My Song

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It takes a lot of guts to blog. I mean, you throw your feelings, art, and/or opinions into cyber space and wait to see who will like, dislike, follow, unfollow, get completely pissed off, or, perhaps worst of all, ignore.

Personally, my blogging process goes something like this:
Step 1. Write blog
Step 2. Read and reread, cursor hovering over the Publish button
Step 3. Read blog to my family while giving them a third degree interrogation of what they think about the blog, why they think that, whether this part’s stupid and whether that part’s funny, until they all refuse to talk to me
Step 4.Finally hit Publish
Step 5. Spend the next 10 minutes ringing my hands and saying “Oh God, what have I done?”
Step 6. Spend as long as humanly possible avoiding going back on the internet certain that whatever I have just published has caused all of cyberspace to implode
Step 7.Finally ‘man-up’ and go to the computer to deal with whatever response I’ve gotten
Step 8.Spend the next 24 hours hitting refresh
Now, I may not be an expert on blogging, but I have ascertained a couple of things:
1. If your bloggers like you, they will not abandon you so easily.
2. The more I obsess about who I may piss off with my blog, the better it seems to go over.
Yet despite my deductions, it still does not prevent from going through this ritual before each and every blog.
I know there are plenty of super confident bloggers out there who just post and post and don’t seem to care what anyone thinks of them, and to those bloggers I say, “Hell yeah, good for you!” But to those of you who might feel even the littlest bit like I do, there’s a song, called ‘My Song’, that my sister wrote a long time ago when we were in a rock band together and it often goes through my mind when I am trying to build my confidence and I am writing the lyrics here:
Is it okay
If I sing my song
If it’s out of key
If the words are wrong
It’s just my song, it’s just my song it’s just my song.
Is it okay
The things that I wear
The way that I look
How I comb my hair
It’s just what I wear, it’s just what I wear, it’s just what I wear
Cause sometimes I get so confused
And I don’t know what I should choose
And I don’t know what I should say
Is it okay?
Is it okay
The things that I eat
If they’re too sour
If they’re too sweet
It’s just what I eat, it’s just what I eat, it’s just what I eat
Is it okay
The way that I feel
It’s not a big deal
I just know it’s real
It’s just how I feel,it’s just how I feel, it’s just how I feel
Cause sometimes I wake up at night
And I can’t tell my left from my right
And I don’t know what chords I should play
Is it okay
(Big bombastic guitar solo here)
Is it okay
If I sing my song
If it’s out of key
If the words are wrong
It’s just my song, it’s just my song it’s just my song.
My sister and I back in the days that we were fab
Pic: My sister and I back in the days when we were fab

Auld Lang Syne

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A week or so ago, I wrote a blog complaining about how few people were reading my blog. Since this drop off began around Thanksgiving, I, of course wondered if this was due to the holiday season, but, since people are now so well connected, media-wise, I really wasn’t sure.

Yesterday, I was reading a blog by Rarasaur which confirmed this suspicion. Not only did she comment on how blogging and readership slowed down during the holiday season, but she went on to say that some bloggers do not blog at all, and I am seriously considering following that path because, well, you don’t just get all this for nothing.

Although I started blogging in June, 2013 will mark the end of my first year as a blogger and as I look back on the year, I feel a bit sentimental (cue piano). When I began blogging, I did so because I felt it would be a therapeutic outlet for myself and if I reached out to one or two people, so much the better. What I didn’t expect was to meet a whole community of bloggers that I would begin to feel a part of. These are people who I wake up to every day and their blogs crowd my inbox with little wisdoms that feel like emails from a friend (but not quite because, you know, I’m just not that crazy yet), and they have become supportive and colorful characters that are a part of my virtual life. Their blogs have touched me, made me laugh and cry, they have taught me and inspired me, and more than anything else, they have given me something to do when I’m bored at work.

My original intention was to mention some of the bloggers who I feel deserve honorable mentions because of their blogs and their support, along with adorable personalized messages, but then I began over thinking the politics of who to mention and who would feel left out, so I decided not to go that route. I am hoping that those people know who they are.

There is however, one blogger I would like to mention; one blogger who has always been there for me, alway inspires me, always likes my blogs no matter how stupid they are and, without whom, I probably wouldn’t blog at all. After all, what is a rock n’ roll super mom without a Hvymtldad?

Rock n’ Roll Supermom – out. Have a great holiday season and I’ll see you in 2014!

