. Ever.

HOWEVER. As we have just agreed to have a sleepover with 2 count them TWO other 5 year olds, a  boy and a girl, my brain is suddenly wracking itself with anxiety and worry at how will they sleep? Will they eat what I give them? Will they watch a movie before bed or destroy my basement?

And most importantly, do I have enough vodka to get me through the evening?

I wasn’t allowed to have people over as a child. Hell, I was barely allowed to play with other kids, my mother’s upper class pretensions or paranoia’s were so strong. I always had to go to other people’s houses, and even that wasn’t until I was much older than 5.

I’m lost, and fighting my own urge, implanted by my mother, to not have these kids in my house. But I know it’s stupid and wrong and likely driven by some things I have a hunch happened to my mother. So I will suck it up, make awesome something for dinner and let them watch something vaguely illicit like Iron man, shush them to sleep around 11 and make waffles in the morning.

That being said-all of you-you who hold sleepovers, ye who have had sleepovers as a child-any tips? Aside from drinking my face off?

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.

“Mommy, elephants are really scared of mice.”

“mmmhmm.” I’m in a hurry, ran home from one appointment, grabbed the kid from school, dragging her home so I can dart out the door again. Stupid rules not allowing her to take the bus when she can’t walk home by herself alone anyway.

“Yeah, when there’s a mouse, the elephant jumps up in the air it’s so scared.”

I stop, causing Vivian to stop, her mittened hand tucked into mine.

“Dude, the only thing an elephant is scared of is likely human. And carrying a gun. Do you know what people do to elephants for their tusks? They cut them off and then leave them. Trust me, a mouse is the least of their problems.”

We walk a little further, and sure mutters “But they said that elephants are scared…”

I stop again, and bend down to talk to her, not at her.

“Viv, logically, rationally, think about this. How big is an elephant?”

“HUGE!” she crows

“Yes. And how big is a mouse?”

“Really really little?” she offers

“So, knowing this, does it make any sense that a creature as wonderful and large as an elephant would be frightened by a mouse?”

She pauses, looks off down the road. Then the glimmer starts.

“No Mommy. That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Question Vivian. Question what they tell you. You’d be surprised what you learn.”

But now of course, she senses the “mom-lecture” coming, and stops listening.

**********************

I love that we’re raising the girls without religion. I love that they will be raised without the spectre of blind belief, without being taught to never question the things which matter most, to just accept the fantastic claims we make as a society about gods and heavens and afterlife’s. I love that instead of me saying “No, cause god says so!” I have to explain why and how and when, and the words “just cause” rarely exit my lips.

The urge to run with the elephant myth, or to say the moon was saying good night this morning instead of explaining orbit and the tilting of the earth’s axis is strong. It IS easier to run with the prevalent myth, to run with the man in the sky, guiding your life. It’s easier to make magic instead of science. Or so it seems.

I made a decision awhile ago that while I love magic, and all the magical things our world presents to us, I love truth even more. I love the magic in the real world-in how a plant grows, drawing it’s power from our star, the sun. I love explaining the wonderful way that one thing can be many things, and a metaphor for life-water as liquid, snow, ice, vapour. I love watching the magic appear in my children when they watch spiders hatch and run a myriad of ways across our deck, and know that the world has given them this, and it’s sweet.

I believe in the world around me, and by extension, my daughters. I believe that giving them the tools to question the myths they’re given, to really stop and examine if the easter bunny makes any sense whatsoever helps them become smarter, braver women. I knew growing up that most of those characters couldn’t possibly exist. But I loved them the same, for what they meant. I don’t want my daughters sitting idle, accepting what they are told as law, or as a given. I want the questions to be asked.

My mother, raising me under the cloak of  a Roman Catholic god, never accepted this. Her world brooked no questions, not for the important things, as when I’d express my disbelief in a magical place where everyone sat around and revelled in how awesome they were on earth. This wasn’t something said, and I took a long time to finally have the courage to speak my disbelief out loud, into the air where it was made real.

