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318th Friday Blog Roundup

Had a most annoying experience this week when I needed to get a new cell phone (I wrote about it over on BlogHer if you want to hear the whole sordid tale) — a cell phone which I love and have named Pippa.  At least, I think she’s a Pippa.  The name sort of came to me on Thursday and my first thought was, “oh, is that supposed to be the name of a character in a future book?” and then my second thought was, “no, that should be the name of my cell phone.”

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You know those places where you have 3000 things to say, but you don’t really know what to say about them?  I’m in one of those places.  I had this crazy week, but I don’t really need to talk about it.  I’m days away from having a new manuscript finished and edited.  And I’m absolutely mentally obsessed with it, thinking about little else.  But that’s not really interesting to talk about.  I walked into school one day and the Wolvog was crying and I couldn’t comfort him because it would have been inappropriate to jump in and give him a hug because it was during a lesson.  And seeing him cry without being able to bend down and hug him was one of the hardest things I’ve done in a while.  But there’s not much more I can say about that.  I mean, it just is.  That moment just is and the new manuscript just is and my crazy week just isn’t that comment-worthy.

I have read a bunch of posts and comments lately around the Internet that have annoyed the crap out of me — none, thankfully in our community (just wanted to add that before y’all get all paranoid).  Most of them were of the my-way-is-the-only-right-way-to-do-something-and-everyone-who-doesn’t-do-it-my-way-is-WRONG ilk.  When I start thinking about how much I want to reach through the screen and throttle the writer, it makes me think that it’s time to step away from the Internet.  Or at least stick with the Creme de la Creme posts.  I have never gotten cranky reading those.

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Instead of the Weekly What If: what are you not talking about?  What subjects in your life are only worthy of a sentence and not much more?

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This is the last weekend before the December 15th deadline for the Creme de la Creme.  Just saying.

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And now, the blogs…

Exploring Chaos has a very raw post about what was said mid-cycle.  I can’t lie to you — it’s a hard post to read.  It’s a painful post to read.  But I’m glad she wrote it because as I read it, all I could think was that there was someone else right now who is going to read this post and feel less alone.

Flotsam has a post about the way the blogosphere has changed.  And even though the woman ends the post mid-thought; leaves us hanging until part two with literally the thought unfinished, I still found the post gripping.

A Little Pregnant has a post on TodayMoms responding to a psychologist’s comment about why people experiencing infertility should adopt which came from another TodayMoms article which already starts with an offensive title: “IVF vs Adoption: Which is Better?” (Did your head just explode as mine did?  Wait — did you want to crawl through the screen and throttle someone?  Step away from the computer!)  Back to Julie’s response: I thought it was level-headed and well-written, making the point that family building — like so many things in life — needs to be a personal decision and stating that one way of doing things as “best” often makes people want to kick you.  Hard.

Lastly, I end the Roundup with a post by Awful But Functioning saying goodbye to Elizabeth Edwards.  You will not be able to read this post without crying, especially when she admits: “A week or so after that post I went to my first candlelight ceremony at Children’s, and perhaps it was presumptuous of me, but on one of my scraps I wrote “Wade.” Elizabeth Edwards would never know, but I figured she took time to write my daughter’s name, the least I could do was the act of writing out her son’s.”  Seriously, read Tash’s whole post.

Goodbye Elizabeth.

[a moment of silence]

The roundup to the Roundup: I have a telephone named Pippa.  There are a lot of things in my week only worthy of a single sentence.  What in your week is only worthy of a single sentence?  Last weekend before the Creme de la Creme deadline.  And lots of great posts to read.

5 comments

1 Heather { 12.10.10 at 8:21 am }

I’ve been a bit bitter with the Internet too.

Also, that thing I don’t want to speak of..ever…the woman who gave birth to my son. (Slippery Slope…UGH!)

2 Shelli { 12.10.10 at 8:45 am }

I was just thinking the same thing (about the Internet). I find more and more of the “look at me!” “I’m more important and relevant than you!” personalities bullying bloggers in general. They have something to say about everything… I can’t help but roll my eyes into the back of my head.

It’s called biting the hand that feeds you. Yet people still give these folks carte blanche to keep making women look catty. I read through a recent exchange yesterday (subject: Twitter and it’s usage) and I felt so angry. Adults acting as bullies really gets me fired up.

egh.

Is the lushary open yet? lol I’d write a post about this if I could guarantee the trolls wouldn’t show up.

Thank goodness these people are not in our ALI community.

3 Guera! { 12.10.10 at 10:27 am }

I haven’t blogged about this yet but we’ve hit a roadblock in our adoption. The bio father is being a prick. He doesn’t want the baby but he doesn’t want the mom to give it up. I am trying to process what this could potentially mean and sometimes things are too big to blog about right away.
Those blogs you refer to are like car wrecks to me. I can’t stop looking at them even though they fire me up and tempt me to leave nasty comments about the author.

4 a { 12.10.10 at 3:06 pm }

I’m not talking about my first (only?) IVF cycle and otherwise shitty week, culminating in a speeding ticket today. But I might.

5 TasIVFer { 12.12.10 at 9:37 pm }

The things I’m not talking about aren’t subjects unworthy of speaking of but subjects I have too much to say about. Perhaps that means I’m not ready to write about them – my thoughts must be unwieldy if they can’t be honed down to something readable. Or maybe they’re just too deep in my head and require too much explanation – or too much exploration to prune them back from all the other thoughts surrounding them. I suspect if I could look at them objectively I see they don’t need to be so long considering the audience reading my blog.

Often I read someone else struggling to express what they are feeling – adding paragraphs and paragraphs in the hopes of being understood. Often it’s something I just get though. A place or a thought or a feeling I’ve been to or had before. But when you’re in the middle of the writing it’s hard to see it. Writing is a process, and one I’ve become very reliant upon – even when I can’t publish it.

(c) 2006 Melissa S. Ford
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