To Read: Let's Pretend This Never Happened

I was actually at a Blogher conference in New York the firsttime I heard mention of “The Bloggess.”

“I was recently retweeted by The Bloggess,” one attendee said,“and she’s huge.” Then, a reverential hush fell over the room in honor of boththe name mentioned and the accomplishment. The discussion was about connectingwith other bloggers and marketing, but I was much more fascinated by themention of this Bloggess. The name was obviously awesome, and speaking of her had rendered a room full of bloggers speechless – not exactly an easyfeat.

Of course, I wasn’t going to admit to my ignorance at thetime. After all, I was at a blogging conference and, clearly, one of the bignames in the game had just come up. If anything, I was supposed to be with itand knowledgeable of my industry (or so my Twitter feed would have youbelieve), but obviously, I was out of the loop on one very important point.

What I gathered from the crowd, apart from the fact that itwas a very big deal to be mentioned by the Bloggess (not something that I’m atall contesting, Maria Shriver favorited one of my tweets and it made 2012), wasthat the Bloggess was a big fan of “the f-word.” And that was good enough forme.

Getting to the real point here, I loved Let’s Pretend ThisNever Happened by the Bloggess, also known as Jenny Lawson.

I’d love to tell you more about this book, but I also feellike if I call out specifics I’ll be the jerk who says punch lines to otherpeople’s jokes or that person in the Facebook feek who keeps posting about deaths onDownton Abbey/The Walking Dead without any seeming comprehension of what aspoiler is or that most people these days use a little something called DVRrather than watching shows in real time.

This book is simply too funny, and I want you to discoverall of that funniness for yourself. Let’s Pretend This Never Happened is a bookthat is all about voice, and for that reason, you’ll want to read these storiesfor yourself.

Entering Jenny Lawson’s world is a hysterical treat. So, doyourself a favor and don’t be one of the last people to catch on here. (Trustme, it’s not a fun place to be.)

As I believe Jenny Lawson might say now, you’re welcome.

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.

Some Small Site Changes

In the last few weeks, I've been working on some changes with the blog. While they might not seem obvious at first, I'm switching ad networks, which means I had to move a few things around. Any post that was previously sponsored in any way, shape or form (via free travel, free product, etc.) has now been moved to my alternate, ad-free site It Isn't Much.

So, in case you're really missing some of my college nostalgia and Volvo stuff, you'll need to head over there.

As always, thanks for reading, and you should have opinions about any of these changes, please feel free to leave your comments below.

Where To Go From Here?

I remember applying to colleges as one of the most stressful periods of my life. It seemed like so much -- my future career, earning potential and even life mate -- hung on the decision I made then. Not to mention the fact that I had tied my self-worth directly to the U.S. News & World Report ranking of the school(s) that accepted me.

Seven days before one round of applications was due, I had an emergency root canal (one the endodontist called the worst he'd seen "in ten years" of oral surgery). Full of painkillers and Valium (I do not do well around the sound of a dentist's drill), I called my best friend and insisted that she drive me to my closed-for-the-Christmas-holidays school, so that I could use the typewriter in the library to put some finishing touches on the common application. 

I was a little obsessed.

When the large and small envelopes finally started rolling in, I was devastated to learn that my first choice [Stanford] didn't want me. Despite my poor attempt at a brave face, I was crushed and spent more than a few afternoons in my car crying.

(Before I sound like too much of a whiner, I would like to acknowledge that I was accepted into some wonderful and amazing schools, and I absolutely believe I ended up right where I needed to be. But, hindsight is always 20/20 as they say.)

The only people this period of my high school career might have been more stressful on than me were my parents. Not only did they have to accept that I seemingly refused to apply anywhere with anything near a reasonable tuition cost, I was anxious, constantly tired  and insecure. Being parents, the moment my rejection from Stanford arrived, they went into protective/consolation mode: "We love you no matter what. This is just a bump in the road. You're brilliant. You're special. You're going to get into so many other schools."

But, I wouldn't have any of it. Every time they tried to console me, I just got more upset. "You don't get it," I said. "I'm not special. I'm just like tens of thousands of other kids out there who make good grades and join clubs and think that it's going to matter."

"You're always special to us."

"Well," I said, "when it comes down to it, I look like everybody else on a sheet of paper, and I'm not special to them. And they're the ones that don't want me."

(I was kind of dark in addition to being a little obsessed.)

If only I had known then that there would be days I feel a lot like that now, too.

I am a writer with dozens of clips -- many from national magazines. But, I'm also an unemployed writer and editor in an era when print media is dying. And thanks to the dire press market in Birmingham, you can't really throw a rock in this town without hitting someone just like me -- many with more experience and better clips. It's a small pond full of writers and editors with great resumes and no magazines or papers to write for. 

So, the thought recurs: I'm not special.