I have found the world around me, the substantial stuff we walk and breathe in, to be more magical and inspiring than any doctrine or book could be. The truths that we link to, the absolutes that settle in our chests and tell us that no, there’s no way that elephant could ever be afraid of something so minuscule-those are awesome because they are ours. They awe us because they start with us, our minds.

I don’t want my daughters to every forget how powerful and magical they themselves truly are.

Never

We sit transfixed, him and I. He’s seen these things before, being 70, and a news and history hound. He’s saved all the magazines from when Kennedy died, old money, records no one has listened to in ages. He’s seen, lived. Man on the moon, TV, Kraft Dinner.

But he’s seen the darker side, he remembers the bathrooms divided, the city divided. He’s been in riots, narrowly escaped fires. He remembers when it was all so different, and so wrong.

We listen to him speak, the slight, strong figure, who stand ramrod on that screen. We can’t look away.

I ask if he remembers anyone else exciting an entire nation so.

He stops, thinks for a moment. Shakes his head.

“Never.” he nearly whispers “In all my years, I have never seen anything like this.”

He speaks in near awe, yet his is different from mine. He remembers how it was when he wasn’t much older than I was, remembers a time and a place. I stare in awe at the future even my Canadian daughters and their friends will have.

The awed thought that finally, we’ve changed, and my children will grow knowing only that.

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. “

We talk of the is that was and where it’s gone.

In grief, in suffering, there is a here before, and a now, a was and the is. We can’t claim back what was. We can’t sit in the footprints of the us that was at 10 or 13 or 6. The snowflake changes in the heat of your hand, and even in the cold, is never quite the same again. It’s harder, covered in gloss, but so much easier to shatter.

I’ve spoke of the absolute before-the singular nature of the destruction loss can wreck on us. The straddling of an obscure line. The me before. The me after. A clearer designation-there is none. Your feet can lie in both for awhile, but eventually, before is swept away, until you can barely remember it’s gentleness.

Only forward change. Never back. The sadness in someone’s eyes, the inability to trust, the gaping hole left in us from loss too soon, too unfair, wrong. The timing, like a broken metronome, chiming in the distance a wretched reminder.

Grief is a thing. It crawls inside us like a dream, stretches to touch every inch of our fragility, and casts a net around us, until we are trapped, our fingers entwined. We change, we alter, our skin lies differently, and ever sweet butter tastes so much the worse for the rancid spell in our mouths. Grief is the echoing silence of that missing person, us, who we were, who we were meant to be.

It’s the torture of those around us, altered, bent. I lost both parents that day 20 years ago-my mother to black rot, my father to the agony of losing his love. Grief became neglect, casual, almost mistaken forgetfulness. I watched myself over that line, as the child I was receded in the distance, wistful, not even waving, as I screamed and reached for her. Screaming for what was, what should have been. The balance. What made sense.

Grief is that creature-the one that keeps me awake at 3am, wondering if I would have finished school if she hadn’t of died, wondering if I wouldn’t be sick, wondering if she’d like the me that is. Grief is the thing eating us, all of us, from the inside out somedays, even 20 years later. Grief is the thing that shows me how sweet it all could have been, and how maybe, I wouldn’t have needed to fight for me.

There stands an is. And, a was. I can’t have her back, and I can barely see her, feel her only faintly like a cloud on my cheek. She is gone. They are gone. Our people who were-perhaps they didn’t really exist beyond our hearts.

Grief is the monster that makes us accept that.

Dear Sir who searched for “My wife thinks I’m a total fucking asshole”

Now that things are back to normalish, the search hits are less “smother twitter mother” and more like “how to die quickly” or “biting my truant pen”.

Or “my wife is a  bitch” or my personal favorite “fucking bitch wife”

Gentleman, can we have a little chat here?

When a woman, specifically your wife, is being “a bitch”, it’s not scour the internet for other men who feel the same way and might reinforce your masculine idea time. It’s sit the fuck down, talk and LISTEN to your wife time. A woman doesn’t just wake up one day and decide to be a jerk-generally speaking, they’re led down that particular garden path by bad behaviour, by being ignored, minimized, ridiculed, or just generally made to feel like shit by you, the fucking jackass husband.

