In search of a snugglebug

July 28, 2008 | Filed under: Humdrum

“Babies are such a nice way to start people.” ~Don Herrold

Me (via Twitter): I have a sudden urge for baby snuggling. Anyone have a baby I can borrow?

Jodi: Not a baby, but want a stubborn toddler?

Me: Baby…not toddler. I mean toddlers are cool and all but they don’t like to snuggle. They’re more interested in flailing their bodies about the room and screaming  bloody murder because you gave them a yellow cup and not a blue cup and the world will die and the terrorists will win if they do not have the blue cup.

Jodi: Are you in my house?

This Calls for Cupcakes

July 25, 2008 | Filed under: "The Pot Licker"

“Life is uncertain.  Eat dessert first. ” ~Ernestine Ulmer

It was about a month ago when I went to Martha’s Vineyard for the weekend and remarked that that trip had turned the LOSE YOUR SHIT switch in my head to the off position. And there it remained in the upright and locked position until the last several weeks slowly unraveled every lose thread in my brain. It’s as if there was that one tiny piece of string that begged to be tugged but once it was tugged there went a perfect hemline.

Since that weekend I’ve been to Denver, Chicago, San Francisco and I just left New Orleans. It’s that last trip that makes me bite my tongue when lamenting how hard my life is right now and how much stress I am under and how I’d really like to just bathe in a large bath of Swedish Fish while a butler fans me and brings me bottles of Peroni and beignets. Because if I want to see or feel hard, the people of the Gulf Coast of Louisiana can show me hard.

I go back to the Vineyard later this week during my mandatory vacation. I think it is forced upon us so that we don’t get all disgruntle and ornery or feel the need to take a swan dive into the Hudson with weights strapped to our ankles. The last time I went it was for my mother’s birthday and after she begged and pleaded with me to come out there, I brought with me a large bottle of Prosecco – her favorite – and a dozen lemon-raspberry cupcakes. Because love means willingly grating lemon peels for five hours and losing a knuckle in the process. It’s like please ignore the stubs of my once lovely fingers and enjoy the refreshing lemon flavor and the surprise bit of raspberry in the center. These are my new favorite cupcakes not just because they proved to my mother that I have other talents, besides being annoying as fuck. I think the only reason she won’t disown me now is because when she says JUMP, I say HOW HIGH and then provide her with goodies. I’ve been meaning to write about these for weeks because they are divine and easy to make and are a little bit of comfort and heaven topped with a fresh raspberry.

I think that right now I deserve cupcakes but after the last three weeks of enjoying French fries and beer as a meal, I’d much prefer a vat of lettuce, avocado and tomatoes. But I am totally not kidding about the Swedish Fish bath.

Lemon-Rasperry Cupcakes (from Epicurious) (Yields 12)

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar, divided
4 ½ teaspoons finely grated lemon peel, divided
2 large eggs
1 ¼ cups self-rising flour
¼ cup buttermilk
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, divided
12 tablespoons plus 1 tablespoon seedless raspberry jam
Fresh raspberries (for garnish)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F). Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. Using electric mixer, beat butter, 1 ½ cups powdered sugar, and 3 teaspoons lemon peel in large bowl until blended, then beat until fluffy and pale yellow. Add eggs one at a time, beating to blend after each addition. Beat in half of flour. Add buttermilk and 2 tablespoons lemon juice; beat to blend. Beat in remaining flour.

Drop 1 rounded tablespoonful batter into each muffin liner. Spoon one teaspoon raspberry jam over. Cover with remaining batter, dividing equally.

Bake cupcakes until tester inserted halfway into centers comes out clean, about 23 minutes. Cool cupcakes in pan on rack. Meanwhile, whisk remaining 1 ½ cups powdered sugar, two tablespoons lemon juice, and 1 ½ teaspoons lemon peel in small bowl. Spoon half of icing over 6 cupcakes. Whisk one tablespoon raspberry jam into remaining icing. Spoon over remaining cupcakes. Let stand until icing sets, about 30 minutes. Garnish with raspberries.

