Category — Blogoversary

My blogoversary, my blogoversary, ferns, dancing, tons of people. Every pink flower west of the Mississippi. Blogoversary cake in the dining room and the NaComLeavMo cake… Hidden in the carport.

Wait.

Shit.

That was Shelby’s wedding. And this in my blogoversary. I get these two occasions mixed up. All. The. Time.

My blogoversary is not bathed in blush or bashful, but my blog is two years old today. It is also almost the anniversary of my little planner and I am still lugging it around with me a year later. But it should get its own day to shine.

It is hard to remember what was started this year and what was merely a continuation. Show and Tell is definitely new as is IComLeavWe (which was called NaComLeavMo in its first incarnation). U.T.E.R.U.S. was started and we did our first big fundraising adventure. I kicked off the weekly Barren Advice column and a bunch of us have already chosen our new blogging names and added them to the Blogging Name Registry to mark the two year milestone. The collective Shop Mom or Pop was started last winter. The Public Living Room was utilized for online meetings and simultaneous television watching. Twelve and a Half Fighting Back took on activism projects. We had an international candy exchange. The largest project–Lost and Found and Connections Abound (LFCA or L & F)–not only began but got so large that it moved into its new space and has published almost 200 entries so far.

Other projects simply continued. The blogroll grew like a weed. The Creme de la Creme rolled around again as well as the Roundup Extravaganza. We kept meeting at the Virtual Lushary each month. The Barren Bitches read a lot of books. Entries were added to Operation Heads Up and new people volunteered for the Peer Counselor List. Secret Ode Days popped up out of nowhere.

I looked at the two years this blog has been in existence and used their overarching themes to determine the course this blog will take in its third year. This is different from the word that defines the entire blog which is “community.” I think that word best describes the blog as a whole if it had to be boiled down to one word.

But, if you take each year on its own, the first year was best defined by the word “connections.” I started the blog because I had always wanted a single space on the Internet that combined all the best aspects of the individual spaces. The information from the medical sites and the support from the bulletin boards and the fun projects from…well…camp. The connections were sometimes between two people or sometimes between a person and information. But so many of those early projects were about removing the isolation inherent in infertility. If you had an Internet connection, you had a community, not just a blog. I did this for myself, but I’m happy if it helped others too.

The word that defined the second year was “action.” I have a definite antsy side to my personality. I don’t sleep a lot. I don’t remain still for very long. I don’t like to talk about things–I like to see things happen. I live my entire life by Gandhi’s adage “be the change you wish to see in the world” (albeit at a high speed with the theme word being “now”). So we changed things. We saw needs and we filled them. We fought the good fight. We made sure–to the best of our abilities–that more people got the support they needed. Thank you for this.

I am never sure what word defines the year until after it is over, but I’m entering this year with a single word to help guide me. I don’t know if it is helpful or not to name it right now, but I’m going to place it out there as a thought. My defining term from now until next June is “listen.” It’s a hard thing to do–to truly listen to another person. To set aside the time to concentrate on someone else’s thoughts without simultaneously considering your own. To practice a form of verbal relativism, listening while trying to place yourself in the other person’s point of view rather than your own. Talking is easy. I have about 850 posts on this blog. Being silent. Reading. Actually hearing; internalizing someone else’s words, tossing them around inside your head, allowing them to change your world. That is hard.

Already, the small projects that have planted seeds in year two are sprouting into year three. Show & Tell at its core is about listening to what is important to another person. Lost & Found is about sitting with someone’s words and letting them know that you’re listening and supporting them.

The thing that I have the most hope wrapped around is IComLeavWe. I would love for this idea to build and for comments to gather the same respect as blog posts. We honour blog posts all the time, but how many times do we honour comments? We lament not being able to post enough, but how many times do people also consider their lack of commenting? NaComLeavMo was admittedly hard. It became suffocatingly difficult to remember to comment a quota every single day for a full month. I hope that by making it weekly and making it often that people will drop in and out with an eye to what is happening in their own life. When the list opens next week on Tuesday, I hope people add themselves. When IComLeavWe rolls around (each month from the 21st to the 28th), I hope we see a huge spike in comments. Thoughtful comments. Comforting comments. And also…

Even when you don’t have something to add, when you can’t find the words to respond, I hope this year that it becomes socially acceptable and understood to simply write the phrase “I am listening” and post the comment under your name. What does this do? Sometimes, it helps to know that your words were read. That someone didn’t click on and click off of your blog without processing your words. Sometimes it simply feels good to know that you’re not alone, even if the other person doesn’t have a solution or deep comfort. Some people may think this is lazy; a comment not worth the effort to leave or receive. But I think it can be very powerful to know that someone listened even if they have nothing to respond with in return. If all comments ran this course, I would need to rethink my stance on this, but right now, amid the other thoughts, I would love to hear the small “I am listenings;” especially on
a post that you see does not have a lot of comments.

So happy anniversary, little blog. May this next year be one of deep listening, good community, enormous love, wonderful news, and only more kumbayaness. We cannot control so many things in our lives–the enormity of what we can’t do sometimes leaves me speechless–but ensuring that no one feels alone: that is actually within our power. So it is my goal: to make sure that anyone I encounter knows that I have listened.