Yeah, you. I’m talking specifically to YOU. When is the last time you randomly did something special for her? No, don’t start prattling on about how she never does stuff for you-she does, and it’s called CLEAN NOT ITCHY TIGHTY WHITIES. When’s the last time you poured her a bath? Rubbed her back? Had a coffee with her and just talked like you did before, 5 or 10 or 20 years ago. When is the last time you told her she’s a good lover? When’s the last time you brought flowers or made a card or a cake just cause.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume never. Because women, and people in general, they want to be wooed. They want to know occasionally “I matter. I’m wanted. I’m needed.”  They need to know that you see them, as a person-not just as sex, or as a mother, or a meal ticket. But as a flesh and blood woman who wants nothing more than to see the man they fell in love with once again.

So many of us fall out of love for the simplest and stupidest of reasons. Because we can’t find it in ourselves to stop and simply be kind and good to each other, to stem the tide of anger and sadness with a little love, compassion and care.

Is she fuckin bitch wife? I doubt it. But if she is, perhaps it’s time YOU took a long hard look in the mirror and figure out what, if anything, you’re bringing to the partnership.

Because frankly, if you’re wasting your time searching for what you came here for, you’re obviously not doing the right things at home.

Guest Post: Examining that Strange Place Where Online Identity and Real Life Collide

My blog Daisybones is my Room of One’s Own- a safe haven where I process my experience as a(n) earthlingwomanmotherartistwriterdepressive in a context. The first two decades of life saw me screaming into the clichéd abyss of ratty notebooks, and (ignoring here the complicated and exhausting meanings of online community) the discovery of great numbers of other people in the blogging venue writing through similar life experiences was empowering simply in the numbers.

I write there under a pseudonym, and the freedom in that lets me shine. The concern that makes me hide my real identity is particular. There are the typical concerns of parents who write about their children, but to be honest that isn’t my real worry. My lifestyle and opinions are, in my insulated Appalachian world, a little bit radical. I work in a public charity, and I have married into a purdy darn traditional family. It does scare me that the in-laws or a potential donor for my organization finding one of the posts hidden in the silly mundane life-of-mom writings and discover my (gasp!horrors!) bisexuality or disdain for most religious organizations. (They would certainly, on my tamest day, see language that would do Carlin proud.) I’m only mildly worried for myself, but what if said charitable guy neglected to donate? It’s a smaller deal than I make it, but a bigger deal than you think it is if you aren’t from a small town culture. I’m sturdy under the scrutiny of technical critique- find fault in my syntax or weakness in the composition of my paintings and I’ll edit and rework with enthusiasm. I’m afraid, though that I give far too much attention to being liked, and that’s probably behind some of this.

So I was comfortable and secure in my decision to go incognito, alerting a few beloved friends to my identity. But now some things are happening. Friends of those few friends know about the blog, and friends of those friends have found me on Twitter. A Board member of my charity found me, but we haven’t acknowledged it yet. I’m rather hoping he found the whole scene psychotic and bailed. (Gods, isn’t it? The initial impression of Twitter is of spastic communiqué droplets tossed out as if by meth-addled passers-by.) At the same time, I’ve started to produce some art again, creating an Etsy shop and beginning to build an online identity for my guise as art seller. These identities are blurring a little, and I’m at a crossroads wondering whether to separate them more or erase the line totally- it’s early in the game; I don’t have huge blog traffic or art sales so now is the time to plan.

I’m worrying about the ramifications. It could be argued that I’m overly complicating an issue that really could be as simple as this question: Am I willing to passively come out publicly as bisexual? I call it passive because if I cross link my web identities a new contact would have to go to Daisybones and notice a reference to said sexuality. Well… and then care. It’s all strange worry, because I’m Queen Heteronormative. I’m married to a guy and have reproduced with him and we are monogamous. The sexual freedom at Daisybones is really only the absence of a censor that might keep me from referring to a long past date or a celebrity crush. (Hi Maggie! Call me and I will leave the holler for you. We’ll raise the girls together in Sapphic bliss.) And passive outness is an excellent term, by the way. My approach to outing has always been to divulge that factoid if asked or if it comes up. I have more conservative coworkers now than I ever have, and it hasn’t come up. They are all well aware that queer rights is my “pet” cause, and I seriously doubt they’d be very shocked to find I’m located in the initials LGBT.

