The Blog I'm Not Writing

THE BLOG I’M NOT WRITING

– Do you know what Annabelle’s doing now?
– A blog.
– Of what?
– What do you mean “of what”? A blog of Annabelle.  Of every thought that passes through her brain. Her stupid, vapid, insipid…I could write a blog!  I have thoughts! 

(from Julie and Julia, written and directed by the late great Nora Ephron)

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You should write a blog; you’re a writer!
I can’t believe you, of all people, are not blogging.

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The name of this venture is inspired by my favorite Patty Larkin song, as well as my long-held reluctance to never do…what I’m apparently doing.

I wasn’t going to write a blog, for myriad of reasons.[1] The #1 reason is that you don’t get paid for doing it. There are many, many ways writers don’t get paid for writing.  I’m not keen to take part in yet another.

Professional  excuse reasons?  Despite the plethora of trade publications and associations desperate to sell you a plethora of social media tutorials, a dirty little realization among social media-proficient fiction writers is that author blogs do not sell books.

Perhaps the reasons are more personal; as in, keeping a journal of some sort?  Wait a minute: what about a new way to communicate and reflect on life, one that, if done with discrimination and  integrity, might aspire to be a form of entertainment for readers, more than just a regularly updated entry of events, transactions, or observations, or a chronicle of excessive self-contemplation?  What about an informational and personal site, a log of sorts, published on the web…log…web…log…. 

Why hasn’t someone thought of this before??!?!?!

Reluctance, schmuctance.

I surrender, at least temporarily, to the culture of social MEdia.  After all, I am so significant, my every thought must be documented, and ME is too vast, too important for a mere private journal. I must announce it for the world to see.  Think of what I’ve been missing – what you’ve been missing. No longer shall we live without me posting my every reflection on the smell wafting down the hallway from the unscooped litter boxes.[2]

So, yeah, that will also be the blog I’m not writing.  I’m still refusing to join the tumblr-ing tweeting twats and don’t care to see someone’s pinterest pictures of their pinworms.  A relative latecomer to Facebook, I am a sporadic and not particularly competent FB poster and commentator. And despite me sticking another toe into what I once heard described as the “vast ocean” of social media, the waters I’m testing still remind me of those that pool on portions of the nearby Tualatin Valley Highway after it rains.  From a distance it can look like the deep blue sea, but the closer you get, you see that it’s just a really, really, big puddle – wide, but shallow.

Now that I’ve lowered your expectations to fit my comfort level….

Ground rules/expectations:

1.  I shall attempt to post every Friday.
2.  Except when I don’t.
3. There shall be some regular entertainment features.  Perhaps even recipes:

Now that the Autumn chill is setting in, it’s time for a
Hot pepper jelly glaze and sauce to warm the cockles of your heart

– 2-3 T of your favorite hot pepper jelly (Republic of Jam’s habañero Hellfire & Jamnation is what floats my boat)
– 3T orange juice; 2T fresh lemon or lime juice; 1t low sodium soy sauce
– ~1 c nonfat regular yogurt, drained over a fine mesh colander, or NF Greek-style yogurt 

Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl.  Amounts are approximate.  Taste and adjust to get the consistency, flavor and tongue-tickling (or burning) sensation you desire. Use as an accompanying sauce and/or finishing glaze for pan-seared or grilled tofu, chicken, catfish… 

Wondering what to do with the homegrown, truncheon-sized zucchini your vegetable-gardening neighbor foisted off on so generously gifted you? Thinly slice the zucchini, then add it to the compost pile and ask yourself, What was I thinking? Don’t even consider wasting a yummers hot pepper sauce on a vapid, overgrown zucc.

4.  Or maybe just pretty pictures of my mascot.

(everyone loves a new, shiny blue mouse)

5.  There will be the occasional link to recommended books, films, TV shows, videos and music (my daughter made me promise never to link to that Friday song she so loathes )
6. I shall not excessively write about nor embarrass my offspring.
7. Except that it is my parental obligation to embarrass my offspring, or so said the instructional pamphlet that was attached to their respective placentas.
8.  I shall try to respond to insightful and respectful comments, despite my fear of entering into dialog that would take away from what I actually should be writing….
9.  Although I’d’ have to have a certain critical mass of readership before the fear expressed in #8 would be a problem; thus, problem #8 may solve itself by never arising.
10. I am not going to censor myself.
11. Except when I do.
12. This list has no item #12.