Blogging Name Registry is at the bottom of this post.

Some people noticed. Here is the full explanation.

Those who walk the Appalachian Trail* choose what is called a “trail name” and they enter it in a registry book kept in Harper’s Ferry at the ATC, an informal midway point on the trail. What is the point of a trail name? For one, it shows a commitment to the project (walking the trail) and entering it in the book is a marker of sorts. An accomplishment. It is a break between your life back home and your identity on the trail. The name can be a focus, a source of strength when you’re exhausted. Trail names generally come out of nowhere–they just pop into your head and feel right–or they are given to you by a fellow hiker.

I have always wanted a trail name.

I don’t really want to walk the entire Appalachian Trail.

Therein lies the conundrum.

Walking the trail takes enormous stamina and discipline. As does writing a blog–perhaps not the same type of stamina, but certainly, stamina and focus nonetheless. Especially if you are updating regularly and presenting original writing (sorry, spam blog writers, I just can’t count you). The first year means that every holiday, every anniversary, every experience essentially is new. But the second year is the hard year. You go through each season again and need to write about each season again in a way that is fresh and new. You go through the same sorts of things, the same sorts of emotions over and over again and you need to figure out something new to say about them.

The first days may have been the hardest days for the Grateful Dead, but the second year is certainly the hardest year for a blogger.

I am less than one week away from getting through the second year.

Therefore, I am marking the event, nodding towards the stamina and the journey and the hard work by choosing a new secondary blogging name much in the same tradition as a trail name.

Lollipop Goldstein.

(“Um…is she serious? She just went through this grave, self-important explanation of the origins of choosing a blogging name and writing a blog–comparing it to walking the fucking Appalachian Trail!–and she chooses Lollipop Goldstein?”)

Lolly, for short.

The name just came to me as I was driving this week. I called into the backseat, “What do you think of the name Lollipop Goldstein?”

“It’s funny,” the ChickieNob answered.

“Do you like it? Do you think it’s a good name for me?”

“No.”

“Then what do you think of Popsicle Jones?”

“That is the perfect name for Grandma!” the ChickieNob said brightly.

Lollipop Goldstein is fitting on so many levels. At my core, I am a Jew who loves candy. As we move out, we have connections to things like Secret Ode Day and the lollipop icon. We have my penchant for passing out candy. We have that it’s whimsical and fun and I just might be whimsical and fun. We have…

Well, we can’t dig too deep. It ends there. But Lollipop Goldstein is my new secondary blogging name. I’m not changing the name of my blog (it will still be Stirrup Queens…like Cats, now and forever!), but this new name will ride alongside The Town Criers (the name you use as a “sign off” that others see when you leave a comment on their blog). I chose the Town Criers when I first started this blog (and the email address reflects this) because I saw myself as someone who liked to pass along information and pollinate ideas–take something from here and pass it along to there. A town crier of a sort. At the same time, I cried a lot so I was also, quite literally, the town’s crier. Sobber. Weeper.

Oh, and it’s plural because that liar rat fink bastard Josh told me he would be helping me write this blog. Ad la.

I haven’t exactly thought out how this will work, keeping The Town Criers (because I’m not changing my email address) but still utilizing Lollipop Goldstein. That will all fall into place, I trust, in the future. But right now, I want to open up this idea to you. The ATC has a register book where you can place your Trail Name and see all the other 2000-milers who came before you.

If your blog is two years old or older; or when your blog turns two years old (perhaps, if you just crossed into your second year, this will be an impetus to keep writing for 11 more months), please add your blog to the registry I have started on my sidebar–the Blogging Name Project–and state the new secondary blogging name you have either chosen for yourself OR that you asked others to choose for you in a post you place close to the two year mark (or, if your blog is over two years old, you could run this post now if a name doesn’t instantly strike you). It is fine if you’ve moved urls, changed your blog’s name over time, or have gone password protected: it counts as long as you have been writing what is essentially the same blog in some capacity for two years.

It is simple: (1) choose a new secondary blogging name; one that defines part of who you are or what your blog is about. Do not change your blog’s name, only choose a new secondary blogging name–one that you will use or one that is purely ceremonial to mark that your blog is over two years old and you plan to keep writing (2) leave a comment below stating your new name as well as your blog url. Please also include your blogoversary date–the day you began your blog. (3) I will move this information and link it in my sidebar when I see it.

Unlike hiking the trail, which requires one to be able to leave work for a year, be physically up to snuff, have limitless courage and endurance–in other words, it’s unattainable for most–receiving your secondary blogging name is attainable for anyone who wishes to try. The only trait you must possess is the ability to keep writing.

Lollipop Goldstein, use it or lose it (“lose it? What the hell does she mean by lose it? Mel is really confusing me right now. Is she Mel? Is she The Town Criers? Is she Lolly?”).

The answer to your internal monologue: I’m all three. I’m Mel both on the blog and off. I sign off with the name The Town Criers. And now, to commemorate two years of writing, I am Lollipop Goldstein. At your service.

What do you think of my name choice?

And I am happy to help you come up with a name for you if you’re struggling to think of one. Think of it as simply a fellow hiker bequeathing one to you as you walk together on the trail.

* The Appalachian Trail, for those unfamiliar, is the hiker’s equivalent of Mount Everest. It’s 2000+ mile trail leading up the eastern side of the United States. Though some people will go hiking on small sections of it for a weekend, the hiker’s pilgrimage is walking the trail from Georgia to Maine. This can take almost a year and it is one of the largest accomplishments a hiker can achieve. It is what essentially separates those who hike on the weekends to those who hike as an expression of themselves.

As the resident cake maker, I had to make my cake before I could have my cake and eat it too. But Josh was an excellent sous chef (is it a sous chef if you’re baking?) and dish washer. We froze a few of the 40-some-odd cupcakes because the twins are trying chocolate for the first time later this week and they asked for a chocolate cake (we’re going to eat chocolate at least twice before their birthday party just because it would really suck to have an allergic reaction right after blowing out your birthday candles).

We frosted them with chocolate or vanilla icing. And left all of them undecorated. Why? Because a decorated cupcake is a finished product. There’s no room to grow. And my blog? It’s still a work in progress. It’s not yet ready for an icing rose to finish off the top.

We brought the cupcakes downtown to Josh’s office and fed them to his coworkers who unknowingly helped me celebrate a year of blogging.

Welcome to the first Great Cake Day. The closest that we can come to holding a huge, virtual, international party. Below is a list of everyone who is participating in this Great Cake Day. They have bought or baked a cake or like dessert on June 25th and consumed it–either alone or with others–in a celebration of community. Sort of like a virtual block party, with imaginary music, lots of good friends, and delicious cake to boot.

Everyone has taken a picture of their chosen confection and posted it on their blog along with whatever else they were moved to write: lyrics to a song they listened to while they consumed the treat, a recipe, a story. I’ve compiled a list below and I will keep adding to it as people send me a link to their party post. Jump through the list, going from party site to party site, leaving comments and happy thoughts in your wake. And unlike a real party that takes place in a finite amount of time, this party may stretch for several days with new party posts added to the list. Keep checking back and this post will be archived under the Festivities icon on the side bar.

The Great Cake Day is the culmination to a week of celebrating along with the Commentathon and the Secret Ode Days (more coming soon). It is also my Blogoversary. I’m sort of at a loss for words. I’ve spent a good ten minutes staring at the screen and trying to think back to this day one year ago. In a notebook, I had written down our brainstorming session as we tried to come up with name for the blog. Iffys. The Waiters. The Psychlists. Stirrup Queens. Sperm Palace Jesters.

When I think about this year, it feels a little bit like a board game. Think Chutes and Ladders or Candyland. There were all these jumps forward like Infertility’s Common Thread or Operation Heads Up. There was the Peer Counselor List and the Creme de la Creme and the Emoblopedia and the Blog Roundups (anniversary for the Roundups is July 21st. Expect a plea for help in the next week or two to make the July 20th Roundup a huge bloggy extravaganza). There were the Barren Bitches (and sometimes a man-pie or two) marching through book after book. There were Blilts woven (and no, I haven’t forgotten about the bad advice blilt–I’m still putting it together) and movies made for Bea’s IIFF. There were lists of favourite things to peruse after yet another negative. There were numerous ways to make wishes and have others hold your wish tightly too. And, of course, we’ve opened our own imaginary speakeasy and gotten stinkin’ virtually drunk month after month. I had no idea when I started this blog that all of these ideas would come to the surface. But they were all the things that were missing for me the first time through infertility and loss. And somewhat selfishly, I started all of these things because I needed them. Because I wanted them. And I am glad you came along too to this virtual living room to hang out because it is a lot less lonely this time around with all of you. This is the place I go mentally when I am stuck in a conversation with a woman on the playground who is complaining about the spacing of her children. I jump here mentally and one of you is usually sitting around here too and we both say, “by fuck! Will this woman shut up?”

And there were chutes along with the ladders. At least chutes for me. After reading Elizabeth Swire Falker’s book, I went for thrombophilia testing and found out that I have two mutations. Obviously, it’s good to have the information now and be able to move forward with it, but having it years ago could have saved us a lot of heartache. I haven’t been able to get pregnant on my own, so it looks like we’re returning to the RE, which I expected, but is still a disappointment. More ladders than chutes perhaps, but we’re at the end of this board game and it’s time to start a new round. Let’s clean up the pieces and reset the board and all sit down again for another year of Let’s Make a Baby. No, no, I’m not going anywhere. And everything that was started this year will continue this next year. But there are many bloggy ideas that have already begun percolating for these upcoming months. Stay tuned.

But right now, go eat some cake, blog about it, and send me the link. Oh, and while you eat your dessert (whether it be homemade cake or an Oreo purchased at the local food store), start clicking below on the list of other people who are all having their cake and eating it too. And throwing a damn fine imaginary party that is stretching across five continents and many many time zones.