Archives » 2010 » June
June29
sleeping beauty
There is really nothing more precious than watching your child sleep.
And yes, she is wearing her bathing suit. That is how we roll.
June27
my baby – she wrote me a letter
The book I’m reading, it’s called Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett, is a memoir of a friendship. In it, she includes letters. Letters written between two friends who are writers. As you can imagine, these letters are BEAUTIFULLY written.
I love letters. I used to write letters. Getting a letter in the mail is just….a very specific kind of awesome.
So I have decided that I’m going to write actual letters to a few friends. Friends I don’t see or talk to all that often so I can just sit down and write about daily life.
News flash: this isn’t actually easy.
I sat down to write a letter to my friend, Martinique. I got out STATIONERY. From, like, 1991. A good pen. I decided to go balls-out and write in cursive because well, I like to overdo things. The next thing you know, I’m writing all kinds of shit that doesn’t make sense. I’m contradicting myself. I’m getting all philosophical AS I WRITE without really thinking it through.
There’s no backspace. There’s no cut and paste. No command-x. When I start writing, I actually have to commit to an idea. Commit? There’s no “commit” in email writing. I never knew how heavily I rely on the shortcuts a computer allows.
But I love it. I love that my letter makes no sense and tries too hard. I love that it’s in really out-of-practice cursive. I think she’ll really love getting it.
You should try it – just see what you end up writing. I promise it’ll end up vastly different than the last email you wrote.
June27
blogs – please stop annoying me
I used to love to read blogs.
I love to sneak into stranger’s lives (lives both different from my own and very similar) as a way of escape. It’s sort of like reading a memoir as it’s being written. You get to fall for the characters a little harder because they’re real people. You get invested in their stories. You see their vulnerabilities and you root for them. Sometimes they inspire you and sometimes they make you laugh.
I mentioned this in a previous post; that I worry about this blog being too general and maybe a little too wobbly for the current blogging climate. But you know what? I think that’s because I think the current blogging climate sucks a fat one.
Mommy blogs used to be FUN to read. A lot of them were self-deprecating and funny and we could all laugh together about how motherhood so often feels like fumbling around in the dark.
Some still are. But many of them have become preachy and represent some of the worst ways that moms relate to one another. Judgmental, condescending, and BORING.
Lifestyle/design blogs are semi-interesting in a really pedestrian way. They’re handy when you’re killing time, but it doesn’t feel like a great use of time because how many throw pillows does one really need? I almost always feel as though I’ve wasted time when I’ve spent 20 minutes looking at lifestyle/design blogs.
Some of the most popular blogs feel exclusionary. These bloggers write about their relationships with each other and about social media conferences they attend. They hint around about big changes in their lives without really telling the stories. The end result is sort of alienating. Good stories make the reader feel included.
So, I’m thinking of purging my blog roll. I read maybe 1 our of every 10 new posts, so I’m just going to delete the ones I don’t read.
Do you have any suggestions? Good, personal, “I’m-a-real-person/not-a-perfect-parent/not-trying-to-be-a-celebrity-blogger/I-care-about-more-than-throw-pillows” blogs?
Please?
June21
looking forward, looking back
The other day, I came across the website of Cassie Boorn. She has a collection of letters people have written to themselves at different ages – most of them written to their 20 year old selves. [I wrote a similar post a while back - here.]
The letter that really got me was written by Laurie over at Your Ill-fitting Overcoat (which has to be one of the best names for a blog in the history of blogs). She’s 28 and writing to her 40 year old self. Here’s a taste:
“I worry you’ll be disappointed in me, Forty-Something Self: for not writing enough, not saving enough, for eating too many cupcakes. And I worry I’ll be disappointed in you: for settling, for giving up, for resigning yourself to eggshell walls.
But I’m learning to trust that the woman who’s taken me this far will take me the rest of the way, and that my form can only improve from here.”
God, that got me. Did it get you?
Even at 34, would the 20 something me be disappointed?
Yes and No. I would be thrilled to know that I finally found someone fun to marry – someone who loves me for who I am, even in my most ridiculous moments. Thrilled that I had a little girl baby – the cutest, funniest little girl baby of all time. But not so thrilled that I haven’t been to Europe in 6 years. Not so thrilled that my writing is just snippets here and there on several relatively-ignored blogs with no real commitments or achievements. Not so thrilled that I STILL eat too many cookies and often act as if every meal is the last meal I’ll eat before a giant famine.
I got to thinking about this so much that I decided my best option to be who I really want to be at 40 is to narrow down what I really want most out of life. What am I doing when I feel most myself? Most excited?
I came up with 1.) travel and 2.) writing. I’m actually not sure the writing part is quite there – but I want it to be.
I suppose the next step is to figure out how I can do these things and still be a participating member of my family and contribute financially. It would a lot easier if my two big things weren’t expensive and hard-to-make-money doing. But, all the best things in life are tricky.
I am considering doing the possibly mind-numbing but perk-laden job of medical transcription to provide me the funds to travel more and take some pressure off of Travis. If I travel more, I’ll have more to write about. I hope.
Right now I could really use a letter from the 40 year old me letting me know if I’m on the right track.
Do you feel like you’re on the right track? Would your 20-something self be pleased?
June18
summer
I was looking through the pictures I’ve taken in the last few weeks on my phone and according to these pictures, it’s summertime.