I have been a blogger for five years now, but now I don't even think I know anyone without a blog, and as an unmarried, childless 30-year-old, I don't even have a blog category. I am no longer "young" by most standards -- as in I don't write about clubs, drunken escapades or school. I haven't given birth, so that keeps me out of the "mommy blogger" set. I don't have a wedding in the works, so there's no way to write about flower vendors and mother-in-law issues. Food? I like it, and I occasionally cook it, but I don't have anything to say that you can't find on far better web sites like Food Revival, Cookthink or Simply Recipes (check my favorite sites).

Without a category, I don't have a market share, and without a market share, this blog is never going to make me much more than the $.26 my one ad has brought in in recent weeks.

My market share possibilities? Former party girls who can't afford shoes that don't come from Target? Pet lovers with an extensive collection of Spanx? Those of us who have accepted boxed wine as a party staple?

Not special and without a market share, I keep filling this blog with what I have -- my stories, my voice, my bouts of depressive thinking. I use it to make myself write. I try to remember to exercise the skills that I need -- showing v. telling, using dialogue, setting scenes and avoiding the empty words and phrases that have no examples or illustrations to flesh them out.

When I started this blog, I wanted to write 365 blog posts, so that I'dhave 365 stories/anecdotes written down. (I also started this blogbecause my friends seemed tired of my mass e-mails detailing what Ithought about that day's episode of Cheaters, but I digress.) Plus, atthe time, I never imagined I wouldn't have something else to take up mytime long before I hit that far-off and absurd number of 365 posts. This is my 402nd post, and thanks to my tendency to write aboutCheaters and what Tori Spelling wore to her second wedding, I'm noteven sure I have 365 stories to go along with it. Sigh.

One of my teachers once told me, "Most of the stories have beentold. The only difference is that there's never been a you to tellthem."

I tell my students this. I try to tell myself this. If Iwere to have a mantra, I think it'd have to be something aboutbelieving in my own voice.

At least when I finished high school, the gave me a copy of Oh, The Places You'll Go. (At least it was optimistic.) I think I could use the sequel now.

P.S. Oddly enough, I sort of love Tori Spelling these days. I blame the Oxygen network.

Welcome to 1984 (and Not in a Good, Footloose-is-Back-on-Top-of-the-Charts Kind of Way)

Sometimes I worry that I could easily become aconspiracy nut. (I realize that most people probably don’t have this on theirlist of concerns, but my worry list has always been longer, and stranger, thanmost.) I blame some of it on the fact that I spent most of my childhoodwatching soap operas, Phil Donahue and Unsolved Mysteries. There was even abrief – and unfortunate – period when I believed that Elvis faked his own death.

And despite what my occasionally rational braintells me about accidents and coincidence, I think I’ve watched far too many politicalthrillers as an adult, too. (I still find it odd that one of the most liberalmembers of the Senate, Paul Wellstone, died in a plane crash shortly beforesome key votes under the Bush administration, but I try to keep this mostly tomyself.)

However, I do not think I’m paranoid when I saythat we are, at present, on the verge of living in the world created by GeorgeOrwell in 1984. But, it’s not big government we need to be afraid of -– it’sFacebook.

Even without the latest issues Facebook has hadwith privacy, revealing information to other web sources, etc., social networkinghas always had the potential to implement a kind of social control that noinvading army or government entity is capable of. And the key to that societalcontrol rests entirely in surveillance.

For an anthropology class nearly a decade ago(when I sat down on the first day and saw that half the room was full ofathletes, I knew I’d found a good place to be), I read a book called Depraved andDisorderly. It’s a study of women in penal colonies in Australia (aka, thefounding women of Australia), and for the large part, the book discusses howconstant surveillance and the removal of all privacy was used to turn these “wildwomen” into the model citizens the English government wanted them to be at thetime.

For most of any community, it’s not the threat ofpunishment or pain that keeps us in line -– it’s the threat of discovery or exposure. We don’twant our innermost thoughts judged, nor do we want our most intimate actsexposed.

If you think about it, can you be yourself onFacebook? The answer most of the time is “no.” Facebook, Twitter, Ning, MySpace,etc. are not places to express what is really going on with you. They areplaces for the cleaned-up, civilized you. The you without too strong an opinionor emotion. The you that doesn’t want to alienate or offend -– especially onceyou allow co-workers, colleagues, clients and Grandma into the mix. So, whileseeming open and connected to everyone around us, in so many ways, we’ve simplyjoined the herd.

When I Twitter, I constantly wonder about thelines of how much is too much and what goes too far. If I want to do any sortof business or promotion on Facebook (which as a writer, of course, I do), whatcan and can’t I say? If I say what I really think about the Bible (be it theliteral word of God, a historical document or the creation of aliens -– I’m notgiving the real answer away just yet), how many readers did I just lose? Whoisn’t coming back? Are there those who will never want to hire me again? Did Ijust assign myself to one and only audience?

