The children, the babies, are not yet buried and the “Mommy Wars” have started over blog post responses to viral posts. I have many other pressing tasks to do, including traffic court today for forgetting to register my car, and I don’t want to spend the day researching. I probably should because I am a damn good researcher, actually trained in both library and social science methodologies and could probably expound with amazing clarity about the main players in the drama over “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” a post that went viral (just Google the phrase and you will see what I mean) from a mother with a very troubled child. Now bloggers are saying that the writer of this piece is the one with mental illness, not her son. I didn’t help. I forwarded the link and the original blog address after I read a republication of the post. I should have done research before forwarding, but really now, does anyone really do research on the info every single time before re-tweeting something? I don’t know what the truth is. And neither do any of us outside of the situation, and from what I can tell there are several truths (perspectives) inside the situation.
And you know what? I don’t care what the truth is. Truth is a personally constructed value. There are facts. There are data. I cannot be the judge of others. I wrote another piece last year, A Cautionary Tale :: Blogs, Lies, and Screen Captures, on a different blog that discusses a different tragedy and the intense emotions that come into play when mothers attack via social media. (Wasn’t When Mothers Attack a B-grade Fifties Monster Movie? Sorry, but I need some levity in these sad, sad days in which the whole country is regrouping.) Everyone who can text is a writer these days. Folks skilled at the art of deception tweet, post and blog. Mothers who are at their wit’s end tweet, post and blog. People who hurt and want to find the reason for their pain also tweet, post and blog.
There are sessions at blogging conferences on the experience of having your posts go viral. Sometimes it is because you did your research, sometimes it is because you let your son and his best friend dress alike for Halloween just like they wanted to do, sometimes it is because you were “shot in the ass.” Memes happen. You cannot know your post, or blog, will go viral. You cannot know when you will become a celebrity.
Geesh girl friend(s), just lighten up. I know, I know, we can’t lighten up about the situation that broke the heart of a nation. But there is civility. Remember civility? Remember Tucson and our call for civility after January 8th, 2011? There is a fund for civility that grew out of that. The desire for a civil society, for people acting civilly, for build a true civilization is real.
I can be snarky, too quick to offer up my sharp tongue, but please, please know that I try to never be intentionally critical of an individual. I haven’t always been successful. My political posts can get very heated at times, less so than they used to be, but let’s just say I learned my lesson. After having lobbied and protested in my congresswoman’s office, met and talked to her at fund-raisers, written scathingly about her being propped up by big money and political machines and specific influence groups, and after seeing her chief of staff’s jaw drop when she saw and recognized me from DC at a local Tucson even, to have her, my Congresswoman fall victim to an attempted assassination that injured and took the lives of many others — well — let’s just say that I can now vehemently disagree with someone while still loving them for being who they are. I learned that even politicos with whom I disagree can be inspirational and have good motives.
I hope the Mommy Wars component of this hoopla fades away quickly. Nothing is more fierce than a woman protecting children. Yes, there are terribly disturbed children in our society. Yes, there are mothers who are mentally ill in our society. Yes, we have too long allowed politics fueled by profit to compromise the well-being of our citizenry. The lives of our children depend on actions, not our words. So let’s work to protect our children and not attack each other.
Fragmented Friday, June 15th
If it is Friday, it must be F…
Fractured Fridays, Fragmented Fridays, Forlorn Topic Fridays, Frittered Away Inspiration Fridays…. all these and more… Freakishly Funny Fridays for example… could be the hook phrase for my irregularly published Friday posts about all the things I did not get written this week and that hung out on my computer as open tabs, folders, drafts and such because I truly intended to write about them, incorporate them as a reference in a post, share the brilliance of a passing thought of mine… with world, and so on…. but that I did not manage to actually write about… until now… Ta-dah!!! And yes, these random musings, listings and posts may contain grammatically improper use of exclamation points, ellipsis, and other explicit use of frowned upon techniques and language. Deal with it!