Just in time for vacation!

July 24, 2008 | Filed under: BlogHer, Inebriated prose

Updated: I think we all learned a very valuable lesson here; if you link to someone directly that person will end up finding your post. Even if it is innocuous and you’re speaking of someone with only the highest regard that person will find it and might not think of it the same way. I fucking hate blog drama. I mean it can be entertaining as hell but I, personally, don’t want to be involved. That said I don’t want to deal with people hurting my feelings because I look at blogging as my fun and safe space and I really just don’t want bullshit for myself or for anyone else. It’s really that simple. So Maria and I are fine and lovely and I’m sure she has great taste in footwear. See? Look. Love. Awww:

here was a paragraph here in which I attempted to express how starstruck  by Heather B. I was, but didn’t do it adequately, as it seems to have given others the impression that I was saying something negative about her. That was NOT my intention. In this case, she is my Dooce, and I am her The Bloggess. I would never post anything negative about another blogger, ever, and definitely not the one that I adore the most. Heather B., I am extremely, extremely sorry. I didn’t mean to lump you in with the ‘mean girls’ - I meant that you are such a big fuckin’ deal to me that I couldn’t work up the nerve to say hello, not that you gave off any sort of…anything bad at all, because you didn’t. You still are a very big deal to me. Hence this replacement paragraph. I am so embarrassed and I hope you’ll accept my apology.

I am still going on vacation (have you ever done three conferences in three weeks in three different cities? The fucking pain, y’all) because I have to see my mother and my best friend and people who in real life would say “Oh my God, Heather Barmore?! You want stories about Heather Barmore?? Oooh shit! Pull up a chair and relax a little because I have some stories for you”.

[/update]

I’m going on vacation next week. Saturday to be precise. And my god, I do have some impeccable timing for I seem to be a mean bitch and now that I’ve heard it from several different people, it’s practically certifiable. I’m thinking that this gem takes the prize for the most absurd thing about me. That is until someone calls me a right wing neo-con who loves ribs:

I didn’t work up the balls to go over and say hello to Heather B. She had, like, this force field around her that I thought I’d run smack into if I came too close. I was just not important enough to penetrate it I don’t think. And I’m pretty sure she gave me the death stare a few times. Although it could have been all in my head or in retaliation for the creepy, longing googly eyes I was probably giving her the entire weekend. *sigh* Next year. Maybe. Probably not. I’m not worthy.

Just wow. I’m going to drag my pretentious ass through NOLA and then to Martha’s Vineyard.

I’ll leave you with this conversation from this evening after tossing beads from a balcony on Bourbon Street:

Him: What’s your name?

Me: Heather

Him: Heather?!?! That’s a white girl’s name. I’ve never heard of a sister named Heather. Where are you from?

Me: Um, Upstate NY…

Him: Oh, Upstate NY, that’s where all those rich people live.

And gee, Louisiana, you’ve been swell. Thank you for aiding my self esteem. How much do I owe you for the free beer and random men who decided to flash me?

Friends like these

July 23, 2008 | Filed under: Humdrum

“A friend can tell you things you don’t want to tell yourself.”  ~Frances Ward Weller

Stara: “You know, when I read that post you did I thought it was funny. Like I said ‘oh, that’s funny’. But I didn’t like laugh out loud or anything. But when you read it, it was hilarious. Maybe you should just vlog.”

***

Me: I need to start mentally preparing myself for when you leave for China. How long will you be gone for? What if something insane or funny happens while you’re away?? What if I find out I’m pregnant while you’re away?? You’ll miss out.

Her: Maybe I should just stay here on the off chance that you might get pregnant. Or say something funny.

