It’s all about me.

I’m always fascinated when people throw the “narcissistic” ball at bloggers. And there really isn’t a valid way to argue against it, right? I write about me because I assume that you are going to be interested in what I have to say about me. So yeah, anybody that has a personal domain carries around a healthy amount of The Veinâ„¢.

My dad likes to tease me about the narcissism of blogging and self portraits but we laugh about it because, it’s TRUE! I love me! IT’S ALL ABOUT ME! And my dad bought me the PJ’s to prove it so really, I blame him.

My question to YOU is why YOU care so much? I write about me because I think that I am awesomely fantastic. But why do you read about me? And when you do, and you’re so appalled by it, why do you come back? Over and over. To read more and more. Why do you take time out of your day to comment or email and tell me how vein I am? Because all you’re doing is inflating the ego. I HAVE FANS! I must write more! MORE!

It’s this never ending debate I see rampaging the internet every where I turn. The bloggers write about themselves and the haters write about how much they hate you writing about yourself. “Mommy bloggers” are especially prone to this because a lot of parenthood is about failure. Lots and lots of bumps and bruises and finding out what works by realizing what DOESN’T. I’ve not come across a SINGLE mommy blogger that doesn’t have at least ONE regular commenter there telling them in every comment thread:

“I can’t believe you gave your child SODA! You fucking monster!”

“I can’t believe you posted yours child’s PICTURE on the INTERNET! What about predators?!”

“I can’t believe you told the WORLD about when your child fell down and cracked open his head! Where were you? Probably BLOGGING, you horrible, unfit, asswad! Get off the internet and raise your kids!”

And here I am saying it: I don’t get YOU. At least my focus is on ME. I write because it’s an outlet. I have this grand illusion that people will actually want to read what I have to say, that maybe they will enjoy it and get a little chuckle, or walk away with a new perspective, or just slightly less bored than when they sat down. But at the very core of it, I write because when putting it down “on paper” I have to actually form my thoughts and opinions into complete sentences and organize them in paragraph form and I’m foced to confront them. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gotten half way through a blog post and gone, “Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.”

Epiphany!

I sit down and blog knowing that today I will probably learn something new about myself, and two years from now I can look back on today and see how stupid I was back then. YOU sit down to read what I have to say to pick it apart and twist it into something evil and wrong and *gasp* vein!

So you tell me, who sounds like the bigger fool here?

P.S. – I don’t really have any haters. The “I” here was written to speak for bloggers as a whole. Remember, I’m too awesomely fantastic to have haters. BAM!

Blog meme.

Jenn posted this meme the other day and I sat down and wrote out half of it and got sidetracked and didn’t finish till today.

1. Do you try to look hot when you go to the grocery store just in case someone recognizes you from your blog?
Hell no. I try to look as ridiculous as necessary so the majority of the people don’t want to bother me. Sometimes I just write “CRAZY!!” on my forehead to get the point across better. The two exclamation points are necessary for that. I think that anybody who’s read my blog would understand my secret code and understand that they are exempt from the “bothering”.

2. Are the photos you post Photoshopped or otherwise altered?
Most of them. I add a black and white border to pretty much every picture I take. Also, on a lot of them I duplicate layers and change the top layer property to make the colors pop. I also take all my shots in RAW form now so if I really want to manipulate something I start out by playing with hue/saturation before it even gets touched as a JPEG.

3. Do you like it when creeps or dorks email you?
I enjoy email of all kind. Especially from creeps because then I forward them to my friends and we have a good laugh.

4. Do you lie in your blog?
Please reread #1. I prefer to use “embellish a LOT” to “lie”.

5. Are you passive-aggressive in your blog?
Wow, #1 really answers a lot of these questions for me!

6. Do you ever threaten to quit writing so people will tell you not to stop?
Seriously? I have people telling me all the time to WRITE MORE ALREADY so not a problem. But I wouldn’t anyway.

7. Are you in therapy? If not, should you be? If so, is it helping?
Not anymore. But I have been and yes, it helped. Imagine #1 if I hadn’t!

8. Do you delete mean comments? Do you fake nice ones?
In over 4 years I’ve deleted ONE comment but for the most part, I don’t like to censor people. And no, I don’t fake comments. I’d have a lot more comments if I did!