So far my plan of action is to worry and write annoying amounts on the matter while doing nothing. I refer to the art blog on the personal blog sometimes, but never vice-versa. I’m just a little tired of having digital multiple personalities. I feel like I’m missing a marketing opportunity by not showcasing on my blog, too, where I see more hits. I’m interested in discussion here, safely tucked away from my own sites. How should I handle myself? Is there real value in anonymous identities that aren’t carefully protected? What is the responsibility, in the digital age, of social media? If I represent my company on Facebook by day, should I be tweeting away drunk as all get out that evening? 

Daisy is a re-emerging artist, toddler’s mama, and web junkie in West Virginia, USA. She blogs streams-of-consciousness at daisybones.com and (taking a deep breath, saying WTF, and hoping no one she knows IRL reads this, reveals that she… OMG…) posts sketches, art musings at twoserpents.com and works for sale at twoserpents.etsy.com. She Twitters as daisybones and twoserpentsart and wonders, in the lyrical styling of Joss Whedon:

Where do we go from here?

Suckity Suck Suck

Thus far January has been a banner fucking month for me.

The kerfluffle a week ago, some other stuff I don’t feel comfortable talking about publicly, it’s gathered around me like a storm.

Thankfully I’m stable. But I’m just becoming so incredibly sad about things. I wouldn’t even dare to call it depression-just this overwhelming, sticky sadness that weighs my limbs down and makes me not want to move, uninterested in doing much of anything, except maybe drinking my face off.

Heh. Maybe it is depression after all.

I know change is good. I know I haven’t been happy with certain things. But sweet crap, haven’t I had enough change lately? I’m tired-the kind of tired sleep doesn’t fix. My heart is heavy and I just don’t know how to expel the ghost wrapped around it.

I feel helpless, and alone, and not a little useless. And I hate it. I hate swimming in a pool of nothing like this. I hate this need, this thirst that cannot be slaked.

I’ll shake it off. Somehow I always do. I just desperately hope that this isn’t a portent of what the rest of this year will look like. I deserve one normal year like everyone else gets.

Guest Post: “Innocence can be redefined and called stupidity. Honesty can be called gullibility. Candor becomes lack of common sense.”

I offered to write this guest post because I, too, have had some of the people who follow me on-line (albeit through my blog, not Twitter) insert themselves into my Real Life.  As a result, like Thordora, I know how bizarre and surreal that experience can be.
I had the horrendous misfortune of living in a neighborhood full of oddities, from the drunks next door with their ill-mannered offspring to the people who couldn’t step foot outside of their house without blasting their stereos to the people who let their children ride ATVs and dirt bikes in the streets.  The more the neighbors did, the more I wanted to write about it.  That was one of the reasons I started my blog.  However, while I’ll never deny that I can register pretty high on the bitchometer at times, I’m not so cold-hearted as to use my neighbors’ real names or addresses when I write about them.  Additionally, because I knew I would be writing about my neighbors when I started my blog, I chose to use a pseudonym for myself, as well, thus giving the characters in my story yet another layer of anonymity.  And, believe me, that was much more consideration than they deserved.
But, because I didn’t anticipate many people reading my blog and/or didn’t think those who read it would turn out to be batshit crazy, I didn’t take precautions to insure that my real identity couldn’t be found. * 
When I read about someone sending the cops to Thordora’s house because of her tweet (which tweet I happened to have read right after she posted it and thought nothing of it**), I was appalled.  What an incredible invasion of privacy.  Yes, privacy. 
There are too many people who think bloggers, tweeters, or users of other other on-line venues have willingly given up any expectation of privacy because we’re putting our lives out there for everyone to read, but I vehemently disagree.  We’re inviting people to read what we publish on-line.  Period.  End of story.  Our on-line presence isn’t an open invitation for our readers to drop by for tea, call us on the phone to chat, stalk us, contact our employers to complain about what we’ve written, or call the cops, simply because they take issue with something we’ve written. 
While the onus is on the writer not to write anything libelous, the reader also has some responsibility – to understand the voice of the writer.  If you don’t understand or don’t care for the writer’s style, don’t call the sarcasm police… just move on to something that’s more your speed. 
Would readers be justified in harassing people who publish autobiographies or other works of nonfiction in a more mainstream fashion (books or magazines)?  Is everyone who’s ever been mentioned in the newspaper, whether in a feature story, a wedding announcement, or by virtue of having a letter to the editor published, fair game for these miscreants who apparently have so woefully little excitement in their own lives that they need to interject themselves into the Real Lives of complete strangers?
The normal way for someone to respond to something posted on-line is, surprise! on-line.   Post a comment to a blog entry, send an e-mail, respond to a tweet – these are normal and acceptable ways to express your opinion/concern/agreement/ire. 
 
