Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

I’d like you to meet our blackberry, Dr. Pangloss. This name was originally to be used for our future family guinea pig, but since we have not yet visited the humane society, we decided to use it for the blackberry Tarrant gave us at BlogHer.

The Wolvog had given me strict instructions to bring back electronics from BlogHer. This, of course, is easier said than done, but I entered myself to win a blackberry and three months of service from Sprint at the contributing editors party.

I waited anxiously for them to pull the names out of the hat. I mean, I waited anxiously. Ask Briar. I was anxious. I really wanted to be the cool mum who comes home with the electronics, like the cavewoman returning home from the hunt. I know some of you are currently rolling your eyes at the idea of handing over a blackberry to a not quite 5-year-old, but…he’s really good at it. And it brings him such pleasure. Literally, you can see his whole posture change when he’s using it because he knows he’s good at it. His body conveys just how proud he is with himself and he will often try other things after his ego has been satiated through this venue. If it’s important to him, it’s important to me. And I wanted to be able to share a blackberry with him and have it be our special thing.

But my name was not called. Then, I felt a tap on my shoulder and Tarrant was standing behind me, holding out the box she won and said, “Denise told me to give this to you.” I don’t think I’ve ever been more floored. More knocked over. We took this picture, but I couldn’t even really process what had happened until I got home and handed it over to him.

And you have never witnessed such pure joy.

So if you receive an email from me and it contains a bunch of gibberish and a few nouns, that is the Wolvog, just reaching out and communicating. One of the drawbacks to having all of your email addresses on auto-fill. It is, though, a nice way to see the world through his eyes. He takes the blackberry out of the holster, snaps a picture, and immediately sends it to 20 people along with a note:

dfgdfkjapsd v apple kia dlikjsoiuoiiiiiiiiiindjh apple apple dkjhku

Thank you, Dr. Pangloss, for providing a new way to bond with my child. Thank you, Sprint, for providing the service and blackberry. And thank you, Tarrant and Denise, for making his dreams come true.

If you did not see Tarrant read in the keynote at BlogHer, you should. The video doesn’t capture the twirl she did walking on the stage which showed off her incredibly cool dress, but it does contain the post that made me cry backstage a few minutes before I was to go on.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.

Two years ago today, the Lost and Found started as a single post on this blog which was erased and rewritten daily. A week later, the Lost and Found moved to its current location in order to enable old posts to stick around and be searchable.

When the LFCA first began, it was to serve as a central meeting space so that when someone closed their blog or started their blog, they could communicate with the blogosphere at large. It was a place to ask questions and get them answered. There was space for miscellaneous news and loss, pregnancy, birth/adoption announcements. The whole idea was to utilize the googleability of the Web so that people would know when they were missed.

And then it moved and grew and grew, with spaces added for support request, remembrance announcements, bedrest aid, and birthdays/anniversaries. And I’m sure it will continue to grow, with new categories added and tweaked as the years go on.

Two years ago, the news was submitted by the Clickers. While there are still a few active Clickers, for the most part, news is semi-anonymously (it’s not anonymous on my end, but I never tell who submitted a blurb and change all first-person submission to third-person) posted by blog readers or the person via the LFCA form. The LFCA form, how I love you. You made the LFCA so much easier. I now can cut-and-paste the whole post in a matter of minutes.

I’m proposing three ways to celebrate the second anniversary of the Lost and Found:

(1) Submit your news. Everyone has news and if you’ve read the LFCA, you know that news runs the gamut. Or submit someone else’s news. Don’t worry that someone else may have already submitted it. When I get two or more copies of the same news, I use one and delete the others. I’d rather get the same news three times than not-at-all. So send in your news via the form and make a quick link to the form on your computer so you can submit news as you read.

(2) Set aside one day a week to randomly choose five links off the LFCA and leave a comment. This came in an email the other day from Kate at Maybe Baby?: “Someone posted my sad news on Lost and Found. The outpouring of love and support I got from the IF community overwhelmed me and felt like a big hug, a hug from people who would never tell me ‘it happened for a reason,’ ‘it’s meant to be,’ or ‘it’s for the best.’ Hugs and comfort from people who don’t need me to explain who know exactly how I feel.” And that is why it’s important to comment. Even when you don’t regularly read their blog. Because they simply want comfort from people who get it.