9. Have you ever rubbed one out while reading a blog? How about after?
Who in the hell writes these things?!

10. If your readers knew you in person, would they like you more or like you less?
I’d like to think more but The Blond might prove otherwise.

11. Do you have a job?
Fo’ sho’, yo.

12. If someone offered you a decent salary to blog full-time without restrictions, would you do it?
I really don’t know. I’d love to be paid for writing because I actually enjoy writing much more than I ever talk about it here but I don’t think there is anybody out there that would actually PAY to read the insanity.

13. Which blogger do you want to meet in real life?
All of them! Seriously, I’m fascinated by people and how different upbringings, locations, opinions, etc all vary.

14. Which bloggers have you made out with?
BEN!!

15. Do you usually act like you have more money or less money than you really have?
I don’t think I go either way. We live comfortably but everybody has their money issues and we are certainly not immune to that.

16. Does your family read your blog?
Yes. My dad reads and comments. My mom reads although I’m not sure how much because she pretty much refuses to acknowledge its existence and curls up into a fetal position and shakes whenever I mention it. Cousins read and comment. I know that more people have the address but have never let on that they are reading and if they ARE the should COMMENT.

17. How old is your blog?
The blog dates back to, gosh, you expect me to actually remember that… I’ll just go with a long time. I’ve had personal domains since 2003 and anything before that is certainly forgettable so I’ll just stick to that.

18. Do you get more than 1000 page views per day? Do you care?
Let me go check!

So according to AwStats my page views jump to over 1000 on the days that I actually post, but the rest of the time it hovers around 750-1000. I really think that page views are a silly way to judge a blogs relevance though unless you are using them for paid blogging. Quality over quantity and all that jazz..

19. Do you have another secret blog in which you write about being , slutty, or a liar?
If you consider this another secret blog then, yes! Yes I do!

20. Have you ever given another blogger money for his/her writing?
Nope.

21. Do you report the money you earn from your blog on your taxes?
On my other blogs that are specifically to make money, yes.

22. Is blogging narcissistic?
I think it’s probably one of the highest forms of narcissism second only to taking a lot of pictures of yourself. But I think unless you let your ego get the better of you, there’s really nothing wrong with being a bit narcissistic.

23. Do you feel guilty when you don’t post for a long time?
I do actually. But not because I think the readers want it. I feel guilty because that means I haven’t taken the time to sit down and hammer things out.

24. Do you like John Mayer?
As long as he leaves me alone in the grocery store, we’re cool.

25. Do you have enemies?
Enemies? I don’t think so. ‘Enemy’ is a strong word. I certainly have people I’d like to backhand sometimes but the one thing I’ve learned well from Ben is not to hold on to those feelings. Life is too short to walk around hating people.

26. Are you lonely?
No. I have a lot of people to love.

27. Why bother?
Because never trying seems like a silly alternative.

I DON’T kill everything I grow.

I grew tomatoes!!! TADA!

I know, I know. Big deal right? Well, YES! It is a big deal! Because I’ve been trying to grow them for THREE SEASONS and this is the first time I’ve had a plant ACTUALLY produce a tomato.

In the past everybody told me to use Miracle Grow but I kinda feel like that’s cheating. I mean, do they genetically alter these fuckers to ONLY produce fruit if you chemically force them to? Maybe it’s some conspiracy that Miracle Grow has going on to up sales. But I dunno, I can see using it on flowering plants to balloon the bloom size to unnatural proportions but not something I’m going to eventually let Cassidy eat. I don’t need whatever chemical it is that causes the monster blooms to get into her system and somehow make her feet grow any bigger than they already are because they are already pushing the ‘unnatural’ envelope as it is.

I got some great news about a friend yesterday. And even though it wasn’t MY news I was so excited for them because I remember what it felt like to be in the spot they are in now and how wonderful it can feel and hearing THEIR good news actually put ME in a great mood! Funny how that can happen. Anyway, you know who you are and, YAY! Happy for your great news!

Ben was supposed to go to the track this weekend but money (it would be over $500 MORE then the $300+ he’s already spent on it AND he was at the track last week anyway which was probably another $500) and his head has started being a bastard again. He gets these headaches that come on randomly and literally floor him. He instantly gets hot (I’m sure his temperature goes up because he actually feels hot to the touch), feels nauseated, lays down and tries to sleep it off. He lays there and moans. That kills me. Two weeks ago when he was helping me with my exhaust he practically drove a screwdriver THROUGH his hand, washed it off and kept working like it was no big deal. So when he’s in so much pain that he’s on the couch groaning, I get worried. Really worried.