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- I really should have given the post from 6/12 a different title. Maybe I will slightly amend its title to include a subtitle such as “A Truly Special Election Day for the Tucson Community” that more accurately captures the sentiment within the post. It is a much better reflective post than the nondescript title implies, reflects, or whatever. My take on what was going through my mind as I watched the election results roll in on Tuesday is undoubtedly similar to what many, many others in my community think and feel. It was not a live blog, but it is a slice of life from an important day in Tucson and AZ District 8. I did go ahead and change the title but left the permalink the same so that previous links to the post will still work.
- I really ought to write something about visiting Gabby’s office in Washington just after her 2008 election and just before the 2011 assassination attempt.
- I really like the USPS business page. It is friendly, just like the great folks at the USPS Tucson Sun Station.
- Russell Pearce had a hard time finding a place to have a meeting. I just had to share this, somehow! 3, count ’em, 3, boots from venues in one day!
- There are some words with which I think people should acquaint or reacquaint themselves. It is impossible to understand intentions and trends if understanding of the these terms is lacking: Fascism, Feudalism / Neo Feudalism, Corporatism, Oligarchy, Plutocracy,
- Was The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy really the first documented use in popular culture of the phrase, “the whole enchilada?”
- I just realized that I haven’t completed any, none, zilch, zero, nada of the great ideas that I thought I would write about this month and that most embarrassing of all, I listed in a post last month : a) Rhetorical Tactics of the Right and how they are used in broadcast media, print media, social networking, and yes, even on wonderful sites like BlogHer, b) Why the Original Gen Xers, the Late Boomers, Could Change Everything This November, c) Framing Political Differences in Meaningful, non-hateful, ways, d )The Last Time the Fascists Planned a Coup d’ Etat, e) Disenfranchisement is Unconstitutional, f) Voter Registration: Where are the unregistered women? We need to be where they are, g) Less than Monkey-wrenching but More than Passive-resistance,h) Book review of Beautiful Trouble, i) Writing Desk (program), Logitech Accessories, and My iPad, j) Build your own Vector Graphics with inexpensive drawing/illustration programs, k) The #&@! litter box, l) More on BlogHer ’12
- How do you feel about Meet-Ups that charge a small fee to attend? How much would be okay? What would you need to get out of it? What would you expect to receive in order to get “your money’s worth?”
Well I guess that is it for today. I am starting to think about all the things I have to get done today, so I should probably go do them.
Do let me know what you thought of these bits and pieces, and whether or not you would like to see any of them expanded into actual posts. 🙂
Sanity Sunday
I’ve decided to create an occasional types of posts that I will use here and on other blogs and sites that I create, write, and nurture. I do not really care for “hooks” in and of themselves. I want themes and structures to serve a purpose for me and for those who will stumble upon and linger over, or search out and consume, some concept I have fleshed out and shared. To me life is about giving. I am learning to accept as well. This last one, accepting, has been a tough one for me to learn in life, though. Accepting the gifts that others give, and even accepting those that fall, almost magically, onto the busy paths we walk with a genuine smile and voiced or quiet word of thanks really does wonders, at least it does for me and my outlook on life. My outlook impacts everything and everyone with whom I come in contact.
My therapist, a wonderful woman who helps me to find and support the healthy me, so that I can continue to heal myself (because healing is something we do ourselves) suggests that I could benefit from learning to take from others, and to believe that I am the most important person in the world. At first this suggestion seemed selfish, glaringly self-serving, and even wrongheadedly creepy. It seemed like it was bad or evil. Perhaps you see why I’m thinking about and writing about this on Sunday. Our early indoctrination exists as a part of such a deep layer of ourselves, and is so intertwined with all the layers of self that come to exist later in life as we grow and mature, that it is very difficult to ignore. While I have found that I cannot alter what has come before, I can change the way I interpret it. I can reframe it.
Becoming a mother was the most wonderful experience in the world for me. For my mother I think it was one of the worst experiences, at least after the second or third time. I will never know if this was absolutely true or not, but I think there was more than one reason I stopped expanding my family with one step-daughter and one biological daughter. I learned to be in charge of the more permanent framing of my life long before I learned to be in charge of my own perception.