 
*If you’re interested in my personal experience, snippets of my stalker saga can be found on my blog:  http://blogs.brocknet.net/eriepressible/?cat=72.
**I thought nothing of the tweet in question precisely because I’d been reading Thordora’s blog and tweets for quite a while and was familiar with her style.   And if you don’t read someone’s blog or know him/her in person, why would you follow him/her on Twitter in the first place?

Guest Post: ” Our judgments judge us; and nothing reveals us [or] exposes our weaknesses more ingeniously than the attitude of pronouncing upon our fellows. “

“In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em.”

– Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene iv 

Same goes for fame, such as it is. More often than being born famous, achieving fame or having it thrust upon you, fact is that in today’s world a lot of people seek fame. Hell, they crave it. When you can get a paycheck and a swanky (albeit temporary) place to live so long as you agree to put your life on display for entertainment, it’s going to create a culture of famewhores – people who will do anything, no matter how base, to have their names known. 

Thordora is not one of them. Nor am I. Yet we belong to a sort of club: everyday women whose names are known beyond their circle of intimate friends because of something that happened on the Internet. In Thordora’s case, it was a Twitter message (I think the proper term is “tweet” but I’m not as up to date on the hep lingo the kids use these days). In my case, it was a video of my kids playing in my kitchen. 

In both cases, when the stories were analyzed in blogs and on the news, we were judged. I was judged with a lot less criticism than Thordora got. People pretty much take my side or play devil’s advocate, something I’m extremely grateful for. Going through what I go through dealing with this lawsuit and its fallout is taxing on the brain and body; having support from strangers is remarkably strengthening. In Thordora’s case, the support has come less completely but I have seen strangers take her side, defend her and stand up to those who would tear her down for her innocent remark. 

If her message had been dialogue in a book or a screenplay, the action would have the character speaking it flop down on a sofa and cover her eyes with her arm, exhausted and weakly venting to anyone in earshot. Some people, including those who turned her tweet into High Drama, would have us imagine her saying it with a pillow clutched in her fists, her face twisted and her eyes alight with a manic fire. And to imagine those words coming from that character, well, Stephen King would rip the paper out of the Olivetti typewriter, crumple it and call it “unbelievable.” Which it is. 

Now people are trying to twist the story around, to have us believe that Thordora wrote her message with the intent of getting famous. I’ve often read similar comments about myself: the insinuation that I put a video of my children on YouTube hoping to get famous from it. Neither Thor nor I are fame-seekers. If I’m going to be famous for something, I’d rather it not be something like a video of my children. And I’m certain that, even if she sought fame in any way, Thor would prefer it to be something positive, not this manufactured kerfluffle. 

Still, common sense doesn’t usually reign on the Internet (or IRL for that matter) and people will say what they like. They’ll blame Thordora’s bipolar disorder for their irrational judgments. They’ll say I relish going on TV (so not true; I hate seeing myself on TV).  

