The Latest OTB (One Tough Broad)

I have decided to have a weekly (I hope) One Tough Broad post. And sometimes the broads will be guys but you’ll know what I mean.

Being Freshly Pressed is terrific. It is so good of WordPress to acknowledge bloggers and through Freshly Pressing, send the FPd blogger more traffic. It is a lot of traffic and a lot of commenting and thanking people but well worth it. I got 100 new followers with my Fresh Pressing. It takes a long time to reply to all the comments and visit new blogs.

I received a comment from a blog called: Isawbobdylaninaspeedo. OK, well that gets clicked on IMMEDIATELY! What the hell can that be about?!

And there I discovered my latest OTB!

Judy from isawbobdylaninaspeedo is one tough broad. Not because she saw Mr. Dylan wearing only a shred of nylon, but because she is a mom fighting for her daughter’s recovery and to establish a life of her own at the ripe old age of 46.

Judy and I have commiserated about how tough parenting is, how tough caring for and watching teenage girls get through those years is. It was so much easier when they were little and the fights were over what color socks to wear and yes, you have to try some tomatoes. Now they are grown and beautiful and soaring and suffering.

Ms. Speedo has led a colorful life aside from seeing Bob in the Speedo, she spent a year or so on tour with Dire Straits….there’s a book right there. And according to today’s blog, she was also on a tour with the Pretenders. Just two of my most fave groups ever. She was the wild child and now is the grown-up helping her daughter battle an eating disorder, go through intensive therapy and hopefully emerge on the other side at 18, ready to take on life again. Judy’s daughter is being treated at Children’s Hospital Colorado Eating Disorder Program (shout out to people doing good work). To do this Judy, left her comfort zone with not much more than the shirt on her back and is relying on the kindness of friends and strangers in Denver to get her through till she is self-supporting.

One Tough Broad this one is and funnier than hell. Please visit her blog! She has been writing for less than a month but each post is one to read and re-read, first laugh, then cry, nod because you know what she’s going through or know that but for the grace of God, you would be her. Her blog is original and funny and sad but always real; and we, her readers, are the beneficiaries. She is putting it out there for everyone to read, she’s not hiding a thing. Go see her, say Hi, offer her your support. She can use it and you will be glad you read this fresh WordPress voice! She is stripped down to the essentials, in her life and in her writing, and she is really good.

No matter what life hands you, always remember how much fun it is to jump on a bed.

I am so happy to have been on this site for almost the past year. It is important to encourage other writers, point them out to your community. I remember getting support when I first started here, I’m looking at you Harper Faulkner and my beloved Simon.

That’s it. Nope, that’s all. Go read Isawbobdylaninaspeedo!!!

What Can I Doooo???

I couldn’t think of anything to write yesterday.

In a few months, I will turn 48 which is two years away from 50. I went to a good university so I can do math just like that, in my head…Bam! 48 + 2 = 50.  Yeah, I did that.

I looked on-line for lists of things you or I should do before we turn 50 but they didn’t appeal to me.  I decided to look at lists of what people should do before they are 20 or 21. I would think that I would have better luck with those sorts of lists because I turned 20 and 21 successfully and successively….whoahahahoh! See what I did there?! Once again, Colgate University, thank you very much!

Here’s a list of things to do before you turn 20 which I found on the Huffingtonpost.com

