Posts from — May 2011

Updated at the bottom

Whether or not to out anonymous commenters was a warm up to this next, related conundrum.

Though I will say that we need to distinguish between saying something rudely, saying something politely while disagreeing, and saying something cruelly.  We’re all aware of what sounds rude when said aloud (leaving room for the fact that we are all sometimes unintentionally rude), and those same sort of things sound rude when written.  So… no, I don’t really understand why someone would need to leave a comment like that.  If you don’t like the post, click away.  Or leave a politely worded disagreement.  I think all people should welcome politely worded disagreement because being challenged is what grows new ideas or cements opinions.  Rudely worded disagreement doesn’t have quite the same effect in opening up a person’s mind.  In fact, it usually does the opposite.

Saying something cruelly means that it has no helpful basis and is only said to upset the person.  Not really sure why anyone would ever need to do that either.

So, there you have how I’m distinguishing between the three ways people could leave these sorts of anonymous comments.  One way (politely worded disagreement), I’m totally for.  The other two, not so much.

The next conundrum.

We are having a major issue with a newly purchased appliance, and the store we bought it from is being difficult about actually working with us to remedy the situation.  Which is frustrating not just because we shelled out a lot of money to this company for this particular appliance, but we have spent a lot of money over the years on other household items from this store and had planned to work with them for two more major purchases in the near future.

They can clearly see our customer loyalty, but they don’t seem to care if we return as customers in the future.  In my personal opinion, you’d have to be crazy to buy from this national store knowing what we know now about how they treat long-time customers.

BUT.

I haven’t blogged about it.  I haven’t Tweeted about it.  I haven’t threatened to do either when we argue with various employees.  I don’t know why beyond the fact that I think that writing something down and making it accessible to others is a huge responsibility.

I stand by everything I put out there, which is why I don’t do random reviews for products.  Unless the product grabbed me, I see no reason why I should stand behind a product just because someone else asks me to do so and offers me a free item.  So the Go Girl, the gum, the vegan worcesterire sauce I once blogged about — those were all my decisions and I wrote about those products without the makers asking me to do so.  If I tell you I liked it, it’s because I really liked it — I would hate for my opinion to get watered down (even if my opinion means very little) because you hear every two seconds: “and this is the best too!”

But the opposite holds as well.  If words have power, then a negative review has the ability to do some serious damage.  Even if I only lose the store one sale, it’s still one sale.

I think about this constantly because we argue about it weekly on a local listserv that I’m on.  People will post a negative comment about their experience with a local business.  Another person will chime in with a “me too.”  Then a third says, “I was going to go there, but now I’m not!” And then a fourth says, “This is terrible.  You’re ruining someone else’s livelihood.  At this rate, we’ll have no local businesses left.”  And then a bitchy argument ensues, and I generally hit delete instead of reading the listserv for a few days until it dies down.

That said, a new restaurant opened and I was considering trying it.  Then a few people posted a negative review on the listserv, and now I can’t see myself ever choosing it when there is a perfectly good and similar option across the street.  I mean, this is a dueling restaurant so it already had a bad taste in my mouth (who builds the exact same type of restaurant across the street from a beloved established restaurant?), and now that I know that the food is too salty, it doesn’t seem worth using my limited eating-out dollars on the place.

So that posting on the listserv created some serious damage.  I know I’m not eating there, and who knows how many other people won’t support it now that they read those listserv posts?

And that’s why I haven’t blogged about this major appliance situation.  Because while I know it can be effective, and I’ve seen plenty of irate bloggers take to the blogosphere, vent their spleen at a frustrating situation, and see some actual customer service help in return, I’ve been squeamish about joining in precisely because I know bad postings can hurt a business.  Even though I can also see that it’s often the way to get the job done.

When big businesses are closing their ears to your words, how else can you get their attention beyond kicking them in the figurative groin with negative words on social media?  Why should bloggers be polite, when they’re not getting politeness in return from the business?

That said, we got the Crayola coloured bubbles and it made such a wreck of our clothes and lawn that I had no qualms tweeting about it.  People immediately joined in and added their bad experience with it.  Some people said they were considering buying it and were grateful to learn that it wasn’t actually washable (even after two storms, the front steps are still blue.  It looks like a Smurf murder site).