(3) Participate in a letter exchange. In the book, I give a general letter that people can carry with them and touch whenever they need a reminder that someone out there has their back. But it would be better if each person could have a note that is specifically personalized for them. For the same reason as #2, having a note to carry in your pocket to difficult appointments or baby-centered social events from someone who gets it makes a difference. Just a simple note to cheer you on and commiserate. So make a commitment with another blogger this week to exchange notes with one another so each person has that portable support. If you feel shy asking another person for a note, but would like to do this as a formal project, I’m happy to set up an exchange. Let me know if there is interest in the comment section below.

Happy anniversary, little LFCA. And tell your own story about the LFCA and a time you’ve connected with another person in the blogosphere.

There is an event at the end of this post that begs an RSVP. Just to give you a heads up so you don’t miss it.

Sometimes I write the title before I write the post, and sometimes it is the opposite–the title is not apparent until after I write out my thoughts. This time, it was the former, and I am struggling now with the words “selfishness” and “selflessness” in terms of blogging because they are imperfect terms to further muse on what I observed not only at BlogHer, but in three years of blogging in general. Actually, it’s not just in blogging, but in all interactions in life. But here, because this is a blog, I am discussing it in terms of blogging.

Blogging is obviously by default selfish–it’s all about the “I.” It’s my point of view, it’s my world, it’s what is important to me. Take apart the word: the “ish” is a suffix meaning “resembling” and the main chunk of the word “self” is obvious. Ish turns a noun into an adjective, a description.

Except how can you have words without the writer? And just because there is an important “I” in the equation, doesn’t mean that it is inherently selfish. Perhaps it is more self-ish; resembling the self. Because, at the same time, how can you have a blog without the self? It can never be self-less; without the self. Self, again, is not a dirty word, something we should be striving to remove. It is what makes each blog unique, interesting, necessary–just like the people who write them.

Maybe we should start with a fable? Skip it if you already know this story.

Once there were two sisters, Gentle and Wicked. Their mother loved them both equally, but it was easier to be around Gentle. One day, she asked the girls to get water from the well and Gentle volunteered. Getting the water was hard work and it took her about two hours to get to the well and draw the water. She was set to return home when an old woman approached the well and asked her for help in drawing the water. Gentle gave her the water in her bucket and set about refilling her own.

By the time she got home, her mother was worried because she had been gone a long time. She opened her mouth to speak and a diamond fell out with each word. She kept telling the story over and over again and soon the family had enough diamonds to live comfortably for the rest of their life. They would never worry about food again.

Wicked was thrilled that they had money but was frustrated that her sister was once again her mother’s favourite. The next time water was needed, she volunteered to go, determined to find the same old woman and come home with a mouthful of diamonds so she could be on equal footing with her sister. She filled her bucket and spent the whole day waiting, but the old woman never came. In fact, strangely enough, no one else came to use the well except a girl about Wicked’s age who asked for help in raising the bucket and Wicked told her to do it herself since she was on the lookout for the old woman.

She returned home where her mother was very worried because she had been away for the whole day. She started to tell her mother about why she took so long, but with each word, a frog fell from her lips. Soon, the whole house was filled with frogs and it took Gentle and her mother days to shoo them out. They begged Wicked to never speak again.

The point: give help even when you don’t know what is in it for you.

Or

Don’t fuck with people at wells.

Or

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

It’s not really a fair situation on one hand–I think we’d all help the old lady because we can quite clearly see that she needs help and we’re not assholes to the elderly. Wicked may have even helped the old woman if she had been there on that day. But it’s harder to set aside what we believe to be true about another person–about what we believe are their limitations or needs or even what we can get from them–and interact with them without conditions.

For this fable to work, we need to make the assumption that Gentle would help anyone who came to the well and Wicked would only help if she thought she could get something out of the interaction or if not helping made her a huge bitch who looks like she hates on old people.

There was sometimes neck craning at BlogHer–or people who treated me one way before I flipped my name tag around and treated me quite another way after they could see my blog title. And that does feel crappy. I didn’t tell this story last year, but during the speed dating session on the first morning of the 2008 conference, there was a blogger (who has a large readership) who was supposed to move to my table, looked at us, and made a dismissive motion with her hand and picked a different table. That same blogger was there this year. And now she wanted to chat and chat once she saw that I was in the keynote. And frankly, it stung. I was polite because she’s a human being, but I was distracted through the whole conversation because all I could think about was how she treated me the year before.

In light of that fable, selfless blogging can more accurately be called after the first girl in the story Gentle Blogging (and blogging is an interactive, community-based medium. A private journal is not a blog, it is an online private journal. Keeping a private journal that you don’t intend others to read but leave public because you assume no one will find it is not blogging. When I use the term “blog” or “blogging,” I am speaking about people who write an online journal that they intend others to read and utilize the interactive nature of the medium by accepting comments as well as reading other blogs and leaving comments), which is reading blogs and leaving comments without expecting anything in return beyond knowledge. It’s the impulse behind the act. It’s helping out a fellow blogger without knowing their stats and whether there’s something in it for you in the future. It’s reading what interests you; not because it’s popular, but because the words move you.

I give my attention, I give my help, I give my Twitter status, I give my advice or comfort, and I give my clicking finger (oooh, that sounded dirty!) regardless of what I get back from the person. I’m not perfect and requests and people fall through the cracks from time to time. And I apologize for that, but blogging is a hobby, not a career, so there is only so much I can do in my free time.

But I read what I like because I like it. And I follow people on Twitter because I’m interested in what they have to say. And I attended sessions at BlogHer because they sounded interesting. I email back everyone who writes me a personal note that requires an response without regard to whether they have a higher readership or a low readership. I am interested in people and I am interested in stories; regardless of what I may also get out of the relationship.

That is what I mean by Gentle Blogging. Not gentle as in treating something delicately; but Gentle as in the main character of the story whose actions stem from a pure space untainted by the question, “what’s in it for me?”

In regards to help (ranging from retweeting a post for someone to giving an answer to a question on a blog), the people who do the same–who help all regardless of what they can get back–have my utmost respect. It is easier to be kind to people who are kind in return, but I do feel that to be true to myself, I need to suck it up and help even those who ignore me when I ask for help. In other words, I
will post your news on LFCA even if you ignore me every time I’ve asked you to help me out.

Last winter, I asked for a general favour and posed it via a blog post to the general community. More than one blogger took my request and honoured it without being directly asked. Believe me, I notice as you notice when people reach out to you and let you know that they care. I also asked another blogger directly for the same help and she ignored me. I asked a second time and she ignored me again. She recently asked for my help, suddenly realizing that perhaps she can get something from me. It is hard to help, it takes a lot of swallowing down bile (or toads? Or french-cut diamonds?) to post links for her. I do it not for her, but because I need to remain true to myself and this idea I am attempting to articulate on Gentle blogging.

And like the sister in the aforementioned fable, that is the essence of selfish or Wicked Blogging. It’s following people on Twitter not because you’re interested in what they have to say, but because you want to get something out of them. It’s talking shit about a person’s writing in one space, and then fawning over them in another. It’s craning your neck to see if there is someone more interesting in the room at BlogHer rather than getting to know the person in front of you.

What it is not is an expectation that dictates your time or attention–it is not wicked to not read someone back who reads you. In other words, if I start following you on Twitter, it is because I want to hear what you say, not because I want you to follow me too. People have limited time and they can have limited interests and no one should be doing things online out of obligation. The difference is that Gentle Blogging is about doing things because it is meaningful to you or because you wish to help them, simply because they are a human being asking for advice or comfort or aid, and not because you believe that they are worthy due to what they can get you in the long-run (which would be Wicked Blogging).