• Epic kiss – Check, but kissing me is Epic so that’s an easy one.
• Road trip – I have a really disturbing funny road trip story from college which I will tell when my kids are out of college and cannot be influenced by my youthful behavior.
• Try a food you can’t pronounce – I doubt I did that by 20 or 21 but I regularly eat Bippity Boppity Boop, which Koreans call Bim Bum Bap and I can’t pronounce that correctly. Just noticing…what is it with me and the Koreans?
• Record a cover of your favorite song and post it on YouTube – There was no YouTube then. I work with a girl who when I told her my first job out of college was before there was internet, responded, “Oh you mean like AOL, like dial-up?” No, no interwebs at all of any kind. So I couldn’t record my favorite song and post it on YouTube. You’re welcome.
• Go skinny dipping – Yep, I believe it was in a pond on the Babson College campus. Laurie, help me out here.
• Participate in a flash mob – wha? No. No Interwebs. No Flash mobs.
• Fall in love and get your heart broken – uh, yeah. I was an absolute pro at that. I was the Liz Taylor of falling in love but not getting married and not getting rich while doing it.
• Sleep under the stars for one night – Check. But Elvis died that weekend so I never did it again.
• Pull a fun all-nighter – Does DKE till Dawn count?
• Go electronics free for 24 hours – 24 hours?! Pshaw! I went for years! Decades!!
• Vote — I miss going to vote. Oregon is entirely vote by mail which isn’t as much fun. I’d like a hanging chad or two. And seriously, vote. We are free to vote. Don’t insult those in countries who aren’t allowed to vote by not taking part in this privilege.
• Have a meaningful conversation with a stranger – I try but they start crying and run back to their parents.
• Get a passport and take it somewhere — I need a new passport.
• Learn to play a song on an instrument — I’ll just sing and Kitty will play back up on the recorder.
• Get a job. Any job.  Be prepared!!! This is what the article wrote after this To Do before you are 21. I didn’t write this.   “Even if you can’t stand your summer job at the mall, the experience of having responsibility to an employer and making your own money is an essential part of the passage to adulthood. For better or for worse, your first job is something you’ll never forget — so don’t wait until you’re out of college to get one.”  Are you shitting me??? This is what is wrong with our society today. Even if you don’t like your summer job at the mall. If you don’t like it tough shit, work! Learn to work! Where are your parents?! Get a job! And I know this economy isn’t made for that but babysit, mow lawns, caddy, paint fences, I’ll give you something to do for $10/hour.
• Write a love letter to yourself and open it 10 years later. — I don’t know about the love letter part but maybe just a letter. This is part of the need to give yourself self-esteem. Go earn your self-esteem. Get a job and get off my lawn!
• Learn to have a basic conversation in a foreign language –or at least how to order beer.
• Dance in the rain.  – uh, ok.
• Go to movie or dinner by yourself. — I love going to the movies alone. That dining part is just crazy talk and I won’t have it. Please read here and here for more information on my one-woman crusade against dining alone.
• Learn to cook your favorite meal — This is solid advice.

The following list came up from a Google search and it was written years ago by a 13-year-old girl, I can’t find her name or a website or anything but I love it.

• Go sky-diving off of an airplane with my best friend
• Become a star in at least one Broadway musical or play (I love musicals…ahh…)
• Go on a safari in the African plains
• Fall in (true) love at least once
• Be in a garage band…heheh
• Have one of my horror novels published
• Try calamari and sushi
• See the sun set in California
• Visit Tokyo, in Japan (How cute is that? As opposed to Tokyo, Oklahoma!)
• Sleep under the stars on a beach
• Go white water rafting
• and…this one is complete; accept myself for who I am. I’ve finally done that, since my ED recovery, and I’m very happy about it. During my ED I was not intersted in anything but food, but now I’m interested in writing potery and my novels, movies, film-making, and most importantly – enjoying life and living to the fullest. I want to make the most of my life, and I think now I’ll finally be able to start.

I hope she still accepts herself for who she is and has checked a few of these off her to do list.

Back to My Roots

I reposted my original Weigh In Wednesday post this morning. Back in January I started my diet, knowing I needed to lose 20-30 pounds. I lost 11. I weighed myself this morning and I’ve gained back 7 so if I divide the number of pounds by the number of months dieting and factor in daily calories with burning time when will I get to Seattle?

That story problem brings me back to the diet bandwagon. I haven’t done Sparkpeople in months. It is a really good program for losing weight mainly because it has a calorie/protein/fat/carb/geiger/sugar counter and that is what seems to work for me. Not that I intend to go back on Sparkpeople but when I do it works and then I’d lose weight and you all would be jealous of me and stop reading my blog because “screw her for being all hot and thin, maybe her Sparkfriends will read her but I’m going to go eat some cheese.”

I’ll shoot for 10 lbs first and see if I can at least get that done without making everyone envious of my white hot sexiness. I justify my weight by noting that I have a large chest which I believe weighs 12 pounds so I’m not fat just bodacious.

Blogging

One of the reasons Sparkpeople stopped engaging me was that I like WordPress better. I began blogging on Sparkpeople but Sparkpeople are internet people concerned with diet, health and weight loss.

WordPresspeople are internet people interested in words and writing and thinking; being hilarious and tortured; in storytelling, in food and pictures of food, traveling to get to food, putting alcohol with food, giving their children food, giving their animals food, and food.

Here on WordPress, I am part of a community. I should mention that I recently made it on to Eric’s blogroll on Clown on Fire. And he made me this badge which I need to put on my award page.

I’m learning about blogging but clearly not learning enough because I can’t for the life of me figure out why people read what they do. I posted something that I really liked yesterday but it wasn’t a hit. Then I think well maybe it’s the categories. When I limit the categories I limit the readers maybe?

Then I look at search terms people use and wind up finding my blog and those are fascinating troublesome.

Here’s the first one to come up today:

women naked together locker

That makes sense although I kind of shake my head at whoever was searching for that. I’m sure yesterday’s blog disappointed them.