They have given him migraine medicine and so far it’s basically done: NOTHING. They are still coming and the medicine doesn’t seem to help AT ALL to get rid of them, or even help with the symptoms. Then for the entire following day he has what he describes as a ‘headache hangover’. Anybody else have these? Idea’s what it might be? I’m wondering if maybe some more drastic testing should be done…

Anyway, that was my Full of Randomness post for the week!

Redoable.

After I got the site back from being hacked, I decided to do a complete overhaul. Like, everything has been touched. I’ve updated WordPress and every single WordPress plugin. I probably dumped 100 datebase tables that hadn’t been used in AGES. Gallery, forum, guestbook, tables created from plugins that I haven’t used in over a year, it was a mess. A MESS! I’d been telling myself that I was going to do that for months and months and had I actually DONE it, the lame ass hacker wouldn’t have had a way in.

SO! The new theme I’m using is Redoable. I really, really, really tried to come up with something on my own and I’d get 75% of the way through a Photoshop mockup, then coding, then tweaking CSS and suddenly I’d hate it and delete the whole thing. Like 5 times. With 5 different themes.

I’d been watching Dean develop and update this theme for quite some time and I liked it from the very beginning. After he developed the twitter plugin I was pretty much sold but gave ONE MORE theme a try and still just wan’t feelin’ it. So I went ahead and started to manipulate Redoable to mold it to my liking. There are still some things I want to work on. I’m going to add back the recent comment plugin but I’m going to tweak the CSS first. I’m also thingking about doing some CSS work to the blogroll… just small stuff here and there.

Overall impressions of the stock theme though are that it’s fantastic. The admin interface makes customization so simple that even if you don’t know much about HTML, PHP or CSS, you can very easily add widgets, change color scheme’s, menu placement, and more.

So there ya go! I wanted to make sure to give the theme a proper plug.

4 days.

My first photo hit Explore today on flickr. The highest it got was #371 #299 #210(!!). I’m excited because I’ve secretly wished to have something Explore but at the same time I’m perplexed that it’s a picture of my FEET! Not flowers, or a cute kid, or a car. My feet! (Although they are my feet in some of my very hot shoes. ) It’s kind of silent vindication for all of those who have called me vain or narcissistic (my dad used that one and I thanked him for finding a much longer, more sophisticated word to make fun ot me ) because it was just a road to better photography people! That’s all! Okay, so it was totally me being vain…

So, original plans were to do that Half Dome hike this weekend. A part of me is kinda sad we don’t get to do it because I’m sure I’d end up with some amazing shots with the XTi. A bigger part of me is happy that I won’t be left on the side of a mountain with an ice ax in my head.

The reason we can’t go is because Ben has some stuff that HAS to be done to the track car this weekend or he won’t make it to next Friday’s track day. So since I already had approved PTO for Friday and Monday off, I’ve decided to take it anyway. A four day weekend sounds FABULOUS, yes? I got up and took Cassidy to breakfast before school today. Took a long hot shower with nobody knocking on the door to ask a question, or worried that I was going to use all the hot water, and I SO DID! Then I met Ben for a nice long lunch. Picked Cassidy up from school and now I’m blogging before I lay down and take a nice long nap! She’s off to the park with the neighborhood posse and a few parents to play some baseball.

I had originally planned to do a power cleaning on the house today but, WHY?! I’m on vacation! That’s my montra for the next three days. ‘Why? I’m on vacation?’ I wonder how many times I can use it till Ben snaps?

And! Because I’ve had nothing better to write about lately, another conversation!

This one happened when I got home and Ben had left the cell phone bill on my chair. The same day that my site got hacked and I still had a sense of humor! Previously he said that if we were billed extra for all the Twitters being sent to my phone via SMS he’d not be happy. We weren’t being charged. But GOOD LORD, did you know that Cingular sends you a log of all the text’s? ON PAPER. All 2,356 of them I got last month.

Antigone078: SEE?! I TOLD you the texting wasn’t extra…
Ben: can you call the parents of the tree you killed and give them the bad news?
Antigone078: BWAHAHAH! When I get my blog back: TOTALLY GETTING POSTED!
Ben: