The Best Part of Blogging--Free Books

I recently read Crazy Love by Leslie Morgan Steiner. Yeah, that's right--if you clicked on that link you saw that the book won't be available until March 31, 2009. How have I already read it then? That would be because I've discovered that getting bloggers to read and blog about your book is apparently a new trend among publishers, because this is the second book I've scored as a result of saying "I'm a blogger--can I have a free copy?" Who ever said that blogging is a stupid waste of time?

Anyway, I have to say I had mixed feelings about the book. It's about Leslie Morgan Steiner's horrible first marriage to an abusive guy. Taken as a whole, the book does provide great insight about why women stay in abusive relationships. Even though she was from a rich, waspy family, her self-esteem was sufficiently in the toilet to keep her wedded to a guy who damn near killed her.

The thing that kept me from really liking this book was the fact that she makes such a big deal about how she was from this rich, waspy family. She constantly refers to her privileged upbringing and how, in spite of it, she was doing drugs and screwing around starting when she was like 13, then had a huge eating disorder, then was married to this crazy wife-beater. Maybe this is small-minded of me to say, but it's kind of hard to feel sorry for someone who, in the course of telling the story of her life as a battered wife, refers incessantly to Harvard, summer house, money, private school, money, Harvard, waspy parents, summer house, Harvard, private school...oh, and did I mention Harvard? Trust me--she mentioned Harvard.

Yes, we get it--even though your life looked perfect it wasn't. The thing is--we still kind of hate you for your charmed life, so our level of sympathy for you isn't sky-high. Or maybe that's just me being a bitter bitch and anyone else reading the book would feel more sympathy towards her. Like I said, though--overall it's an inspiring story about beaten down wife getting a business degree and becoming a huge success and finally being able to free herself from the abusive relationship. The thing is, something about the dynamic of the "I grew up rich and privileged, then went to Harvard, then went to business school, then made a ton of money in high-power jobs, and now am famous and writing a book" is less compelling than say, a person who grew up poor or stupid THEN went on to become rich and famous. You need the first part of the equation to get the feel-good thing going; without it it just comes off as gloating and "yay for me!"

Take a movie like Pursuit of Happyness. The reason it's a total tear-jerker and near-perfect movie is that it has that whole "success in the face of extreme adversity" theme going on. It wouldn't be nearly as good a movie if he'd been raised rich and privileged, then done a brief stint on the streets, then gone to business school and become rich and famous. Oh, and had his dad pay for business school.

Anyway, my point is the book was good and I would definitely recommend it, but it had a little too much of a "don't hate me because I'm beautiful" vibe for my taste.

Blog Action Day Results=I Win For Most Shameful

If I thought my post on Blog Action Day was FIO when I wrote it, now I feel even worse. Or, to be honest, I can't really say "worse" because I'm personally still laughing about it, but I know I should be feeling ashamed that I'm probably the only one out of 12,800 bloggers who didn't do a tear-jerker or violin-playing worthy post.

Oh, well--at least there were 14,052 other serious posts so mine won't upset the karma scale too much.

Crazy Successful or Just Crazy, Redux

A while ago I blogged about the connection between the entreprenurial spirit and just plain old manic depressive (I'm still searching for the post to link to; feel free to browse my archived posts and find it yourself). I was reminded of it yesterday when I read another totally random Penelope Trunk blog post.

Penelope Trunk is the poster girl for the "is she crazy successful or just crazy?" theory. I love her but the girl is just all over the place. If she were reading the stuff she writes live I guarantee you the audience would be sitting there going "huh?"

Ostensibly, all her posts relate to career advice. Sometimes she actually writes career advice. However, more often than not, her posts are about pubic hair, autism, eating disorders, volleyball--you name it, I'm pretty sure she's woven it into a career advice post at some point. (And yes, I did mean to link to that search page for "volleyball" to illustrate how many different ways she's woven the fact that she used to be a professional volleyball player into her posts.)

I'd be willing to bet cash money that Penelope Trunk is bipolar--yet not only has it not hurt her career, it's actually the reason she is as successful as she is. A "normal" person would never take the risks she takes--and, therefore, would never be able to get rich telling the world about her naked pubes and college vomiting habits.

My point? She rocks.

Blog Action Day, FIO-Style

Today is Blog Action Day, "an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day." The point? "...to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion."

Anyway, the point is to blog about poverty from whatever perspective you want. Naturally, what you write should be compelling, moving and inspiring--after all, we're talking about poverty, which is, of course, no laughing matter.

