Publish or Perish

I work in a book heavy environment I watch a lot of the trends for publishing. And it did come to my attention about the make your blog a book option.

At Christmas my daughter asked me for 'a book'. A book Mommy writes... But #lookit haven't I written a book. Is this it? It seems like a good way to take this creation and put it 'on the shelf' and my friends I suppose that is what I am doing.

With these few remaining posts I will put this away. Just as my first post was about putting another book on the shelf.

Brand Recognition : 7th self

Remember when you were friends with people just because you had the same blogspot theme? Hi MadHat! Hi Kittenpie! Hi Mary P! Oh those were the polkdot olden days. Who would do that in real life? That kinda 'who wears it better'? But digitally it worked; finding a kindred in a sea of electronic loneliness.

Swimming the evolution and realignment in our digital vocabularies both blog and brand needs a field guide these days, it must grow in language to be understood. I started a blog for my Girl Friday's school this week and it is not going well. They feel a blog is a personal artifact and not a handy web-authoring tool. And, fundamentally those who show for in-person meetings and sit on parent execs are a group that do not (necessarily, as our ilk) exist digitally. But me... I feel irresponsible that a school would not be so public as to reach out with news, and information in a non-print, digital way in colour.

I hear it said a lot. They are jetson kids in a flinstone universe @school. At work I hold fast, dutifully pooh-poohing it. Desperately wanting my girl to excel with paper and pencil deeply intellectual, poverty-pure cleverness like a young girly Bob Crachit. Wise but denied. How stupid is that? #igiveup

It is what I call the Obama effect. In all the choice we had I went with the most unfancy for Miss Fancy I could. Local school. Telling myself if she could excel in the that environment she could make it anywhere. Oooh, boy was I right. You know like how fancy was Obama's elementary school in Indonesia; not much eh? And he turned out all right, eh? Well like Barack's popularity I guess opinions shift.

Am I eating my words.. not quite... but some. I have to admit that she is not putting her life 'in public' to maximum reward because even in Grade 1 I can see she'll not apply herself to the sitting and the scribbles when the world beyond the school yard is technicolor (tm).

There is a balance to be had but I am reversing on my prior snobbery about the rules of engagement. I'll admit it give me some customizations!!!

Do you remember the luxury of the shifts for your blogging selves. Those sunny days in 2006 when templates got more free, custom designers rose to the fore that you could personalize or at least up the aesthetic over the worksheet forms of our original selves. Tell me which elements of our blog speak to who you really are. I have under my tutelage at the moment two twitter feeds and four blogs. The are all very very different and none of them really include pictures of my actual self; so is that a 7th self? Don't ask me for the best feed on that, I suggest you watch this space

For example anybody recognize the image I choose for twitteer #1? Really just the p-man fetish for murderous starlets! Sure. I love an apt avatar; the succinctitude in an image as gorgeous as a 70char tweet of distinction.

And, how are you? What is your blog longevity? And, what changes with digital aging? I AM looking at you MadHat who has moved to personal, protected tweet only with the professional blog sidecar. Kittenpie how many blogs you got now? What about the incorporate identities of GGC, beauty in its own wrap. What is our reflection on the juniper brand schism of '06, jdg is in O magazine this month!??? And, you nonlinear? like a good 1992 switch to hand-crafted beer; #smallisbeautiful. No chance I'll ignore the publica grandmaster philosopher who I feel must be the source of this embed code in me, HBM. Mesdames, what can we say of digital demand and dual-diagnosis. Who are we in our digital selves and, especially at school, should the chillun's have as much or be on recess instead?

And, you know if it's all about the content tell me that too -- like the lovely and radiant L. who in her written life is excrutiatingly compact, goddamnit! (also lookin' at you Clara and earnestgirl)

Will you blog forever? Not me -- at some point, soon, I will need to write some newsletters and leave it to the writers, I expect.

#thehomeproject Anniversary edition

This is a picture from our Anniversary trip away. P-man and I were away from our children for the first time ever for 3days last summer. We stared out to sea a lot. We ate and lived a much slower pace. It was a time to travel.

We met travelling. A long time ago we were away from home and together forged the subtravel in our group. I feel it is critical that my life be embellished with someone who travels well. Its true; he's the chosen one because he asks for directions and will chew out racist, foreigners we encounter anywhere.

I like the picture above for one simple reason. It reminds me of the picture below. The one I took our first month together overlooking a total different sea. His back turned and thus quiet -- FOR ONCE! (I should #talk)... That big head you just have to explore.

Clingy

I reach for the blackberry on my passenger seat like I reach for his hand. A moment at a stop light to see what he's thinking, p-man.. wherever he is. I realize as I drop it again...two hand on the wheel. It'll keep. Hey, It's me! I'm the clingy one! Me.

My kids had clingy periods sure but mostly they are independent. I remember the day my Ma shot at me 'you just don't want her to be independent'. Who me? of all people? Independence impeder. NEVER. But sometimes you have to wonder....