When I write of “Wicked” blogging, I am merely speaking about the intention behind the action. I just want to make this clear–that Gentle blogging is not reading every single person who reads you and following everyone back on Twitter and Wicked blogging is not about never commenting. It is merely an attitude. It is why you blog, why you read, why you comment, why you Twitter, and why you follow or friend people.

And I think the people who were cranky at BlogHer (with the exceptions of the ones who were cranky with the commercialism) were cranky because they were probably bumping into a lot of Wicked bloggers. But, my question then, is that if you were in a room with 2000 people and you were only finding Wicked bloggers, what were you doing wrong too? Do you see what I mean? No one was tied to one chair for 72 hours–people were free to move around and mingle and mingle and mingle. And vote with their feet. So if you weren’t meeting cool people and learning about new blogs, was it because you were literally blocked in by a wall of Wicked bloggers who ignored you or was it because you didn’t put yourself out there enough?

I am trying not to sound like I’m blaming the victim, but frankly, I don’t think there are truly victims in this situation. There is shyness, but people who are shy tend to understand why they are not meeting people and tend not to complain about it. For the people who complained about that aspect of the conference or who complain about the state of blogging or who bitch about the behaviour of others: what are you doing to be the change you want to see in the world?

I’ve been thinking about Gentle blogging for a long time. It goes back, honestly, to the start of the Lost and Found, even if I couldn’t articulate this idea back then. This fable has played out in my mind numerous times during things I’ve observed on the Internet.

The LFCA is two years old this week. How does the site relate to Gentle blogging? It levels the playing field. It makes sure that a new blogger with twenty readers has the chance to gather the same support as an older blogger with several hundred readers. Is it a perfect system? Of course not. Just because I post it doesn’t mean that people click over and just because they click over doesn’t mean that they leave words of support. But in my opinion, it’s worth my time five days a week to give it a shot.

I put it together because I want to take part in Gentle blogging. And this is my method. If you also want to take a stand and consciously commit to Gentle blogging, you will need to find your own or you could even get involved in LFCA. Click through on those links and leave words of support not because you get something out of it, but because you see another person with a need and you can fill it. Set aside one day a week to choose five links off the list and leave good thoughts. Think about what a difference it could make in another person’s life if everyone did this.

For those who complained about the conference, I challenge you to return next year. I challenge you to plan a meet-up for lunch time with other bloggers with similar interests. I challenge you to talk to one new blogger every hour, to sit down at a random table.

And to put my money where my mouth is (or something like that), in the spirit of Gentle blogging and a desire to bring people together, Lindsay, Lori, and I are planning a New York Meet-Up next summer the day after BlogHer 2010 solely for ALI (adoption/loss/infertility) bloggers. I’m stating this now before you make your tickets or hotel reservation or plan that vacation to other locales though you live in NY. Leave your ego at the door, and join your fellow ALI bloggers for a picnic lunch or other low-key, no-money, just good company meet-up in New York.

You can sign up for the email list and RSVP for the event now or any time up until June. At that point, we’ll need to have a sense of the number of people attending so we can pick a spot. This is separate from BlogHer and merely piggybacking on the event since people will be in town. But being held after BlogHer so those in the NY (or reasonable driving distance) area can participate without having to go to BlogHer. Combining efforts with the IVP (are you guys game)? Is there a face-to-face NY group?

The length of time and the amount of structure to it will depend on the number of people there, but the point is threefold: (1) to meet, (2) exchange ideas, and (3) strength our community. And that’s it. We may need even more people to help with the planning in the future if it grows into something larger than a picnic.

So, are you in? Let me know on the RSVP list as well as below in the comment section so others can see that you’re planning to attend. And your thoughts on Gentle vs. Wicked blogging.

And I’m well aware that my kumbayaness is cringe-inducing and this post pretty much cements the fact that I have rainbows and unicorns shitting out my ass. But despite my cru
deness, feelings are important to me. Another person’s feelings (unless there is a sound reason for my bitchiness) are important to me. It’s pretty much the most important thing that I hold carefully in my hands. We trust each other when we crash into one another. The least we can do is cushion the other person with a gentle–a Gentle–landing.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I didn’t have a great retail week. Let’s review. We’ll start with the positive.