I know I'm going to hell but, as I've been growing increasingly anxious over the past few days about what I'm going to say about poverty, the only thing that continues to come to my mind is: Poverty is bad. Which then of course brings to mind this clip from South Park; watch it and, whenever he says the phrase "drugs are bad" just mentally substitute "poverty is bad."




If this is not the most FIO post about poverty EVER, I don't know what is. But hey--the rules say that the best thing a blogger can do to spread the word on Blog Action Day is to "use the style, personality and topic" your audience is used to to talk about poverty. Seriously.

The Feminine Mistake, Redux--Again

I blogged about Leslie Bennett's The Feminine Mistake a few weeks ago, promising to re-read it and blog about it. I'm still trying to finish Madame Bovary (reading it again because I just read Tom Perrotta's Little Children and it's part of the plot of that book and I decided I needed a refresher) and a few other books but I promise I will get to The Feminine Mistake soon. In the meantime, check out the thoughtful comments to that post. I was going to respond in the comment section but figured I may as well just post it here so people will see it.

The book is very black and white, which is why it inspired such strong feelings in me—as much as I wanted to think she was too much of a hard-liner, the stories she told—while extreme—were too close to home for me to ignore. Granted, I was never destitute—far from it—but I was dependent on a man and trapped in a horrible marriage because of it. I never want to be in that position again.

If nothing else the book points out that as much as people like to think that something could NEVER happen to them, there are no guarantees in life. Women who would swear on their lives that their marriages were perfect are blindsided by their husband announcing one day out of the blue that he wants a divorce. Husbands who seemed healthy as horses drop dead with no warning, or sustain debilitating injuries or illnesses that render them unable to work again. Yes, it’s melodramatic to think about it but it happens. I have witnessed it happening, in fact—and too many times to insist that it could never happen to me.

I know a woman whose husband had an accident and is now—and will forever be—a child, cognitively-speaking. Actually, I personally know two women to whom this exact thing happened—what are the odds of that? But it happened. And divorce horror stories? Each one I hear is worse than the last—women with autistic children whose husbands divorce them and leave them without a home or money and then sue for custody of the kids even though he’s unable to care for them; women who hadn’t had a care in the world for 15, 20 or even 25 years suddenly penniless and without health insurance or a car; women who spent the past 20+ years living in huge houses and hanging out at the country club being reduced to having to stay with friends because she can’t even afford an apartment. I’m not exaggerating one bit, either—these are real people who I know, and I’m just one person who lives in a small-ish community. If I can tick off these stories of women whose lives have been totally shattered because they assumed they would never have to worry about supporting themselves, you know there are thousands—millions—more just like them.

But there’s child support, you say—if my husband left he’d have to pay child support and alimony and I’d get to keep my house. Nope—not always the case—not even close. Or life insurance, if, god forbid, he died. Again, not necessarily true.

The part that freaks me out is that you just never know—for all anyone knows, any given woman will never have to deal with any of this stuff and not being able to support herself would never impact her at all. The thing is that if something does happen, once it’s happened there’s no going back and re-writing history. It’s the same as insurance—if you don’t have it and end up needing it, you’re basically screwed.

The bottom line is that, while the book wouldn’t have made it any easier for me to have worked and put my kids in daycare, I don’t know that I could have read it and still been a SAHM for 8 years. And trust me, I was—and still am, to a large degree—a “Don’t have them if you won’t raise them” kind of person.

Best Doll Ever: Blythe

How is it that I've lived for 40 years totally unaware of the most awesome doll on the planet?

Hand Me That Cell Phone So I Can Call CPS

Yikes--just when you thought talking on your cell phone was ok as long as you're not driving a car, speech pathologists (like my sister, Cassie) announce that talking on your cell phone while with your kids can have "serious consequences." Namely, delays in language development. While there's apparently not much research proving it, SLPs are seeing an increase in speech-delayed babies and toddlers that they feel is linked to the fact that, if a parent is on the phone, they aren't interacting verbally with their kid. Fair enough.

Ok, so you better get all your talking done before you have the baby, then--right? Wrong. A recent Danish study found that the children of mothers who frequently used a cell phone during pregnancy were 80 percent more likely to have emotional, social and behavioral problems, including hyperactivity.

Does this mean I can stop feeling guilty for never calling anyone back?

Apparently I Kick Ass

I'm totally drained from an afternoon of shopping with the kids so I'm just doing a quick check-in so you don't all think I've dropped off the face of the earth.