Thordora refuses her interview requests, hoping that the whole thing will go away and that she can go back to her writing (her marvelously eloquent, heartfelt/gutwrenching writing) and her life. I take just about every interview I’m offered. Why, if I’m not among the famewhores? I’m comfortable doing them and I want people to know that this happened to me and it can happen to them. I want people to know that you don’t just have to sit back and take what a bully dishes out to you, whether it’s sending cops into the bedroom of your peacefully sleeping child or removing your video from the Internet simply because they feel like it. It’s for people like Thordora, who really just want to be left in peace but also want to enjoy their right to free speech and free expression.  

And if “fame” is one of the side effects of that, it’s okay. I don’t consider myself (or my son) to be “famous” and I don’t want to be famous (quotes or not). In both of our cases, we had fame thrust upon us, even though our responses are slightly different. 

In my opinion, she already had the greatness.

************

You can hunt Eden down and gift her with snakes at So Anyway.

Not about me.

My shit, my mundane gonna get up tomorrow bullshit?

It ain’t nothin. Cause Lisa is dying, like so many other mothers. And I can’t do anything about any of it.

Guest Post: “Community cannot long feed on itself, it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond: their unknown and undiscovered sisters and brothers.”

I realize, more and more, that the internet is a bad place.  I don’t
mean with respect to child molesters and spammers, I mean with respect
to it offers little in the way of reality.  People, more and more, are
turning to places like their blogs, facebook, twitter, and expecting
it to be a perfect replacement for reality.  You know, the reality
where we meet friends at coffee shops, hang with neighbors at picnics,
go out to dinner with our spouse or nice date?

Why am I so angry when I don’t get above a certain threshold of email
messages or comments on facebook?  Why is it normal that my husband
and I come home from a long day at work and sit in front of our
respective computers without talking?  Where has the sense of
community gone in our lives?

The traditional “community” of family, friends, neighbors is gone.
Sure, we still have these people in our lives, but things are nothing
like the 1950s June Cleaver-esque ideal.  Families don’t all live and
die in the same town that they grew up in.  We don’t have
grandparents, cousins, aunts or uncles right down the block.  If we’re
lucky, we live in the same region.

The truth is, though, as humans, we’re animals.  We haven’t changed
much in the last 10,000 years.  We used to rely on our evolved way of
living, with our community that supported and nurtured each person.
No one really fell through the cracks unless they were dead weight.
That’s how we evolved and hopefully still are evolving.  As a result,
we’re not comfortable being in isolation.  People who are neglected
and isolated have bad things happen to them because that’s just not
how people are supposed to be.  So, instead of being lonely and
isolated, which is the way culture and technology are trying to push
us – longer hours at the office, a hellish commute, suburbs – we
desperately need to feel part of something.  We reach out across the
internet to friends on other sides of the continent, in different
countries, to try to reach a common thread and build a friendship.
For some of us, this is pretty cool and it works.

Unfortunately, some folks who would normally be socially isolated
start to act out in this new community.  Kate’s blog was hijacked.
Dutch’s photos were swiped.  Thordora’s privacy was invaded.  I hear
more and more about people doing strange things.  I don’t know if it’s
because they’re missing a few tacos from their combo platter or if
they’re just desperate for the attention.  I suspect, for most people,
bad – even nasty – behavior on the internet is the result of
loneliness.  If they could just make themselves felt in the real world,
even if that real world is in another country and they’ve never met
you before or even sent you email, well, then to them it’s like
reality.

As for the ethics of it all, it’s not like the real world where, when
you see someone being mugged you’re actually seeing them being mugged!
 No one is who they appear to be on the internet.  It’s like House
always says, “Everybody Lies”.  It’s especially true in internet land.
 I would argue that, for all of the people who commented on your
tweet, there were many times more people who said to themselves,
“Whatever.  She’s anonymous, I’m anonymous.”  There isn’t anything
wrong with it.  It’s necessary for us to block these things lest we
become consumed with the misery of the world.  Again, we’re human and
we’ve evolved.  Right?

Guest post by my good friend, Miss Pudding. (mmmmm pudding….)

“We have met the enemy and it is us.”

When I started Grade Nine,  all knees and elbows and lady parts I didn’t know what to do with, when I was 13 or maybe 14, I don’t remember, I walked into the yard of that new school, I screwed up my courage getting off that bus, walked towards the door and heard those words.