I’m in a new and very active phase of my life, and it is really just beginning. I’m so excited to be where I am in life. I’m done nesting; my little bird has left the nest and is starting to collect her own twigs and build her own nest. It is just a courting nest. I learned about courtship nests from hummingbirds! One little male built one on my back porch, and for two years afterward we watched hummingbirds nest on the Japanese prayer bell hanging on the eave of my back porch. But I digress.
This new phase is why Reason Creek is being developed, why Done Nesting will turn into a group site or portal with luck and a bit of work, and why I am so focused on writing. I have several books in me, non-fiction for the most part, but even a couple of fiction stories have been simmering under the radar for years. I had to be in the right place to do this and now I am and am putting the proper structure in place to help me accomplish my goals. And I have to begin making money from my writing. I’ve done it in the past and I am now trying to create this same sort of success on a bigger scale, and this will require bigger structures.
One such structure is having well-ordered rubrics (I just love that word!) from which to pin my ideas. Categorization is key. Taxonomy promotes sanity in my slightly off-kilter world. List makers of the world unite! …right after you write it down. But there I go digressing again. There is just so much amazing stuff in the world, and my head, that it is hard to stay on task.
This is sort of a spirally, swirlly,recurvice sort of thingy, but by sharing how I help myself, I accentuate and reinforce the helpful behavior in my own life, and possibly help out a person who has a similar need or perspective. Doing things I need to do is okay, and sometimes I realize that sharing that thing or that way of thinking about a thing might help another person.
So I want to be able to write every day. Even jotting notes on a legal pad works, although noting them in a well-bound, acid-free journal is even better! I may not write a blog post every single day, but I will write several a week. And sometimes having a “hook” will help you to hang some ideas out for airing. A hook is just a structure. Structure that helps you accomplish something is good. Structure for structure’s sake is sicko. Blog memes are wonderful things, if they are really memes. If it is just an advertising gimmick I will run screaming from the site. So I am creating a hook. I am doing this for myself. If it works for you that is great, and I will make it into a badge eventually for Done Nesting as I launch it for Grandmama Bloggers, Auntie Bloggers, and Independently Nurturing Bloggers. It is the theme of Sanity Sunday.
This is not a carnival or hop idea. Goodness gracious, don’t we have enough “have to” and “need to” and “shoulds” in this life without adding them to our blogging which is supposed to be fun! Oh, I know that not every blog is a fun blog. Blogs are business tools as well as where a woman shares her writings, and sometimes they can be both. But bloggedy bloggers, get a grip, if the hop, isn’t fun and you don’t want to do it, don’t! Now I love a good challenge more often than not, and that is why I love NaBloPoMo, GBE2, and A to Z-ishness, even if I was too late to get listed on the A to Z site as a participant. *Bleeeeh* Take that. But I love those things because I choose to participate. Some aspect of the participation strikes a cord with me. And it is finite. And “YES!” to success, tomorrow is the last day of the April A to Z blog challenge! ** confetti ** ** corks popping** **people dancing** I quit liking infinite things when my daughter was about 6 years old and fell in love with “The Song That Never Ends.” “Sanity Sunday” is a concept I will pull up out of my bag of tricks and use when necessary. You are invited to do the same.
Sunday, ideally, for me is a day of rest, relaxation, reflection, and planning. Through these actions I try to make the rest of the days of the coming week go more smoothly, and help a sane week unfold. When I feel like I need to explore a concept to help me for the rest of the week, I will put it here. When I want to clarify my goals for the week, I will list and evaluate them here. I won’t do it every Sunday because I don’t like having to do something, anything just for the sake of doing it! But when I need to, or want to, or I think it will help me, I will post under the rubric of Sanity Sunday. It will probably develop into a category.
And for those who are interested, “Yes, I made the button myself, and it is supposed to look like a pointer, arrow, road, or even the nib of a pin (ambiguity intended) with a dawn or sunset.
What structures, lists, hooks, and/or rubrics do you use to help you organize or clarify yourself?