What We Believe: Blogging Community as a Healing Force (Live Blog)

July 23, 2008 | Filed under: BlogHer

(I live blogged a session as a favor. Hence the randomness of this post. But you really aren’t missing much as the theme of this site is about to turn into what I would say if I had a voice. It wouldn’t be pretty)

What We Believe: Blogging Community as Healing Force

Moderater: Susan Wagner Panelists: Flutter, Lovebabz, WhyMommy, Laurie Kingston

When I was asked to liveblog this session I said yes without having a clue as to who the panelists were or the meat of the topic. I said yes and in 15 minutes found myself in a room full of women passing out kleenex and thanking the makeup Gods for waterproof mascara. On the one hand I felt duped because nothing can bring one down like mothers with cancer or rape but in the end I found myself pleasantly surprised that these women were able to use their writing for good. There are so many stories about sites dedicated to hating another blogger or posts being written about how another is wrong in their personal life choices and because of a few bad apples, we often forget about those who have not only helped themselves but also others, with their words.

Flutter’s site had been a knitting blog had been using talk therapy to overcome a sexual assault that had happened at 13. She instead wanted a legible history of where/who she was now and where she was coming from as the events of her past had affected her present.

Lovebabz was awaiting sentencing for a white collar crime. At the same time her husband left her with four children and she was facing foreclosure. She started blogging to get it all out. She didn’t want to be all about whining but about how she chooses to live and love even in the face of all of this adversity. She continues to keep a good spin on things.

Laurie Kingston and Susan (aka WhyMommy) are both mothers living with cancer. Laurie was not a blogger before it all started but used blogging as a tool to explain her feelings as she was fighting this disease. She now has a book coming out. Susan was a ‘typical mommyblogger’ who was diagnosed with cancer right before she was supposed to attend the BlogHer conference last year. When she made her announcement thousands of other bloggers rallied around her after a fellow mommyblogger wrote a post about her cancer and then posted a blog badge to go along with it. Other bloggers read this post and added the badges to their site. People continue to add them each day and each time Susan is touched and helped in a way that couldn’t have been done without this community.

These women have done what they have and have been successful at it in that they have healed and found the good in themselves and each other. They all believe that we - as people - are all connected and that by using their words they are concsious of what they and others say and use writing to provoke thought and are ‘arbiters of careful speech’. They have all found that they can go to their individual blogs and write exactly how they feel at that moment. Whether it be 4 PM or 4 AM. It is agreed that there is a “community of people who want to be there for you…[but are] safe behind a computer screen”.

Susan says that blogging helps her to rely on people who aren’t there all the time in order give her partner or those close some space. I sit back and recall all of the times, especially as of late where I’ve just written something instead of regurgitating the same stories and issues to friends of mine. It isn’t that anyones friends or family are uncaring it’s just that it’s hard for them to have to deal with issues no matter how great, and have these issues piled upon them one after another.

Babz has found - and at times I couldn’t agree with this more - that people in the virtual world tend to be more forgiving.

Other points: There is a sense of community that you don’t get in face to face interactions because so often we put up a wall in public. It’s easier to pour your heart out online. (Both of which are so true that I found myself nodding right along)

Babz says: There are no perfect people. “I have to be my own superhero. I have to be the one that I love” and has used blogging to find that force within her.

An audience member asks: “How was the community of your blog helpful in getting you through…?”

The panel: Bloggers bringing healing to other people with what they’ve shared - by what you’re sharing you’re giving out as much as you have received from others in the community. Laurie and Susan agree with the helping yourself by helping others sentiment and through that they have harnessed another community called Mothers with Cancer which is a group blog by women and for women who have had or are currently living with cancer.

The conversation then moves to the use of other forms of blogging and community such as microblogging using Twitter. Susan says that she used twitter to let people know right when she was about to go under for her surgery and then when she came out from under anesthesia. She then asks the audience if there are other communities with the same healing force and while it seems that there might be one for victims of sexual abuse (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) it seems that the communities that these women have built for themselves have had a power like no other.

I should point out that while this session was going on the Naked Blogging session in which several good friends of mine (Tracey, Loralee) had to share painful stories of trolling and meanness that they have encountered via their blogs. And while this session may have been depressing as hell (mothers with cancer and crying, people. CRYING) it was still nice to bear witness to extreme kindness and thought that we often forget about in the blogher-sphere.