On Mommy Bloggers

Okay, I just skimmed my favorite other blogs, and am now aware that once again, I am uncool.   A few of my actual friends and many of my daily reads apparently flew to San Jose and got drunk at a conference called BlogHer last weekend.

Yes, folks, I'm a Mommy Blogger. I admit it.  I like to talk about the little angel. I find her antics much more entertaining than my job and reality television put together.  Apparently, this is deemed boring by the rest of America. It's better to snark on celebrities or comment loudly on George Bush (hey, but I can respect that).

However, I have seen TWO stories about people who have actually lost their jobs because of griping about their bosses on the Internet.  Of course, they now have book deals, but hey - it's getting to be a trend now. By November, ten people will have lost their jobs.  Then fifty. Then it will be about as uncool as getting laid off after the bubble.

Here's what I think on this topic:  who the hell cares?  It's not as though I'm getting 100,000 hits a day. I get about 35 a day.  Most of those people are lost, trying to find the movie Surrender, Dorothy.  The rest of them are researching AMF Puffers or chaise lounges, or maybe even Zoolander.  I deeply suspect that no one with whom I have not had lunch in the past year reads this blog.  And that is a-okay with me. 

Growing up, I wanted to be a famous writer.  I published a few poems and a few short stories in chapbooks and literary magazines (usually of the variety with stapled binding).  I got a master's degree in fiction writing.  I worked my ass off for five short stories for my thesis, then went on to write at least ten more of which only two were published. I wrote a bad novel, which has been languishing in my desk drawer for seven years.  Every time I would hang out with Other Writers, I always ended up like somehow I was missing the boat - somehow they were all on the fast track to fame while I did whippets in the pits.

I have to admit, conferences like BlogHer sort of scare me.  I think I would be right back there in graduate school, feeling inferior because my blog is mostly about my little angel and really nobody reads it anyway.   The nice thing about the blog is that it got me writing almost every weekday for the first time ever, and I think in the past year and a half, I have come up with two or three good sentences.  It's also taught me to see the humor in a really, really bad day.   So, yes, I am a mommy blogger.  A social pariah in a mostly underground whiirrlld.  But you know what?  Despite being (get ready to DIE) a cheerleader, a sorority chick AND briefly employed in the world of Internet publishing in my lifetime, I have NEVER been cool, and I am relieved. Being cool, like having a manicure, is a difficult and sort of pointless thing to maintain. 

<thump, thump>

Okay, I'm back off my soapbox now. My generic soapbox. That I bought at Costco. Eh, screw it.