“You look like a boy. You dyke.”

Hardly anything to be terrified by. I was big, I was different, I was obviously uncomfortable in my skin. She jumped all over that. Her words were made scary by the look in her eyes. Feral. A 19 year old bullying a 14 year old-she’d have to be like a rabid dog.

She went away. And I learned not to give a shit.

*************************

I haven’t been bullied in a very long time. I’m not much for other people, and generally, if I don’t respect you, you can’t hurt me.

That is, until I done did a stupid, and suddenly it was ok the smear me against the wall over and over and over again.

Ever cringed when you open a link? Ever sat stupefied, reading about how you’ve sent “a band of vengeful followers” to do…something-my bidding I guess? Ever sat back and thought, well now, all I did was write something dumb-I didn’t make signs and write songs so every one would see-why am I the bad guy? Why do I keep reading things saying that my ability to be a parent should be questioned, that since I’m bipolar, everyone knows I’m going to abuse my children, it’s proven by studies!

I’ve had to stomach the internet’s version of the big, blind, mulleted, closeted lesbian bully. And it sucks ASS.

I haven’t said much. I’ve kept it, mostly, here, conversations with friends online, my head. I’ve thought about how no one seems to understand that a visit from CAS isn’t something to trifle with in the best of times, how they don’t get that fear, the fear the comes with knowing that 90% of the people you talk to think that because you’re mentally ill, you’re hazardous, and should perhaps be labelled as such. I’ve thought about context, and how no one seems to have any, cherry picking posts to illustrate their points, and refusing to look at the obvious joy I hold for my children.

I’ve thought about how I’ve been quiet through most of this, and taken it. How I’ve strived to be the better person, strived to silent the mob because no one believes all of a story anyway.

It didn’t matter.

I’ve read that I “got what was coming to me”

I’m sure I would have appreciated that if I had to spend the next month fighting to get my children back.

I’ve been called a “princess”

Because no one could be bothered to directly contact me before notifying hundreds of people.

I’ve read that I need counselling, that I’m destroying my daughter’s self worth.

Because my parenting can be judged based on what I write here, the place I let loose the dogs of my head.

I’ve read I did it all for traffic.

On a site without ad revenue, with an author who has turned down numerous chances to increase traffic.

Because I’m bipolar. Because I’m bipolar. Because I’m bipolar.

You get it yet? I can’t be trusted, because I’m bipolar. This only happened, because I’m bipolar. I must be questioned, my children protected, because I’m bipolar.

Someone got excited, and i could have lost my children. But I had it coming, right? I should pay for having the nerve to open my mouth without a smiley face or something just as inane attached to it.

The past week or so has felt like being attacked by invisible ghosts-opening my email could become this perilous foray into what people thought was wrong with me. Following a link to make sure nothing even worse was said left me unable to eat for the majority of 3 or 4 days. I’ve had the specter of that Grade Nine bully hanging over me, again because I’ve put something out there. I’ve opened myself up-I’ve hung the grand flag of weird.

I’ve admitted a mistake. I’ve admitted I am not perfect. I have not lied, backpaddled, or whined that the world isn’t fair. I’ve taken my lumps, and am now dealing with the fact that my name is slandered across the internet as some sort of cautionary tale for the mom-set, if I’m not being condescended to as a “mommy blog”. I’m being pointed to as a “what if”-remember the pregnant girl in the neighbourhood and one of your parents would wag a finger and tell you NO! Yeah, I’m that giant fricken belly.

I’m not a monster. I’m not a frivolous “mom” bouncing around making muffins and watching Oprah. I’m not out to eat my children, in fact I know I’m a DAMN good mother, and no amount of someone calling the police will change that certainty. I am a frail, tired human being somedays, just like you are. Difference being, I’m willing to admit it, and sometimes, my honesty gets the better of me. I spent years never saying anything meaningful to anyone, and I never want to live that way again.