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The working title of this venture was The F-Blog.  F for Friday, and for the first thing that came to my mind when I realized I might actually try this out (like the world needs another F-ing blogger?).  Also, I am a fan of so many things F [3], including:

– the Fab Four; Tina Fey; flippancy, footnotes [4]; fermentation; forty winks; feasts; FAQ; flamingoes and flamenco; facts; fart jokes; friends and family and felines…

I am fond of many, but not all, F-things.  Some I find downright dreadful to even consider.  Fistulas?  Ick.  And please, don’t feed me fennel.  One especially unpleasant, recently acquired F-thing is partly responsible for me having time to ruminate about finally doing a blog – a fracture (luckily not a femur or fibula).

But I digress.

Although The Blog I’m Not Writing is not the F-Blog it will frequently reference a few of my favorite F-follies:

1.  food
2.  feminism
3.  freethought
4.  frivolity and festivity
5.  fiction feats and frustrations
6.  whatever the f-word is for politics and/or current affairs
7. – 50. there are no follies numbered 7-50.[5]  Oh, but just you wait.

Is it obvious that I enjoy making lists?  Pity, that activity doesn’t start with an f.

*   *   *

This is getting rather wordy for a first post.  I warned you, I’m new at this.

*   *   *

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
 (Henry David Thoreau)

Or in my case, that require learning new jargon.  I have about a 50 second attention span for tech logistics; they tear me a new one with boredom.  Thus, please excuse the glitches that will inevitably arise.  This won’t be the flashiest blog you’ll read.  But what it will lack in bells and whistles it will make up for with rubber chicken pictures.

*   *   *

Searching the sites, seeking advice for newbie bloggers.  Introduce yourself, they say.

There are blogs I follow on a sporadic-to-regular basis, and I’ve enjoyed reading some of the personal details behind the public opinions. Even with that in mind, composing an author’s bio blurb is one of my least professional favorite tasks.  I’ve been thrown for the proverbial loop when a few editors have requested detailed, personal info along with the standard publication history.  Moiself, I’ve little interest in the personal lives of authors.  Should knowing that a writer spends their spare time volunteering at the Corgi-doodle rescue association affect my appreciation of their latest haiku novella?

Neverthemore, one and all, they clamor for the amazing story of me.  For a meet-the-author blog bio, I need to have some fun to stay on task.  Some of the following is true:

I am the second of four children and the middle daughter, which means I am destined for either ground-breaking gender role usurpations or middle management in Tupperware® Sales.  Orphaned in a tragic Slip ‘n Slide® accident, I was raised by ospreys in Santa Ana, CA.  I live and write in Oregon, in a mid-sized city whose motto is, “Yeah, fine, so we’re not Portland, but at least we’re not Oxnard.”  My blood type is a deep, viscous red, with a bouquet of sun-ripened marionberries.[6] [7]  I like walking along the roses at sunset and always stop to smell the beach.  I’m afraid of anything Fifty Percent Less Filling, of having a supercilious award title (Winner of The Condoleeza Mae Brown Faulkner Prize for Fiction in Support of Social Change and Diverse Personal Hygiene) appended to my name, and of having to pronounce words like supercilious in public.  In my spare time I annoy PETA members by campaigning for the extinction of the spineless weasel.  When not working on innumerable fiction projects I study state and federal Articles of Incorporation, in hopes that by December 2016 I will have opened the doors to “A Goddess in Every Garage,” the nation’s first feminist political consulting firm and[8] auto repair shop.

*   *   *

What else can I add that is of relevance?  I am a W-O-M-A-N, one who can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan,[9]  a writer of fiction, a Southern Californian by birth and Oregonian by choice.  I check the decline to state options when a survey asks me to choose my age, racial/ethnic identity, political affiliation and income categories.

A brief introduction to my family, using their respective noms de blog.  I’ve been married to my husband[10], the lovely and talented MH, for 20+ years.  I am the mother of the national average of 2.06 children, that I know of.  For the .06 I count our four cats, two snakes, innumerable house spiders and dust bunnies.

Son K is a college freshman, daughter Belle a high school junior.  My progeny will undoubtedly, inevitably, find their way into subsequent posts.  For now, suffice to say they are the inspiration for my most recently acquired, custom-made [11] bumper sticker:

Proud parent of students
who do not need their academic achievements
bragged about on the back of my car

There are more bumper stickers.  There will be more bumper stickers.  Many more.  Be afraid, be very afraid.[12]

Thanks for stopping by.  Tune in next week, as hijinks ensue.
Au Vendredi!

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