Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Hanging Ten

Yesterday I was a bit of a hot mess.  I wanted to write a new blog post, because, as you may have noticed, I have written nearly every day this month. Way more than I ever have.

Maybe I'm feeling inspired by all my friends doing the NaNoWriMo or the NaBloPoMo challenges (apologies to my civilian readers, that's real insider bloggity-bloggish stuff).  Or maybe I just have bucketloads of stuff to say and am giving up unimportant things this month, like sleep.

But yesterday?  I was just all unfocused and fuzzy, like my slippers, which I almost walked out the door in that morning.

And writing?  Takes focus.  Even if it's a dreamy focus like when I'm deep in the grief and go into a fugue-ish state and the words just flood out of me like water from a cracked jug.

But tweeting?  Reading (and commenting on) OTHER people's blogs?  Perfect for ADD-rific me some days.  Like yesterday, when all my writing mojo spilled out across the internet, splashed onto other people's blogs.  I was a commenting dervish.

And then there's Twitter.  If you tweet, you understand the appeal of the fairy dust.  And if you don't?  You (probably) think I'm a twit.  Well, you're both right.  Probably.

So (focus, please, here!), yesterday, when I sat down to write, I just didn't have it in me.  I thought: "Damn, I have no words left today, I dropped them all off at other people's houses."

But you know?  Maybe I can visit them tonight, and take a picture and show you (because I am a technical genius and know how to make my Mac do screen shots) and impress you with how smart/funny/cute/ranty and... commenty I was yesterday.

And at the sheer wonderfulness of this approach?  Besides not having to write anything really coherent tonight?  I get to introduce you to some more terrific blogs and bloggers.

And also?  I'm kind of new-ish to this blogging thing, haven't even had my "bloggaversary" yet. So I don't really know what the rules of this world are, and if I'm breaking any of them by doing this bit here.

But also?  I don't really care.  I'm following one of the operational rules of my old career in TV/film production: it is often easier to ask forgiveness than permission. 

So here is me yesterday, flying in from elsewhere, inspired by the wonderful funny, smart or heartbreaking words of others to add a few of my own.  Or in my case, more than a few.  Because, as you may have noticed, I tend to be "long-form" (that's not baggage, that's just the size of my suitcase)...

First off, lets mosey on over and take a look at my early morning Twitterstream:

And then, after joking about it, I nearly did just that by accident.  Clairvoyance?
Um, I was a bit tired yesterday morning.  But also?  Somehow giggly instead of grumpy.  Thank goodness, because I really hate having a three dwarf morning.
Yeah, I'm going to win a Pulitzer with my tweets.

Well, no.  But it does help to blow off steam and let me be kind and nice mom instead of bearish snappy mom.  And THAT is most definitely a good thing.

So after dropping off the offspring and spending a few hours in Jacob-life-management mode (wherein  I inventoried and re-ordered all my son's 10,000 medicines, vitamins and nutritional supplements from 5,000 different sources, and then poured out a week's worth of his 6 different types of a daily packets of them -- don't you just wish you had my life, now?) I allowed myself a little time to surf the interwebs, visiting old friends, discovering new wonders and dropping bits of myself off, my commenty calling cards, along the way.

Yes, I know, if that sentence were any longer it would need its own zip code.  I am working hard to earn my title "Queen of the Run-on-Sentence (with parenthetical clauses)".  How am I doing?

So, back to the matter at hand.   Picture me tiptoeing through the tulips in the garden of web... looking kind of like this:
That is an illustration from the amazing Allie Brosh's blog Hyperbole and a Half.  If you ever really NEED to laugh?  Like, if your life depended on it?   Go there.

OK, so on Kris's blog Pretty All True my response to her funny/painful/honest post "Call Me" was this:
One of the (many) amazing things about Kris is that she always replies to each and every comment, often inciting layers of dialogue.  She is the most interactive blogger I know. And sometimes the comments are ALMOST more wonderful than her wonderful posts.  And best of all?  She likes me, she really likes me.  Cyber-me that is. Which is just fine.

Then I went to visit Jess's blog, a diary of a mom, and read her moving post "The Donut Shop."  Jess is an Autism Mom blogger, and this post was about how hard it is to go out to eat with her family.  But really, it was about so much more, about all the dreams you have for your family and what happens when you add Autism into the blender and hit pulverize.  Her post brought up all kinds of feelings for me, and I left this mini-rant of a comment:
And yes, I need to work on my proof-reading. That should have been "struck" not "truck."
And finally?  Yesterday was Stimey's monthly day over on the Hopeful Parents site (where I post every 10th of the month).  Stimey (real name Jean) is my web-friend and yet another Autism Mom Blogger.  She was a DC Metro area member of the defunct (and just now resurrected) Silicon Valley Moms Group blog,  a sister site to the NYC Moms Blog site I wrote for last spring.  We actually met (yes, in the real world, with our meat puppet bodies) at the BlogHer10 conference in NYC this past summer, and in fact kept bumping into each other every 5 minutes to the point where it became a running joke: "Oh, you again! Am I stalking you or are you stalking me?"

Her home blog is Stimeyland (although you can find her words all OVER the inter-webs) and she is in every way terrific (smart/funny/really real).  Her post at Hopeful Parents, called My Son Knows He Has Autism, was about how she talks with her son Jack (and whole family) openly and positively about his different brain. I read her post (and you should, too) and then left my 2 cents:
Yes, I know there's a proofreading fail in this one too. Thanks for pointing that out.
And that, my friends, is that.  Retiring my surfboard for the night before I reach too far and wipe-out.  Gonna grab a yogurt smoothie.  Take off my web-suit and excavate the sand out of my...

Ahem

Good night all, good night.

8 comments:

  1. I love this. It's funny that we do so much writing all over the internet that isn't on our own blogs. I love that you put it all together for us yesterday, like a little internet map.

    And I'm definitely stalking you. :)

    Also, I'm going to have to go check out Kris' post because that is such an interesting topic. At least judging by your insightful comment it is.

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  2. A secret?

    Whenever I leave a comment on someone's blog that really shares something that I haven't said before, I take a moment to copy those words. And then paste them into a document on my computer.

    And then I have a little collection of out-of-context comments to look through when I am feeling less than inspired.

    Some of my comments? Are awesome!

    Snort!

    And your comments?

    Also awesome. Well worth saving and using again.

    Well done, you!

    And I love Allie.

    She is my nemesis.

    But I love her.

    ReplyDelete
  3. As someone who couldn't get inspired to blog much this week and actually did walk out of the house in fuzzy slippers this morning, I hear ya girl!Jen

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm here because you tweeted to come read your blog #soyourtweetsareworking!

    What I got most from this post (rhyme!!) is that I need to respond to comments more/better and more better.

    I love the blogs you mentioned by the way ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Blogs give you the super power of words...eh?

    ReplyDelete
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I am so sorry to have to turn word verification back on, but the spam-bots have found me - yikes!