And the judgement. Sigh….why can’t we all be the types of mother’s we are-be it happy bouncy muffin moms or moms like me, who despite roadblocks, love and parent their children fiercely, even if it’s a little differently. Why do we fight against each other, assume one side knows better? Why do I judge you sometimes, because you maybe don’t have the same problems, or any it seems.

Seems is apparently the word that got a LOT of us in trouble, and will continue to do so. It seemed like I was dangerous. It seemed like someone just wanted attention. It seems like I have minions. It seems like I don’t appreciate that someone cared.

Seems we all have something to learn.

Guest Post: Where Scott Toots

Bloody hell eh? Can’t make a joke and
get away with it these days what is the internet coming to?

Of course the truth is that there the
internet has always really been put together by three types of people,
just now the balance is moving. See, to my mind at least , there have
always been Contributors, Participants and Huh-what-nows.

To use an easy example look at
wikipedia, a few years ago there would have been a few Huh-what-nows
looking confused when you mentioned wikipedia, but now most people
know what it is – we now participate in it we have moved to be
Participants. Sticking with wikipedia a few years ago the average
user probably went looking for something found it and left, now some
of these people will be Contributors giving back to the site that they
have used for so long.

This is the way life works if I am
being grand about it. At age one you don’t know what a poem is, you
are a Huh-what-now of poetry. At age fourteen you know what a poem is,
you have read them you are a Participant. And then later you start
writing your own and you are a Contributor.

Where this becomes interesting in an
internet setting is how quickly we move into the Contributor category.
I have two blogs I regularly update, two I am trying to develop into
community projects, two I have killed for being rubbish, a flickr
account, a twitter account (well two but one is for the community
project) and a youtube account. Now I accept that I am probably an
extreme example but there are more people in the Contributor role than
there has ever been. And the reason for this is that the technical
barrier to entry is dropping.

Take my latest project, I toddled over
to wordpress and within an hour I had a blog with pages and links to
email and contribute and all that jazz. An hour. I know people who
were blogging before the word weblog was even coined, back then it
took time.

The thing that the low technical
barrier to entry doesn’t allow for is a developing of participation.
We really ought to be participants before we are Contributors but that
incubation is largely passed over.

You need to be a special kind of
person to go from say having never read a book to try and write one.
I read for eighteen years before I attempted to write a novel, I did
it but it is a bad novel, it would have been a lot worse without those
eighteen years of practice.

This is where our social
responsibility begins to come into play. We don’t practice enough as
we should do, we don’t spend enough time as Participants in this
digital age. Five years ago I read my first blog and soon after
started my own. I killed it because it stank. Three years of reading
other peoples’ blogs I started another and you know it didn’t so badly
and with time I found my voice and I got readers and they understood
my voice after awhile and it was all gravy because we were figure it
out together. I went from Participant to Contributor and in turn
picked up some Participants to my blog.

This nomenclature might be getting
cludgy but I think the deal is this. We have a responsibility,
socially, to get a feel for what is expected, what can and cannot be
said and then go ahead and say it. Equally when we are just
participating we have a responsibility to try and figure out and
understand what the contributor is saying.

We can’t just get on a public forum
and say anything, but equally we can’t be expected to limit what it is
that we have to say.

Both the speaker and listener need to
be active on the internet and that is the big social responsibility
because taking either a 140 character toot (yes toot) or a 14 minute
video on youtube or 1400 word magnum opus by itself without looking at
the person behind it, what else they have said is a dangerous
thing.

I am largely influenced by Merlin
Mann, a talented blogger whose Better essay is well worth reading. He also
said

Admit it: people privately
hope the photographs they post publicly say interesting things about
them — albeit in coquettish, sometimes angular ways. Flickr maps our
unfolding ideas about how the stuff we see might guide how others see
us.

And I think that is a good way to
round this up. Blogging, vlogging, tooting, posting to flickr or
being a Contributor in anyway is really a way to help people
understand us a little bit better. We all just need to learn to get
along.

Scott is a student, writer on the
internet and has a bit of a thing for doing clever things with words
and photos. He posts to
speedandsyncopation.wordrpress.com and toots at
twitter.com/scottgladstone . As evidenced by this
part in italics he doesn’t mind pimping himself.