The most popular search term for finding my blog: fat nudes

Other perfectly reasonable search terms:

• lemon pushups and running
  
• read or dream of fat maggie
  
• Justin Bieber boners 2012
  
• Does Rob Kardashian Like big boobs
  
• Fat sister fart 

I think you get the idea and now understand why I am more comfortable here. WordPress is highbrow. WordPress is for writers, and for the writer who farts.

Whatever gets people here, I don’t care. All of you make me happy. I recently was notified that I have more than 200 blogger followers, 207 to be exact. I have almost 20,000 hits. I still don’t know how to put video in my blog or put links in comments and….

I still need to lose 20 lbs.

I might change the name of my blog to “Fat Sister Fart”.

One Solid $9 Investment

A few months ago, I read The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett.  It’s the true story of John Charles Gilkey, who loves rare books so much that he steals them.  Gilkey doesn’t want to read the books, he simply wants to have them and since he cannot afford them, he steals them, he commits credit card fraud, he creates new identities… just to take possession of rare books.  Gilkey is a repeat offender and has been to prison more than once because of his obsession. As far as a book review, I didn’t care for the author’s writing style but it’s an interesting story.

I have always loved old books; the way they smell, a name written on the inside cover long ago, and the beautiful book jacket art. Reading The Man Who Loved Books Too Much spurred my interest in searching for first editions when I am in antique stores and I’m in antique stores a lot.

Over Memorial Day weekend, Deren and I went into an antique store in Bend, Oregon. The shop was a jumble of old jewelry, clothes, knickknacks and books. I saw a copy of The Caine Mutiny with a colorful dust jacket. I’ve never read The Caine Mutiny nor have I seen the movie. I didn’t know that it was written by Herman Wouk. I didn’t know it is set in WWII. I didn’t know it won the Pulitzer in 1951. The copy I found is in impeccable shape. It doesn’t look like it’s ever been read and it is a first edition. I picked up the book and had Deren plop down the $9 asking price and stuck it in my purse and we continued on to a restaurant for lunch.

Upon returning home, I looked up my literary find on http://www.alibris.com and this website. The copy on alibris is selling for $1995 and you can see the range of prices on the other link.

OK, so it’s not a Picasso from a garage sale but it’s still pretty cool. I think I’m gonna sell it. Right?

Not bad for $9.

 

My Friends Who I Haven’t Met

I follow 49 blogs. I don’t know if that sounds like a lot of blogs or like I’m not really trying. It is tough to keep up with everyone but I regularly review the list and cull the ones I don’t read, which typically results in my following and reading blogs that I really want to read every day.

I was out of town this past weekend so had a ton of catching up to do.

According to WordPress, I followed Magically Mad 6 days and 18 hours ago. I also followed her other blog, A Little Kid in Boston 6 days and 11 hours ago.

I know Magically Mad’s name is Jill. She has been married since she was 17 but I don’t know how old she is now. She has five kids. She has at least two teenage daughters. Magically Mad Jill had a horrific childhood and suffers terribly from the demons in her head. She’s funny. She’s smart. She’s recently been in a hospital for psychiatric care.

Yesterday morning I was reading Magically Mad. She had an awards post and she had told me I was going to get one so I had to go check and I did! I kept scrolling through her posts I had missed and I realized something wasn’t right; the tone had changed and she was quitting. I was puzzled and nervous. I thought maybe for the summer? or she didn’t want to write anymore? And then she spelled it out for her readers, Sunday Jill tried to kill herself.

Yesterday I sat at my desk reading her lonely, angry, despairing post and I cried. I cried for Magically Mad and her kids and her husband and her lost childhood.

I don’t know her. I know her writing, at least as much as I have read in less than a week. I know her words. I know some of her stories. Magically Mad is an overwhelming and frightening blog, but it is mesmerizing. I physically recoiled while reading A Little Kid in Boston. Jill has a gift and she has a curse.

Yesterday, I kept going back to Jill’s post and checking the number of comments and it didn’t change for hours. Where had she gone? When the comment number went up, I went and checked but it wasn’t her; it was someone else reaching out to her. I prayed she hadn’t finally succeeded in ridding herself of her pain but I would understand if she had. Nothing. I don’t know her but I prayed for her and I cared what happened to Magically Mad Jill and her children. I dreamt about her.

I’m sure there are plenty of people out there reading this thinking, “Jeez Maggie, get a life. Stop cyber stalking a blogger on the other side of the country.”

Oh well, that’s what I do. I haven’t met Magically Mad but I have lived in Boston and she is from Boston and lives in the ‘burbs somewhere. I am a mother. I’m Irish. We have things in common. And I read her words and her pain and I felt for her. Her writing makes me care about her and I’m not the only one.