And that’s where I could see the good of bad-mouthing a product online.  I immediately had validation that the product was shoddy.  My tweets warned others who were considering purchasing it.  It saved them time, effort, and clothing.  Did it hurt Crayola — well, probably yes.  But should they be protected when property was damaged due to their product?  If something is going to make you sick or ruin your property or harm you in some way, do you have any obligation to be concerned about their livelihood or reputation?

I can see both sides of the bad review online, and that extends to posts about people.  Saying negative things about another person.  This is where it ties in with the last post — if someone posted an anonymous, shitty comment, wouldn’t I want the heads up about the person, especially if it’s someone two-faced?  Would I want, let’s say, to help or celebrate someone that leaves crap-ass comments ruining someone else’s day?  If I’m not told who they are, I could be telling you that this person who leaves snarky, hurtful comments anonymously across the blogosphere is a great person that we should all rally around and support.

Why should someone who tears down community get to reap the rewards of being part of a community?

And yet, at the same time, the reach of the blogosphere can stretch so far that it behooves everyone posting online to think before they hit publish.  The moment that triggered the last post was that a friend was recently being torn a new asshole on a listserv, and while it may have been an exercise in venting for the anonymous person writing about her, it has stayed with my friend — both emotionally and professionally.  And that’s scary — the idea that we could have a bad interaction with someone and it could enter this Googlable space for eternity.  And she can’t even address it properly because the person is anonymous.

I’m not sure there’s a clear answer, and certainly, I don’t think it’s a case of right or wrong.  But it makes for an interesting discussion since we are all citizen journalists and reviewers with the potential to make or break a business (or person) just as much as an established newspaper or media outlet.

So how do you feel about posting negative thoughts about stores or people online?

Added:

I also read online reviews religiously before a purchase — especially one where I don’t have a person or organization giving me advice on the purchase.  So I’m grateful to everyone who has saved me from reading a crappy book, wasting money at a restaurant, or purchasing a toy that would most likely break.

But what do you think about someone who has a bad experience on, let’s say, Southwest Airlines and then trashes them online.  A la Kevin Smith.  Is that different from writing a bad review?

I was reading a blog a few months ago (I didn’t mean to sit on this question for months, but I forgot to write about it and was reminded by a posting on a listserv that triggered the thought again), and the person had gotten an anonymous comment.  It wasn’t that obnoxious in nature, just disagreeing with the writer.  Of course, there is really no such thing as a truly anonymous comment because most comment programs log the IP address.  Unless it’s your first time leaving a comment, a person can search their email for the IP address, see the last few times you’ve commented, and know exactly who Anon is.

That’s what this person did.  They got an anonymous comment (in which the person explained why they wanted to be anonymous) and wrote a post about it, outing the person.  Linking to the other person’s blog.

It left a really bad taste in my mouth.

The reality is that most people should stand behind their words.  Remaining anonymous should be reserved for whistleblowers or those confiding information that is delicate in nature.  There are plenty of reasonable explanations for wanting to post something anonymously.  Being a shithead is not one of them.

In other words, if you’re looking for the ability to freely speak your mind without having to face the person, you’ve abused the good will extended to anonymous posting.  It’s never okay to say crappy things to someone or about someone on the Internet, but I can stomach it a lot more if the person has the ovaries to stand behind her words.  I have no respect for someone who shouts hurtful things into a comment box and scurries away to hide behind the word “anonymous.”

So this walks a grey line: on one hand, the person should have stood behind their words.  They should have been transparent and admitted their feelings with their name attached.  And if they felt anxious doing so, that should have been their first clue that their words were simply unnecessary.  Her words were really just obnoxious for obnoxious-sake.  We should all use that internal barometer and choose not to speak when our desire is to lobby our words like a hand grenade and run away.

On the other hand, the blog writer is in the wrong for outing the person; a person who clearly states that they’re remaining anonymous because they’re going against popular opinion.  Not in a hateful, name-calling way.  But simply a “I respectfully disagree with you” sort of way.  This person isn’t a troll, trying to foment hate.  Trying to get under someone’s skin.  They simply have an unpopular opinion and want to express it. (Why?  Who knows.)