And the same questions are with me when it comesto my views on politics, sexuality or even which brand of deodorant I likebest.

In another way, we’ve also all become our own brands -–only allowing the crafted Laurel Mills or the character of Laurel Mills outonto the Internet , rather than the real one. Even the vulnerabilities we showon Facebook are the ones we choose to show -- our calculated and approvedfoibles.

So, in many ways, just as we’ve embraced our own constantsurveillance and societal control, we’ve also become the ultimate consumers. Webuy what we’re sold on TV or the Internet (I’d say magazines too, but we all knowwhat happened to those), and we buy each other at a constantly alarming andescalating rate.

An example? We don’t even watch scriptedtelevision anymore. We watch reality stars/the people that could be ourneighbors.

Facebook profiles weren’t enough? Add statusupdates. Not enough of those? Twitter. Away from your computer? iPhones, iPads,Droids, Blackberries –- whatever it takes to be constantly consuming the words,actions and whereabouts (I’m looking at you Four Square) of those around you.

We watch each other, all the time. We are our ownjailers. And the more we watch, the less we do.

So, while I’m just as guilty as anyone ofeverything I just talked about, I think the end result could be something noneof us are prepared for –- an international community without identities stuckbehind screens unable to react to any threat or injustice in any way moremeaningful than starting a Facebook group that hopes to eventually be 1,000,000strong.

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but westill have to live lives in addition to just watching them for it to matter.

If after reading this, you’ve ended up branding mea conspiracy nut, so be it. I’ve been called worse, and I just might have earned it.

* While I'm sure there are people with similar views, I haven't read their specific thoughts on the topic. If you've stumbled upon similar or dissimilar thoughts, please leave me some suggested reading material in the comments.

* I really think that, in an odd way, Nathaniel Hawthorne tread similar themes in The Blithedale Romance (1852), and yes, I once included reality TV in one of my graduate level English papers because of it.

Writer's Block, Comedy and Insurance Companies

I tell my students that there' no such thing as writer's block. 

I claim that there is this: unwillingness to do the work (because writing is hard work and anyone who tells you anything different is lying), procrastination and fear. (The fear comes in when you worry too much that when you do actually write, what you write won't be good enough.)

I recommend all the tricks for getting started -- lists, clustering and the always-dreaded free-writing. (Free-writing = writing non-stop for a set period of time, and it is more than a bit trying on the brain and the hand.) I tell them to start in the middle if they don't have a beginning or an end. Or start at the end if there's no beginning or middle. I trot out one of my favorite books, Writing Without the Muse, for ideas and inspiration. 

I am so full of mettle, advice and, hopefully support, I just don't know what to do with myself.

There is always something to write, I say. It may not be profound, but as long as you can put pen to paper, there is always something to write. 

And, until lately, I believed there was always humor. As a friend told me long ago, "When you're either going to laugh or cry, laugh." I've tried to keep that in mind. I've even been called irreverent because of it. Another old saying goes that "the only difference between comedy and tragedy is a laugh track."I believe that, too.

But, right now, no matter how hard I work at it, I can't seem to do enough laughing, and I'm having a really hard time putting the writing and the humor together. My free-writing does not lead to fodder for good blog posts. (My latest free-writing? Too many sentences as to what it means to be "enough.") I look at the chore list on the refrigerator in the office -- a chore list grown-ups are supposed to follow of their own free will -- and I want to laugh. Three months ago, I think I would have. But, the last time I found myself in the break room, I just sighed. I sighed, pulled my Lean Cuisine out of the microwave and went back to my desk.

I'm not surprised life isn't what I thought it would be. I'm surprised my primary coping mechanism isn't kicking in like it used to.

So, I apologize for the tone of recent posts. I wish they were funnier. I decided that no matter what I had to do to pay the mortgage, I would still update this blog at least twice a week. I promised that I would still write because if I give up on that, I really will have given up, and that is something I refuse to do. I want to write, and the best thing about writing is that when that's all you want to do, you can just do it. (Finding a reader is the hard part. Finding an editor even harder.) I say to work more and work harder. (Another lovely thought, but difficult in practice when no one wants what you've already written and each day seems to bring the return of more and more envelopes I addressed and stamped myself.) I try to remember that the difference between optimism and pessimism isn't just about how you see the glass, but about focusing on what you have rather than what you don't have. I keep in mind that on some days just trying is enough.

Mostly, I'm tired, and I tear up every time I see the Allstate commercial where everybody quotes FDR from the Great Depression.

If you're also having trouble getting through insurance company ads without crying, know that you're not alone. If you've got it all figured out, I'd love to know your secrets (unless they involve Jesus -- what goes on between me and Jesus is what goes on between me and Jesus, and I like to keep that off the Internet). 