The big news of the day is that my other blog, Mizz Information, is now on Alltop, an "digital magazine rack" that features "all the top" sites on the web. My blog is featured in the social media section. Social media, of course, being all my nerd stuff like Twitter, blogging, Facebook, etc. At any rate, I'm psyched because maybe now that my blog feed is on Alltop I may actually attract more than 4-ish readers per day. And if not, I at least get to post this nifty logo on there:


So yeah, if you add that to the $1.98 I earned from Amazon Affiliates program (those ads for Amazon on this page; if you click them I earn like a cent or something) I'd say this could qualify as a banner day in my blogosphere.

And now Martha Stewart is having a contest on her blog--basically in exchange for including a link to her blog on yours she will (allegedly) review it and, if she decides it's worthy, post a link to it on hers. Somehow I don't think that she'd consider this blog very "Martha" but who knows--stranger things have happened. So in that spirit, notice that I have added a link to her blog to my blogroll.

Dinner calls....but stay tuned for my post about The Feminine Mistake, which I know all of you are also reading.

Is She Really Mistaken?

I don't have time to write what my British friend, Jane, would call "a proper post" so I figure I'd do the FIO thing and re-purpose an old post. It's AS IF I were writing this post now because I am, yet again, getting ready to read The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?

I read it a while ago and remain obsessed with it because, as much as people dis Leslie Bennetts' ideas--including me, in theory--I can't help but think that ultimately she's right. In case you don't want to read the book I'll give you the FIO synopsis: women should never quit working to stay home with kids, no matter how much money their husbands make, because there are no guarantees in life and if he dies or leaves you, you're SOL.

I'll save further comment for later, after I (and, of course, you) have read it again.

Poem

I want to say I understand this poem by Matthew Zapruder--and actually sort of do--but mostly I'm like "huh?"

Matthew Zapruder is a friend of mine from back in the day. He is crazy smart--not only a poet but a poet who translates Romanian poems.

Maybe if you're lucky I'll try to unearth one of my poems from way back when I wrote stuff more creative than blog posts about social media or Augusten Burroughs.

You thought I was off him, right, since I haven't written about him lately? Think again--I am still his #1 fan and am obsessed with him. However I do have to say that the redesign of his website is so bad it almost makes my eyes bleed. I could write a dissertation about how bad and why it sucks--but because it's Augusten I'll reserve comment.

Score one for this complaining soccer mom

Remember my infamous soccer rage rant from last fall? The one that spurred me to write this comment on the local paper's website, which ended up being published in the print version? Which led to this "Open Forum" that mainly consisted of people ripping my "sweeping indict of the nature of games at OBGC" (the local boys and girls club)? Which then led to me writing this response, which they ran in the paper, which led to this email to me from the Executive Director of the club, which led to THIS tirade (yes, she wrote it in RED) of an email? Then finally this response from OBGC to me, again in the paper?

Then, just when we were all thoroughly bored with the subject, The Washington Post published a blog post I had written way back before the whole saga even started. By that point I pretty much never wanted to talk or hear about the issue again--after all, in reality I couldn't care less about my kids playing soccer.

Anyway, a friend recently emailed me telling me that apparently the whole saga had been productive because, lo and behold, OBGC has announced a new, stricter Code of Conduct policy.

Guess the Executive Director's red, angry rip-fest at me wasn't, in the end, warranted after all. Guess I wasn't the only one who thought their policy wasn't strict enough; after all, why would they be making such a big deal about their newly strict policy?

A love song to Twitter?

I never thought of this post as a "love song to Twitter" but the clever folks at Ragan.com added that headline and featured one of my blog posts on their homepage today.

I May Not Be White But I Am a White Trash Mom

Remember my abysmal score on the Stuff White People Like quiz which revealed that I am only about 10% white? Well, curiously (or not?) I think I may qualify as a white trash mom, based on just this one question on the White Trash Mom quiz--"Fakin' It for the Bake Sale."

In fact, I go one better than even bothering to try making it look like I actually baked something; when asked to contribute to a class party or bake sale I have no shame about plunking down an unopened box of Entenmann's cookies. Think the grandma in "Sixteen Candles" with the box of donuts, attempting to open it with a knife (or was it a long, fake fingernail?) while deftly clamping a cigarette between her lips.

I don't smoke, though--does that make me less of a white trash mom?

Wii

Well, we finally found the Wii last week and so far it's been worth spending a horrifying amount on. Even Mimi has played enthusiastically--and those who know Mimi know she isn't enthusiastic about much. So far I have only injured myself slightly while playing tennis a little too enthusiastically.