The Good: I went to Hallmark to pick up a card. I counted out the money and handed it to the cashier. She counted it again and handed back a dollar. She could have pocketed it and I obviously wouldn’t have known the difference. I thanked her for counting diligently and walked out deciding that the next time I need a card, I will definitely head to Hallmark again instead of the other card shop that I sometimes frequent.

The Bad: I tried to order a pair of pants from J. Jill. Every part of the order was wrong–the billing address, the shipping address, the email address and the item itself despite the fact that the woman taking the order read back all the information to me. I called J. Jill and asked if they could ship the correct pants to the brick-and-mortar store nearby and I would exchange the wrong pants for the right pants. They insisted (despite the fact that this was their mistake) that they could not do that and the only solution would be for me to pay for the pants again that day (and have a second charge to my credit card) and return the other ones to the store whenever I could (and get the reimbursement on the credit card). They officially lost a customer.

I went to the mall to return the pants and the employee at the desk tried to make it right by reordering the correct pants for me, waiving the overnight shipping, and charging the original amount. Which was fine and they can keep the money from that purchase BUT they have lost me as a loyal customer of 9 years. In the end, though she fixed the problem, I received nothing for my trouble (due to their mistakes) and wasted another 2 hours of my life between phone calls and driving. Had they offered me anything for my trouble–a credit at the store, a coupon–they could have kept a customer. But there are too many stores that also have clothing I like and I don’t want to shop with a company that makes me spend an additional two hours solving their problems with no nod towards the idea that they care if I stick around.

The Ugly: I wanted to get the twins a new sticker mosaic set, but we’ve exhausted the limited supply from toy stores in our area. I called A.C. Moore and asked if they carried sticker mosaics by Orb Factory (Orb Factory, if you’re reading this, make more sets. We have literally accumulated enough sticker mosaics to wallpaper an entire room). The operator passed me first to a man and then to a woman. The woman went to check the shelves and came back to inform me that they had many sets currently in stock. I asked her if they had the mermaid one and she placed me on hold again to check. She returned to tell me that while they didn’t have the mermaid one, they had many of the other ones. I was on hold for a total of 10 minutes. I thanked her and made plans to stop working early and drive to the store.

I went to the store and couldn’t find the sticker mosaics. So I asked one employee and she didn’t know what I was talking about. She asked a man who told me that he had been the first person I spoke to. He didn’t think they carried sticker mosaics, but told me the name of the employee who kept me on hold for 10 minutes checking the shelves. He sent me to speak to a manager who told me they didn’t carry sticker mosaics at all. She shrugged her shoulders when I told her the story and said, “I just don’t know what happened.” She had no other solution than shoulder shrugging.

I left the store and will not be getting art supplies at A.C. Moore in the future. The reality is that she could have assuaged my feelings by apologizing, or telling me that she’d be speaking with that employee to find out why she would tell someone to drive out to the store for an item that they’ve never carried, or offer to help me find a similar art project for the twins. There were so many things she could have done as a manager that could have (1) gotten the store a sale and (2) ensured that a customer didn’t leave the store upset. But now they’ve lost a customer who shops at the store several times a month to keep the twins in art projects. Again, there are other art supply stores in town, and I’d rather drive out of my way or even pay more to have a better shopping experience.

Feel free to vent your own frustrating shopping experience. In fact…

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

Josh wanted me to make this my Show and Tell this week so much that he asked me twice and then edged the piece of paper into my line of vision three separate times. It finally ended up on my desk. I intended my Show and Tell to be a fantastic piece of junk mail that I received this week, but when I said that to Josh, he looked at me incredulously and said, “you’re not making my score card your Show and Tell?”

I love this man. He flew me to Chicago so I wouldn’t have to go alone, and let me squeeze all the blood out of his hand on the flight. He let me read that keynote piece while he was in the room. He deserves to have the majority of my Show and Tell space.

Josh wants you to know that he went to a Cubs game and the Cubs won and he scored the whole thing on his score card. And he was really damn cute about it.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.