Community

I wore a dress this weekend. I rarely wear dresses. Dresses, in my world, are reserved for funerals and the odd wedding. Of course, there are the muumuus I often wear in the summer while my husband mutters about how he never thought he'd be married to Mrs. Roper, but I digress.

I do love a good muumuu though. The great thing about a muumuu is you never need to shave your legs. 

Basically, I just wrote 71 words to tell y'all I shaved my legs this weekend, voluntarily. 

Blogging done right.

I shaved my legs and wore a dress and I even applied some eye shadow because I was nominated for an award at The Edmonton New Media awards. Otherwise known as The Yeggies.

My eye shadow with the inimitable Kikki Planet.

I didn't really know what to expect, as I've never actually attended an award ceremony for anyone over the age of 17, but I figured a good place to start would be to pretend I don't weave my online words while sitting in alone in my kitchen, with my hair uncombed while wearing a ripped and stained tank top, no bra and my husband's boxer shorts. Which I do. Often. Like perhaps RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT.

It turns out shaving my legs was the right call to make. 

The show was lovely, the host funny, the organizer rock stars. The award nominees and winners were all truly talented people who each showcased the spirit and passion which makes Edmonton and area so very special. Cliched or not, it really was an honor just to be nominated.

I sat in that audience, surrounded by friends I'd made over the years, through my blog and twitter and Facebook and I smiled at people I'd just been introduced to and I marveled at how very far I've come in the seven years since I went online for the very first time.

How I stumbled into a community that I never knew existed when all I was really looking for was a way to find myself and survive the death of my son. Every online interaction I've made over the years has been like finding one piece of a new puzzle I've needed to put together to make myself whole, and for a brief shining moment on a Saturday night, my online community walked out of the mists of the Ethernet and surrounded me in the flesh.

I felt grateful and amazed to be part of such a vibrant community. 

Thank you Natasha, for making me cry in public, once more.

Winning an award and being recognized by your peers is always a lovely feeling. Absolutely. But that night, it wasn't about the award for me. It was about how I was a broken woman on the edge of a precipice, lost and alone, and found myself in front of a crowd of people who, through clicks, comments and virtual hugs, propped me up when I was at my weakest and held my hand until I could breathe on my own. 

It was about being part of a community that inspires me to try harder and be better and constantly reminds me what is important in life and what is not. 

It's about being something other than the reflection of the broken woman I see when I look in the mirror. 

I didn't know what to say at that moment, so I just said thanks.  

They like me! They really like me!

But I meant it. Thank you for this honor and thank you for all the support over the years, both those in the Edmonton community, my hometown, and those around the world. It means a lot.

I'm really happy to be part of this community, both offline and in person.

I'm really glad I shaved my legs for you.

A special thanks to the Yeggies organizing committee, the sponsors and most especially, Jen Banks for being my date on top of all your other duties. 

Blogging Bravely

I've written a blog post every day this week and deleted all but one of them.

I've written about the public breakdown I had after Knox's wheelchair collapsed in the middle of the street and no one offered to help me fix it. I've written about how some arsehole didn't hold the door open as he walked through it and it almost broke Knox's feet when the door slammed on him.

I wrote about blogging conferences and professional jealousies.

I wrote about tax season.

I just wrote a post about how the school phoned wanting my email so the principal could email me. How I have sat here for hours now, refreshing my email all the while imagining horrible scenarios involving my children and how I'm going to be forced to homeschool them like it or not. And still, NO EMAIL. The curiosity, it's killing me.

Everything I write, I delete.

I don't know how to press publish anymore.

It feels like everything worthy of being said is being said by others and being said better than I ever could. 

I'm blog-blocking myself. 

It's like I've forgotten how to blog honestly, the way I used to, because I'm paralysed by who will read it.

Years of being judged by my inlaws, my community, even some of my family, it's all scarred me to the point I don't know how to say what I want to say anymore. 

Blogging comes with a price. You may not have to pay it immediately, but it's there. I've paid my price, had my pound of flesh cut from my body. I've forgotten how to blog bravely.

But I still want to.

I'm still here. 

Blogging and deleting. Struggling to find the right way to write the words that I need to say. Bravely sharing big important truthes we will all be better for having read.

That's the problem. 

I have no big important truth to share. 

Not today anyways.

Oh wait. I have one truth to share:

Big dogs take big poops and I hate picking up poop.

Wait. That's not it.

My toe hair is so long it catches on my sheets and pulls a bit and it hurts. I don't want to be the woman who has to shave her toe hair. How feminine is that?

Sorry. That's not it either.

There is a dead skunk just on the other side of the road from my driveway and I really kind of want to poke at it with a stick.

That's just gross. I think there must be something wrong with me.

Oh, I know! 

I LOVE going to the local car wash. It's one of those wand wash places where you blast the dirt off your car manually. I feel like a GOD when I am blasting my car clean. I feel productive. Strong. And slightly gritty because I haven't quite figured out the right ratio from car to wand distance. Blow back is a bitch. BUT SO FUN.

I should delete this post. It's random and uninteresting.

Wait. It's kind of like life. Nonsensical but with a lot of blow back.

Starts blog post about the therapeutic brilliance of personal blogging.

Deletes said post.

Meh. You can't hit a home run every time you swing at a ball. At least now you know why I don't publish more often. You're welcome.

Nuts and Bolts

It's always interesting when I'm asked what it is I do for a living.

"I blog."

--blink blink--

"I write on the internet," I clarify.

That's when I see the invisible light bulb go off above their head. Which is when, inevitably, they ask, "Who do you write for?"

"Myself."

--blink blink--

"I have my own website," I clarify.

That's when they wrinkle their foreheads and squint their eyes. Which is when, inevitably, they ask, "Why?"

Why indeed. Why not, I always reply.

I've been asked why a lot this past week. I'm tired of the whys. I don't know, it's none of your business, because I can, because I was tired, I was pigeonholed, I was embarrassed, I outgrew it, I was left behind, change is good. All of this. None of this. 

I'm going to start telling people that 'blogging' is a fancy code word for being a dental assistant. I bet dental assistants never get asked why they do what they do where they do it. 

Or maybe they do.

Speak up dental assistants everywhere. Spread your truths here, my space is yours.

***

I'm running things a bit differently up in this space. I've added an email subscription option if having my words delivered straight to your inbox floats your boat.

There is an RSS feed to if you prefer that method of delivery. The Magical and Awesome Schmutzie fixed it so that if you were already subscribed to my RNM feed you shouldn't notice a change. I don't know. I write blogs. And read them. I don't really understand how any of this works. 

It's internet voodoo I tell ya.

Click here or click the tab that says 'Subscribe' up top under my name if either option interests you.

I'm your friendly neighbourhood voodoo priestess. Except, just like how RSS feeds, I know nothing about how voodoo works. 

***

Finally, there are some introductions I'd like to make. I'd like you all to meet my family. 

My husband:

He goes by Bruce.

My first kid:

Her name is Ken.

My second:

His name is Nash.

My third:

His name was Skjel.

My fourth:

His name is Knox.

Oh, and then there's me:

I had a little work done recently. Does it show?

Here's to the B side and keeping it real.

(ps. No more comment captcha either.  It's a bumpy ride, working out the kinks of the B side. Bear with me.)