That's about all that's been going on. I have been feeling crappy for over a week so hopefully now that I'm on antibiotics I'm on the mend. The only problem was this morning I took the pill when I woke up, fully intending to go eat something since the bottle said "take with food." An hour or so later we finally stopped at McDonald's to get something to eat and suddenly I felt sick and ended up on the bathroom floor with my cheek resting on the toilet seat. As sick as I felt, I think Patrick felt worse when I told him about my toilet-hugging--he is not a fan of the germs. I'm going to have to disinfect for a month before he'll touch me again.

Well, I'm distracted because Patrick and Matthew are playing Medal of Honor--I need to go kick Matthew off and grab a gun.

Sorry I'm not so interesting tonight--between feeling crappy and being distracted by the Wii I'm not in my best blogging form. If you want to read a great post, read this one by Penelope Trunk about Palin. 172 comments and counting--most of them ripping poor Penelope a new one. Then, read this one where she basically does an about-face and changes her tune entirely.

All I have to say is Palin needs to fix that hair--a grown woman shouldn't have a hairstyle that requires a ponytail holder.

Wii--WTF?

After, what, a year? two years? of thinking about it we decided to give in and buy a Wii. Matthew wanted it, then I saw they have a shooting game and I wanted it, then Patrick played it at a conference and he became obsessed with it so we finally caved and decided to just buy it.

Or so we thought it was that easy.

Never would I have imagined having to go to such great lengths to--unsuccessfully--spend $350. Since Sunday, these are the stores we attempted to buy it from:

1) Target #1 (Sunday)--sold out.

2) Target #2--sold out.

3) Toys R' Us--this store may have actually had it in stock but at that point we didn't know what a nightmare it would be to find it elsewhere and niavely thought we'd think about it and look around to see if we could find one that came as a bundle with extra controllers and games. Ha!

4) EB Games--they had the box behind locked glass so, after deciding ok, we'll just go ahead and buy it we go up to the counter and the girl basically laughed in our faces--"We don't have any!" Um, then how about taking the box with the $249 price tag out of the locked glass cabinet and not spending 10 minutes telling us which bundle to buy.

5) Game Stop--sold out.

6) Game Stop #2--sold out.

7) Target #1 (Monday)--sold out.

8) FYE--sold out.

Today, Patrick called two more stores--neither had it. I called another game store; shocker--SOLD OUT.

That makes ELEVEN stores that were sold out of a $250 (or $350 if you want the bundle with the extra controllers and the shooting game) toy. How does every single person in the world apparently have $350 to throw away on a game?

Turn That Monthly Frown Upside-down

There is a god: you can now turn your period blood into boobs.

I swear I am not making this up.

Saving the Environment by Working 10-Hour Days?

Whoops! If you were stumped by a total non-sequitur of a post earlier today, I had accidentally posted a long comment I made on an article in The Washington Post about the idea of a four 10-hour day work week. Guess I must have been using Blogger as a text editor instead of Word. Oh well--that's the beauty of having almost no readers--nobody catches mistakes like that.

Oh well, rather than have me summarize the entire article and then add my commentary you can just go read the article and see my comment (it's the last one at the top, Maggie7).

In short, no, having people work four 10-hour days--thereby ostensibly keeping them house-bound and not driving around killing the ozone layer one day a week--is not going to save the planet. Anyone knows that when you're home all day the first thing you do is drive to Target, then to the gym, then to Starbucks, then on several other errands at opposite ends of town.

Two of My Favorite Things, United

Continuing with your favorite theme of mine: "EVER"--current best book EVER: Stuff White People Like.

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with this book but I just am--I think it's hilarious. Maybe it's because I have discovered, in the course of reading the book and taking the quiz at the end that I am not, in fact, really white. I don't even score high enough to be on the scale, which starts at 15%. And--if you can believe it, despite his lily-white skin, Patrick isn't any whiter than I am. In fact, I believe he scored even lower than I did.

At any rate, the book is hilarious for more reasons than I can list, and I highly recommend you buy it. You might wonder why buy a book of a blog that I can already read online...I thought the same thing until I bought it. First of all, it has stuff that's not on the blog and, second of all, it is somehow 20 times funnier when you're reading it off a physical page. Too bad for Amazon, because I was recently toying with the idea of buying a Kindle, thinking it would be better than dealing with paper books, but Stuff White People Like made me realize that actual books might be better than books on a screen.

And no, btw, I am in no way affiliated with Christian Lander--the author of the book--in case you're thinking my glowing reviews are in any way fueled by me standing to profit from sales of the book. I wish. I'm even too lazy to figure out how to do the affiliate link correctly so if you were to buy the book by clicking on the link in this blog I would have made a cent or two.

Anyway, you'll have to read the book yourself but I will reveal one helpful tip from it: If you see a person riding a bike to work--or doing anything else that is similarly eco-friendly--go up and say "Hey--thanks. Sincerely, The Earth."