I swing back and forth on who I believe is really wrong here.  And it raises all sorts of other questions when trying to define the line:

• Is it okay to out someone if they’re a troll?  Truly, unequivocally obnoxious?  Popping on your blog just to call you names.
• Is it never okay to out an anonymous commenter?  Should we simply deal with the person directly and take everything out of the public arena of a blog post?
• And what do you think of someone posting anonymously simply because they have an unpopular opinion and don’t want the rage of the community upon them?  Since y’all know we can get a little rage-y sometimes.

Let’s put it this way.  If an anonymous poster left a comment below saying:

“Melissa, I’m posting this anonymously because I know people will disagree with me, but this post was an enormous waste of time.  Why the hell do you overthink these things?  You should get back to writing about infertility and stop musing about stupid things like anonymous commenters.”

Would it be cool for me to write my next post outing that anonymous poster, linking to her blog, and yanking apart that sort of comment?  Is it ever okay?

We went to see African Cats in the theater.  The twins have only seen one movie in a regular theater, which was Ponyo.  Ponyo didn’t go as well as we hoped, and they’ve balked at seeing another film.  We do belong to a weekly children’s film series which plays in a theater, but kids talk through the film and walk around.  This was our second foray into a normal theater at a normal time with normal expectations.

The twins were doing fairly well until midway through the film when the ChickieNob suddenly said in way too loud a voice, “heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey, wait a second, how are the baby lions getting into the mommy lions if there’s no fertility doctor to put them in?”

I quickly whispered that there were other ways to make babies, and I’d explain all of it to her at home if she could hold off for a few hours.  Thankfully, she forgot by the time we left the theater.  But I’m just waiting for the thought to return…

Crap.

The Wolvog got very upset when Layla went to die.  He cried bitterly, staring at the screen in disbelief.  At the end of the film, I rubbed his back and said, “that was really hard, watching Layla die.”

“She didn’t die,” the Wolvog told me, incredulously.  “She just went somewhere very far away.  And she is very happy there.  Very very happy.”

Not that he’s in denial or anything.

*******

We had a nine hour drive a few weeks ago.  As we neared home, American Idiot popped into the CD player and I made my move to mute out the curse words.  Except instead of turning down the song on the fourth line, in my exhaustion I turned the dial in the wrong direction, causing the kids to hear, “the subliminal mindFUCK AMERICA!”

In the silence that followed, the Wolvog quietly said, “I can forget a curse word in a second.”

So there went several years of hard muting work down the drain.

*******

I have not been able to find any other takers to join me in a skateboarding class.

*******

At my guitar lesson this week, my teacher asked me if I wanted to try the song I was learning on an electric guitar instead of my acoustic.  He grabbed a standard Fender Squier off the wall (explaining that even I could not break this thing, the Volvo of guitars) and plugged it in.

And it was quite literally the most exciting thing that has happened to me in a long time.  I mean, I sucked hardcore playing it, and I desperately wished I could have an hour or two alone with it in order to try out different songs and fiddle with all the dials (there were just so many things to touch and push and spin).  But I felt so damn cool.

*******

I had a long break from gum — like a ten year sojourn from gum.  While my brother was recently visiting, he opened a pack of Wrigley’s Extra Dessert Delights mint chocolate chip gum.  I know — I threw up in my mouth too.  And after several minutes of discussion, I agreed to try the gum before I continued to mock it.  And it turned out to be not-that-bad.

And by not-that-bad, I mean that I engaged in chewing this gum much in the same way I read Twilight.  I mocked it, I tried it, I didn’t love it, I found myself thinking about it, I took the rest of my brother’s pack, I bought a second pack, I bought a third pack, and now I’m writing about it.  Oh, and when I say that I bought a second and a third pack, I mean that I bought the third pack BEFORE the second pack was even opened.  As in I predicted that I would tear through the second pack so quickly that I needed a third pack in the wings to get me through the night.

What is your favourite gum?  Flavour and brand.

It’s funny; before I posted the blog name post, I was pretty much 100% positive that I wanted to change the name.  Felt at peace about it.  Really loved the other name and felt it fit me perfectly.