I teared up with relief this morning when I saw she had posted.

People tease me about my little blog community but it is what it is and I like us. People tell me, “You know if you really met them, you probably wouldn’t like them, have anything in common, etc.” I get that. But maybe we would.

When I was in grade school, I had a pen pal in Ireland named Brona Conway. I have never met Brona but she was my friend for years. I still have the letters.

So what is this community? Aren’t we like pen pals?

We are all writers, perhaps not published but we need to write and so we do. We write stories. We write our truths and our lies. We write the good, the bad, the funny, the sad, the boring, the new, the old. We write words, we play with words, we speak as we type, we read and experiment and savor words. We pick our favorites. We have our cliques. We play games. We give, receive and create awards.

We support each other on bad days and celebrate the good ones. Marriages, careers, children, binges, purges, parties, funerals, gay, straight, young, old, black, white, left, right, mad, “sane”.

Sure, to some, it’s just a silly little blogging community but it is also just friends who haven’t met.

Ironing v. Pressing

I don’t mean to brag but I’ve been Decently Ironed, okay I do mean to brag, I have been Decently Ironed or my blog has. Look over there, in the right margin under the bad photo of me with wine and pizza at 10 a.m. Right under that you will see, my Decently Ironed Award (“It’s an award, a major award!” movie?)

I, like all WordPress bloggers, read Freshly Pressed blogs trying to figure out how to write that one blog that will make the WordPress computer sit up and take notice or reboot and take notice or whatever computers do when they are thrilled with a piece of writing. I haven’t figured it out yet but I have been able to read FP blogs and wonder, “how can the computer, or whoever is behind the curtain, not realize how funny I am when they Freshly Pressed that guy, and he’s not funny. I know funny and that’s not it. That was stupid and just somebody begging to be Freshly Pressed. Loser.”

I would never stoop to begging.  I simply went to the DI Princess and asked her to Decently Iron me, no begging, just a little request, which the Princess granted.

That’s right, while I have not been Freshly Pressed, I have been Decently Ironed by my new blogging idol. Mother doesn’t know she is my new mentor and inspiration or maybe she does. She Decently Ironed me for a post that featured a restaurant called Mothers. I have been hanging around Mother’s blog, trying to catch her eye, see if she just wants to hang out and talk about blogging, maybe get some coffee or Diet Coke. We could talk about how smart and funny and right we are. Maybe she’d want to tell me about the restraining order she’s getting for me.

Blogging and the Bloggers on WordPress inspire me to write and I haven’t been inspired to write in a long time. I have a drawer full of  spiral notebooks from my younger days. The worn cardboard covers are covered in my juvenile writing:  hearts dot the “i”s; rainbows abound but I didn’t have the skill to draw unicorns. Restrictions were made very clear to my younger sisters “Dont’ read! This means you! Private! Keep out!”  I lost the inspiration to write when people stopped writing and started typing on computer keyboards. I also got caught up, if that is the correct phrase, with having two little girls who took up most of my time. Now my kids are older, I can’t live without my laptop and I have found this wonderful site where I can write again.

Here’s a link to another of my favorite bloggers. Her column today (which she took from someone else) is about writing and why people, who most likely will never be best-selling authors, who probably will never become J.K. Rowling wealthy or as famous as Sally Jesse Raphael, still write.  I love writing…if it’s blogging here or blogging for my Aunt Shanere or writing press releases at work. I don’t need to be Freshly Pressed, I don’t care about going to the Big Show, the Blog Dance. I am Decently Ironed and that is reward enough.

I’m also catching on to some blogging strategeries. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the days to post blogs. I heard this somewhere and it could be write right. The theory is that the blog reading public is too busy on Monday recovering from the weekend to read, blog readers party like rock stars. Friday the blog reading public is too distracted with plans for the fabulous rock star weekend ahead to read. On Saturday and Sunday the blog reading public is busy or napping or throwing up and can’t take the time to read blogs. So that leaves Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I’m going to post this tonight, Saturday night!  I may as well live on the Blogging Edge because this Saturday night finds me on the couch with my laptop, darling Stevie is sound asleep and his deserving mother is out at a movie all by herself.

While I write, the dogs keep me company with frequent, loud, startling blasts of flatulence.

That Bobo Dog

Mudd is a VERY big dog, his exhaust is powerful

The dogs are on opposite sides of the room, pretending to be asleep…even snoring for effect but they aren’t. They’re faking it. Yep, this is the life, the life of the writer. There was Bloomsbury, Paris in the 20s, the Algonquin Round Table; and I have my couch and my companions and a grayish-brown vaporous cloud of canine mustard gas.