That ranks right up there with "Ding-Ding! Here comes the shit-mobile!" in terms of funny. And that's saying a lot, since that is officially the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life.

And best of all? I discovered a common thread between Twitter and Stuff White People Like.

And you thought I wasn't intellectual.

The Freakiest Show EVER

Ok, I realize two "...EVER" posts in one week is a little much, but I'm sorry, this is just too good not to share and since I'm all by my lonesome this weekend, you, readers, are the only ones I have to share it with.

The show Intervention is always a crowd-pleaser; however the episode about Allison just takes the cake. I realize it's not so nice to make light of someone's addiction story, but I'm sorry, I defy you to watch this show--or even the trailer--and not wonder if it's actually a joke. Seriously, I will bet money that Saturday Night Live does a parody of this girl.

Apparently I'm not the only one who found the show hilarious/horrifying--if you go to YouTube and do a search for "Allison Intervention" you'll see that a slew of people had the same reaction I did. Do yourself a favor and watch the whole thing--then tell me it isn't the craziest thing you've ever seen. Girl could do a PSA for why huffing is a BAD idea.

Best 20-Something Career Advice Post EVER

Forget what I said about all Gen-Y posts about career advice being identical and useless—this one is like no other job advice blog post I’ve ever read before. Somehow this guy makes a case for the interrelationship between casual sex, video games and entrepreneurship. Here is my Cliff Notes version of his salient points:

• Fun: "My third year at UCLA was one big blur where I would wake up half naked every other night not knowing where I had left my jeans, shoes, or dick.”


• Productivity: "What does it mean to be truly productive with your life? Hanging out with friends and drinking alcohol all night is fun for the moment, but I always wake up in the morning vowing to never drink again. Same with video games. You spend all of your time leveling-up your character and getting new features, only to have your hard work made completely insignificant once the new version of the game comes out.”


• How do you want to live your life? "The best way to reach the point of self-actualization is to play your life as if it were an RPG (Role Playing Game)"




• Never stop learning: "In a video game, you gain experience by slaying monsters and completing quests. Therefore in real life, you gain experience by reading, keeping up with the news, and gaining internships and a high GPA."


• Expand your network: "In a video game, the more people you talk to, the higher the chance you have of someone telling you a hint to complete a mission, giving you an item, or providing you with secret information."


• Find the perfect relationship: "A meaningful and loving relationship will make you much happier than any one-night stand. As an entrepreneur with my personality type, it is much more productive to be in a serious relationship than to be single, and here’s why: If I was single, I would be out there chasing girls left and right. I would not be able to focus on my company because all I would be thinking about is who my next piece would be."

Judging by these rules I should be a millionaire by now. Did I miss a step? Maybe because I never lost awareness of where I left my jeans, shoes or dick in college I missed out on that valuable career step? Maybe my video game play--while compulsive enough to render my hand numb for 3 months--just wasn't sufficient to build the skills necessary to become a successful entrepreneur? Maybe I'm having too much sex now--albeit in my perfect relationship--and it's preventing me from "striving for more" in terms of my career.

But here I am, 40 and still with the word “assistant” in my title; meanwhile, there he is, a year out of college and a (self professed) entrepreneur and management consultant.

My question is, when he and other the Gen-Yers' career advice bloggers say that they’re entrepreneurs and consultants, do they mean they’re actually supporting themselves in those capacities? Or are they "consultants" and "entrepreneurs" in the sense that I am a "consultant"; e.g. yes, I can write—here’s my email address if you’re ever interested in hiring me for a project…and now it's back to my cubicle where I sit for 8 hours a day so I can pay the bills and support my kids.

In theory I could brand myself as a thought leader, writer, life coach, marriage counselor, or social media expert…as in, I COULD call myself these things and, while it wouldn’t actually be lying because I could theoretically serve in any of these capacities, the reality is that I don’t currently earn a dime doing any of those things.

But that's a whole other post on personal branding, a mainstay of Gen-Y blog content.

**P.S.** Sorry but I just went to his blog and checked out his response to one reader's question "How does a student become an entrepreneur?" Hey--does step 2 sound familiar? "Move back home to save on cash."

Gee, another Gen-Y blogger endorsing that mainstay of 20-something career advice: move back in with mom and dad!

Sorry but when I think of a guy who lives with mom and dad, the image that comes to mind isn't so much entrepreneur; it's more Will Ferrel's character in Wedding Crashers, Chazz Reinhold, screaming "MA! Meatloaf! Fuck!"