And then you guys talked.  And you mentioned the “S” in Stirrup Queens (the one at the end of the word, not the one at the beginning), and I realized that the plurality was a big part of who I am; much moreso than this joke-like title that the ChickieNob and I laughed about one day.  Which is a title in singular.

I think I will take Cradles and Graves suggestion to make it a section of this blog; a small part of the larger whole.  I will still get to use it, only in a smaller capacity.

The problem, of course, is what to put in that space.

Password protected posts?  That’s not really me.

Photographs? I take a lot of them, but usually only to preserve memories.  And without the story, the photograph is sort of worth less (not worthless, but worth less).  And with the words, why not just run them as a regular blog post?

Recipes?  It didn’t really excite me.

Short stories and snippets from chapters I’m working on?  Maybe?

I guess I am looking for something that makes sense to separate it from the main blog.  Because if it’s not self-contained, what is the point?

*******

I am having massive anxiety about kindergarten ending.  On one hand, I want school to be over.  I am done with this school thing.  I’m done with the lunch boxes and homework and racing out of the house at an ungodly hour so we’re not late (I’ll admit that we are an incredibly lazy, slow-moving family).  But I am beyond freaked out for that last day because that last day means that I can no longer say that I have kindergarteners.  After that day, they’ll be first graders.  And that doesn’t sound babyish.

I can’t even write this without crying.

I know that they will be exactly the same age before and after.  That they won’t suddenly change overnight; refuse my kisses and tuck-ins.  But it is the same feeling that came with turning 35.  I was still the same Melissa, but it felt like this wall looming in front of me that once I stepped over, everything changed.

I am well aware that all people need to age.  That I could have a dozen children like a freakin’ human opossum and still need to go through this with the last one.  All puppies turn into dogs.  All babies turn into sulky teenagers.  There is no way to stop this, and I know that “fair” isn’t being used correctly in this instance, but… by fuck… it’s not fair.

Forgive me if I’m moody in the denouement to the year.  I am having a really hard time with them growing up this month.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “One of Those Girls” (Single Infertile Female)
• “A Public Service Announcement” (By the Brooke)
• “Hope” (Sprogblogger)
• “A Conversation with Painting” (Still Life with Circles)
• “Remember Us on Sunday” (Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed)
• “On My Mind” (SassyMama)
• “Orphaned and Eldered at 40” (Waiting for the Ukulele)
• “I’m Not Fat, I’m Big Boned” (Bring on the Babies)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Nuts in May has a post that starts out so brilliantly that I would argue that she hit the mark she wished to reach: “I have Bloggers Block. What I want, is to write something (something? anything!) of searing beauty, or utter hilarity, or elegant irony, or intense meaning, or, of course, all four because the English Language, she is my bitch. What we’ve got is a sort of low-grade flu of the intellect.”  Wasn’t that so damn good?  Plus her point about thanking your mother on Facebook when your mother isn’t even on Facebook made me snicker.  Aloud.

Marriage 2.0 has a post about rejoining Weight Watchers that resonated with me because… well… we sound very much the same.  It had me musing to myself how you bring about that internal spark that goads you into buckling down and getting serious.  Doing it right.  Doing it with support. (Whatever “it” is in your world.)

Our Family Beginnings has a post about adoption that I’d like to show to everyone who says “just adopt” in order to have them understand the intricacies that come with the process.  The very real people involved in the triad, the banging-your-head-against-the-wall paperwork, the waiting.  It’s just an every day post, unleashing frustrations, but I thought about it long after I clicked away.

Lastly, I had to include Baby Smiling in Back Seat’s incredibly moving Mother’s Day post.  It is brief, but it packs an enormous punch, especially the realization about 2010 that comes at the end.

The roundup to the Roundup: Keeping the name, but trying to incorporate the new one somehow.  Having trouble with the concept of everyone aging.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 6 and May 13) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

NPR’s Fresh Air recently re-aired an old interview with the Beastie Boys to go with the most formal review of Hot Sauce Committee Part Two in the world (“my favourite couplet goes…”).  They were asked if they knew when they started out that they would still be together 25 years later.

They responded:

Mr. YAUCH: You know, I think if we knew that the band was going to be around for this long, we probably would’ve thought of a better name.

Mr. HOROWITZ: Yeah, that’s true.

GROSS: How did you think of the name?