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Everybody Hates Me (Justin Beiber)

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Everybody hates me, nobody likes me, I’m gonna eat some worms…oh, hello there. Sorry I didn’t see you come in. I was too busy wallowing in self pity. Why, you ask? Oh, you didn’t ask? Well I’m going to tell you anyway. Although I write blogs that I think are funny, witty and topical, it seems my comments, likes, and general readership are diminishing.

Before I continue, I’d like to thank everyone who has made it on this emotional journey with me to the second paragraph. After all, cry and you cry alone, right? For the few of you who have remained, sorry, you must be feeling awfully embarrassed, face palming yourself and thinking, “oh no, she did not just go there.” And admittedly, this may be the bravest, or stupidest thing I have done as a blogger, but I did put a lot of thought into this publication. Why, just last night I asked my 6 year old daughter if she thought that it was ‘too much’ for me to write a blog about why no one is reading my blog. She just shrugged and said, “No one’s gonna read it anyway”.
However, there is a light at the end of this tunnel; a hope for salvation. Yesterday, I read a post by http://thephilfactor.com/ about how every time he uses Justin Beiber as a subject for his blogs, he gets a bunch of hits. So, as I embark on the depressing task of compiling a list of possible reasons why no one is reading my blog, I will attempt to use the name Justin Beiber as often as humanly possible. #justinbeiber

1. I’m not funny
2. I’m not witty
3. I’m not topical Justin Beiber
4. I’m too old
5. WordPress simply does not have enough room for another satirical middle aged mom
6. I’ve offended everyone who has ever read my blog
7. All of my followers have a money sign in their blog name  Justin Beiber Justin Beiber Justin Beiber
8. I’ve never been one of the popular kids, why should now be any different
9. I don’t write enough blogs about Justin Beiber
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Why I Should Probably Maybe Definitely Delete My Facebook Profile

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So if you are like me, which is to say a socially awkward middle aged mother of two, creating your Facebook profile and reconnecting with all your old cronies, was more of a plunge than a natural progression. And though it was great fun for a while, seeing how everyone turned out, and being the new kid on the FB block, it turns out that you really don’t have much to say, and you don’t really care what they have to say, or how smart their kids are, or what they had for dinner, or how they exercised for 3 hours (but, by the way, still look fat). And come to think of it, those ‘Happy Birthday’ wishes are WAY less than they were last year despite your endless dedication to theirs, and, despite a few loyal hangers on, even the comments have slowed to a trickle.

So clearly, it’s time to trim the fat, which is to say, delete most of the few friends I have, or delete my profile. That’s right…I’m thinking of committing social media suicide.

The Cry For Help

So it’s go big or go home. I mean like I don’t want to just take a bottle of pills and go to my room weeping. I mean, I want to jump off Niagara Falls screaming and cursing.  I’ve seen people do it you know, post about how FB is making them miserable and they are going to end it all. Usually a bunch of their friends rally around with the reassuring, don’t do it. And there they are, the next day, reading a bunch of insipid posts, as if nothing ever happened.

But the ever so probable reality is, that if I posted something about how I wanted to delete my profile, no one would even care. And if I posted something like “I hate you all and I’m going to delete my profile so I never have to deal with you people again” and then proceeded to delete myself, that comment would be deleted as well, probably never to be read.

And then what??!! I mean, where does computer data go to die? It’s kind of the same thing as the great mystery of the human death. Into the endless void of nothingness?  a purgatory for HTML files?  There are probably some computer nerds with well researched accurate answers for this. But the truth is, if I were googled, my FB page would never come up again, and more likely than not NO ONE WOULD CARE!!

The Solution

Plagued with feelings of inadequacy, hopelessness and depression at seeing no numbers posted next to the icons at the top of my page, I know now that I really need help. I turn to Google in despair entering ‘Facebook Depression’ into it’s endless search engine void. And you know what I found out? I found out there are a lot of people just like me! There are a lot of people who have suffered similar symptoms and many have deleted their Facebook accounts! And many of those people have gone on to fight another day… yea to build a happier, more fulfilling life, content in the knowledge that they don’t Facebook to validate who they are. Say not “I Facebook therefore I am”’ but “I live, therefore I am!”

And with this in mind, I go to my Facebook page, my cursor hovers over the delete button. But first… I should really see if any one liked the picture I just posted of my son. After all, he is my child.  I should probably maybe definitely delete this thing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/facebook-study-envy_n_2526549.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-hilker/chivalry-is-dead-and-so-i_b_2168154.html

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