In the meantime, I promise I'll do the best I can to get the funny back -- for myself and for those of you kind enough to stop by and read my thoughts every so often.

Shameless Self-Promotion

I try not to ask for much (apart from attention, cash, understandingand fame -- if you even count those), but I would really appreciate asmall favor from the readers of this blog. (I'm sorry if this makes mea terrible person):

Please vote for me (story #1) at My Scoop's Valentine's Day Contest.It'd be the best V Day gift I've gotten since a single rose from theboy who gave everyone roses as part of my high school's Key Clubfundraiser. 

Major Awards

I'm not one to let a chain letter die. (Are you surprised considering all this anxiety? I can't risk death by steamroller, exploding gas pipes or break-ups for failing to do something as simple as send a letter. P.S. Sorry e-mail contact list!) And while the "major award" is not a chain letter, I still feel like I have to keep it going.

Thank you, Tina, for bestowing this blessed honor upon me. I haven't won anything in a really long time -- unless you count the $20 Omaha Steaks gift card I received for all my coke rewards points, which I don't -- so I'm going to have to milk this one for all it's worth. Let me say that Tina is just one of the most awesome people I know. When we worked together at Lipstick, people used to ask if we were sisters. I took it as a huge compliment. 

Now, on to the first requirement of the award: I will now share five random facts about me. (I know, I know, as if you all don't know too much already. Is it hard to sleep yet?)

1. When I was little, I wanted to be an actress. I read biographies of Katherine Hepburn and Tallulah Bankhead for school projects. I attended drama classes, and I wrote and starred in my own plays. Then, I realized that I didn't like people looking at me. (Kind of an obstacle in that career trajectory.) Plus, I decided I couldn't deal with all of the rejection. So, I decided to be a writer. Great call on that rejection nonsense, right?

2. What I miss most in the Great Recession is my bi-weekly pedicures. I take great pride in my toes, and seeing them without color makes me sad.

3. I don't like brushing my teeth. (Don't worry, I still do it.) I find it to be the most boring part of my day. And knowing that I have to do it, at least twice a day, with no discernible change in technique or pattern, for the rest of my life, just makes me sigh. Every day, as I brush my teeth, I think, "Really? This? For the course of my natural life?" Bleh.

4. I love chocolate-covered cherries -- the cheaper, the better. I see a red box in the Walgreen's, and it takes all of my self-control not to buy in bulk. 

5. My temper may not be short, but my memory is long. Too long for my own good at times. I carry the memory of insults and slights far longer than necessary. Some people might call it a grudge ... I prefer to think of it as "a history."

For the second requirement, I will now bestow the major award on five other bloggers. Here goes:

1. In the first grade, I fell madly in love with a boy named Chris Knight. I nursed a crush on him for the next seven years -- except for a brief break in fourth grade when I decided his Webelo uniform was "dorky." My love was unrequited, but by ninth grade, when we both reached high school, we were very good friends, and we've remained that way since. He's an incredibly talented, smart and funny guy, who also happens to be a Jeopardy! champion. (And perhaps the smartest thing he's done is pick Julie Bryan Knight for his wife.) A movie buff, he maintains a flog (film blog) that is witty and insightful. I could not agree more with his thoughts on the greatest Christmas movie of all time, Die Hard. 

2. I can't play sports, and I know next to nothing about them. This hardly matters when I read John Bagby's blog. A true sports aficionado, he's also laugh-out-loud funny when commenting on everything from bowl games to a life without gluten. His dead pan delivery and to-the-quick observations get me every time. 

3. In Nashville, I met Phil Thornton, who I worked with at ReZoom.com, andhis lovely wife, Mindy. There were many, many days that co-workers likePhil got me through the job.A funny, talented guy with an awesome, talented wife, they are both wedding photographers, and I consider their blog a visual feast. It's gorgeous, real and intimate -- a true stunner -- like the couple themselves. 

4. I love food. I like to cook, but when I can't find the energy, time or ingredients, I still like to look at recipes and other people's culinary creations. When it comes to food blogs, I'm a glutton (coincidence, I think not). Here are just a few of my favorites: Food Revival, Simply Recipes, Cookthink and Foodimentary.

5. I only recently discovered Jamie Golden's blog, but I'm enjoying it immensely. She understands my love of shiny things, what else can I say?

5.5. I can't end this post without mentioning the website of one Arik Sokol. Talented, sweet, kind, professional and incredible behind the camera, I just can't say enough about him. His portraits are compelling and insightful. The perspective he brings to each and every subject is unique and considered. Color and light seem to perform in front of his lens. I'll stop now before I begin gushing ... As if I haven't already.

In the News

If you were referred here from another site, like Media of Birmingham or The Terminal, you might be looking for these stories: This One Time at Camp ... and/or Lauren. Thanks so much for visiting!