I am struggling with my daughter's aloofness these days. Aloofness at best; arrogance at worst. Her overly social nature getting the better of her in grade one. Leading the pack and too much independence. Not falling in with the class or abiding the teacher. It's been very hard*** how she is getting bigger and wanting her own way is gonna make trouble. She is demanding too much at times and not good at being flexible or kind when she's not getting it.

My daughter is a friendly kid but when her best friend moved away last year she hasn't found a replacement. I tried not to fuss about it. But I am a fusser into attachment. I realize I am the clingy one. I want to know where everyone is and how they're doing. It is a mystery to me that my daughter is not me in this regard. Ah, well I learn.

In celebration of our 15th wedding anniversary this year my beloved declared himself like a barnacle.. Finds what he likes and sticks to it. So she's not him exactly either. So we have to be the open ones helping her become her while knowing her the best of everyone. We want her to be open.

We all do think about what might be out there, don't we, smirk:





*** in the why I don't blog anymore catalogue... is this sort of sin of the family unbloggable. is it against some law of the parent blog... I think so and won't talk about it too much in my last 30 posts before this blog is closed.

#thehomeproject

What you might not know is that when I started this blog it was a lot about my husband. Not directly. More about a lure to the writer he is... incidentally the dad in here. (More important backstory...)

I do huddle to the men on my digital, and internal, blogroll. Their mindful lives written. I think the best part of being a mother might be the dads! Since I am so committed to the gender inclusion when it comes to this media I was pretty attracted to the man focus in #thehomeproject. A project to invite anyone to speak weekly to the muse they make a home with... The task at hand a photo a week to show what we see. You know something like this:




But instead I went with Dadzilla from our recent polar bear swim:


ps.. Are we a media? Are we a channel?

Who does she think she is?

Does anyone know what my 52 reasons campaign was? It was because I was not going to be... A. WORKING. MOTHER. (Or was i? A temp maybe..?) Working motherhood. I am NOT. A. BELIEVER. (Or am i?)

Blog killing disbelief.

What is it? Am I embarrassed to blog, from my desk. Who does that? You blog at naptimes. You don't blog when you have lost your whole sense of place in the parents blogosphere. We barely even nap anymore? What am I doing? Seriously, there is something that made me think this was a 'baby blog' and as the kids were no longer babies .. 'done and done'. But tell me then.. why is it called MotherWoman...? I know, and you know, it is all about me me me!

What can I tell you? There are really three reasons I stopped writing to you.
1. I was never writing TO you in the first place anyway?
2. I was sucking so hard, considering, on the writing quality. (enough already with the lyricism and intellect bon, clara, l., nora. You're killing me over here!)
3. I was in triage. My kids needed me IRL and blog x work, bye bye blog.

... but I spent 5 years of my total 6.25 years of parenting -- in here so much, part of my kids are in here. Can I really do well ... on. my. own? Without my diary? This diary that I am thinking will cap out at a tidy 800 posts, 36 posts from now.

But call this one of my patented half-posts.. and read this right now!

Ps. This blog post title is not to be confused with the excellent film of the same name

I've never been to me.

If there is one song from my youth I did not like it had to be, Never Been to Me. Idiot damsel trying to look fierce...degrading self, problem-women. Discuss.

It cluttered up the 2nd 3rd of my Rock '82 by KTEL cassette real bad. And we know don't we.. There was no such thing as 'skip' then. Codex hell. I heard it over and over despite myself, tapes, dances, the tyranny of LG73. Oh, woe was me. And woe is me now.

It has, my friends, been a tough few months. Tough like my mother's swiss steak. And at this end I see that my lil' blog has been about -- despite myself -- my 'never been to me' status. My concerns about being Mother and Woman. My uncertainty about knitting up the internal, bloody, messy, human making mother-person with the... womanly everything else. My own wordy variation on a scale of justice ... a place to mix a metaphor as frothy as Cactus Club Bellinis on a Friday night of yore.

A year ago I dialed that discussion down. Respectable after 5 years and in light of new media to be sure. There were good reasons particularly the working mo' issue. I know people say that when you go back to work it is 'too much' how can you handle all the work and your family. But that is not the case, entirely. You make it work. Your work gets done. Your family responsibilities met. What goes is the EVERYTHING ELSE. The extended family bliss, the wide area networks of friends.. including you my friends. The filing of paperwork, the turning over of seasonal clothing, the garden, maybe handmade Christmas cards.

But after this year I realize there are dark reasons I might not have spoken. That it wasn't just the volume of writing and web authoring I was doing professionally that sucked me away from here. There was also a bit of surrender to the propaganda. A giving up on anything like options. My abhorrence for example of quality time and 'work/life balance' cliches. Looking to Parent Differently, TM. Ha! Ha! Ha!

I was type-tied. Reading more than writing and crafting a new brand online that was solely professional. Ha! Ha! Ha! I will talk to you in the next while about what I felt was untypeable to you but this is enough for today... Save...

You can thank me later for the great Swiss steak recipe. A classic in that lineup of working mom meal plans.
There are a lot of trippy covers of Never Been to Me!
What will make you say, hello dead blog. A comment on a long lost post like this.