Mr. HOROWITZ: I had nothing to do with it. This is Adam Horowitz.

Mr. YAUCH: It just seemed like it was a funny idea at the time. It was literally like we thought we were probably just going to play a handful of gigs. You know, all our friends were in bands. Everybody was in bands. You just, like, used to throw together a band and like write a couple songs, play a couple shows, and you’re done.

I loved the response because I often ask when the Beastie Boys will become Beastie Men.  It’s a side trip off the constant argument about content, which was covered in this interview too.  Gross asked them about how they changed from punk band to hip hop, and the difference between Licensed to Ill and Paul’s Boutique.  And they said that with each change, people got weeded out (though you must listen to the whole interview to get their amusing take on the multiple ways “weeded out” is used).

Blogs have to change in content.  They must because their writers don’t remain the same person indefinitely.  We go through different life stages; we grow, we change.  What’s important to me right now will be very different from what is important to me in 2016.  At least, I hope.

I’ve said this dozens of times before, but I think all people should think of themselves as general diarists and then make their content reflect their life.  Reflect what is in the forefront of their mind at the moment, rather than start a new blog for each new stage of life/idea.  I know others describe me as an infertility blogger, and that’s fine if that’s how they need to define me.  I define myself as a general diarist who happens to write about infertility because its a lens through which I see the world.

Though I have this really infertility-related blog name.

When I started out, I wrote about infertility a certain percentage of the time.  I have yet to do a scientific breakdown of my blog, but I probably wrote about infertility 40% of the time in the beginning if you count the Roundup and such.  Right now, I probably write about infertility… 40% of the time.  Nothing has changed, and yet, I sometimes think about that blog name — Stirrup Queens.  It clearly states what you’re going to find here: a whole lot of vagina.  But it also dismisses that other 60% of content that has been here since the beginning: reflections on community, on pop culture, on the twins, on blogging itself, on writing.

I have a feeling more than one person is nodding along because they also wonder about their blog name.  When you come up with a name for your blog, it fits you at the time.  It perfectly sums up what is happening in your life, the subject matter of the space.  And then life changes and you continue writing, and suddenly, this perfect blog name no longer fits your content.  Because it can’t fit your content.  Because people aren’t static, we are constantly in flux.

I was thinking about this because I came up with the most perfect new blog name.  It came from a conversation with the ChickieNob, and that, in and of itself makes it feel special to me.  It’s a name that brings together infertility with parenting after infertility.  That plays with the idea of word definitions.  It is just a good, solid, general diarist sort of name.**

And yet, how could I ever change the name Stirrup Queens?  It has an emotional history for me.  It’s a part of who I am.  I couldn’t imagine letting it go even if it means making space for this new, better name.

I’ve thought about changing the name and still listing “the blog formerly known as Stirrup Queens” in the header.  The reality is that the url would remain the same, so stirrup-queens.com would still be how you’d find me.  But then I open my blog to read an old post, and I see that name at the top and I think, “that’s my name.  That’s just the way it is.  How could I change it?”

After all, there are our personal names — our name names, for instance, Melissa — which we are expected to have fit us indefinitely.  Nicknames may come and go, but people rarely change their first name (not that it never happens, but it’s rare).  No matter how bored they become with the sound.  Even if their name doesn’t fit their personality.

Because I’m Melissa just as much as I’m Stirrup Queens.

I’m not sure where I stand on this.  I’ve seen people move from one title to the next with great happiness (think: Cecily changing to Uppercase Woman — do you remember the original name by this point?  I do, but the point is that she quickly inhabited this new name) so I know it’s possible.  It would be a small change since the blog url would remain the same.  Since the name Stirrup Queens would still be woven into the blogroll.  People would most likely always use both names — I couldn’t see Stirrup Queens disappearing altogether.

And yet.

Your thoughts? (Taking into account that no one likes change) And do you like your blog’s name or do you wish it were something different?

*My goal for the title was to mimic the refrain: “do these pants make my ass look weird?” And then realized right before posting it that people might not make that connection.

**I would say the name, but I don’t want feedback on the name.  I mean, I’m set on the name — if I changed it, this would be it.  So I don’t want it to become a comparison, an “I like Stirrup Queens better than that.”