46(?)/46/46 – Day #8: Drama Llamas…the only animal that needs to become extinct

I have nothing to say.

Actually, I have plenty to say, I just can’t say any of it at the moment.

Why? Because I have “friends” who are posers and are attempting to cause issues for me. FYI, I know who you are, and you will be dealt with when the time is right. Until then, certain subjects are off the table.

You know, you’d think that people would have the guts to confront a person to her face if there’s a problem. But, obviously some people don’t have the guts to do that, so they go behind a person’s back and whisper crap in other’s ears. The only thing worse are those who believe what they are being told and never bother to verify anything.

Anyone who knows me realizes I am about as transparent as you can get. I don’t hide my emotions. First off, my face gives me away every time, and second, I don’t see the point in hiding them anyway. If I don’t like something, I don’t like it. If I love something, I love it. If I have no opinion, I have no opinion.

Oh hush, it has too happened. LOL

Anyway, I’m pretty incapable of hiding my feelings, which means unless you’re completely clueless, you know how I feel about things about ten seconds (if I’m distracted) after you mention it. So, there is NO REASON to make up or guess how I feel about an issue. Ask me. You’ll know while the question is still hanging in the air. There’s no reason to speculate or guess.

But some people just like to cause issues. They like drama. It’s more fun to spread rumors. I don’t know if these people realized the problems they were causing, but thanks to them, I’ve a mess to clean up and I don’t really appreciate it.

But anyway, that’s all I’m going to say about things. As soon as things are straightened out, I’ll go back to my regularly scheduled zany posts. Until then, this blog is probably going to be a whole lot of nothing about nothing. Sorry y’all, blame the idiots with too much time on their hands.

A Sad Anniversary

I’ve spent the day working and looking up at a picture on my wall. It’s of my dog, Harley. Harley crossed the Rainbow Bridge a year and a day ago, and not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. He was a special dog, and I loved him dearly.

He was the kind of dog that waited until all the other dogs were done begging for attention, and then he’s tug on your shirt for his turn. He never wanted to play fetch, but enjoyed taking long lazy walks. And he rarely barked. When he did, it was a shockingly deep bark, especially for a dog his size. He was just starting to really grow before he became ill. I often wonder how big he would be now.

His place on the bed was either in the small of my back with his head on my hip, or with his head flopped over my shoulder, nose almost poking me in the ear. His hot dog breath used to drive me bonkers. I’d shrug him away, only to awaken several hours later with him in the same spot.

He was pretty much a loner. When all the other dogs would be snuggled up against each other, or playing together, Harley would often be off to himself. Or curled up in a ball under my desk. I think that’s why I had such an affinity for him, he marched to the beat of his own drummer, just like me. If he followed any of the people in the house, it was me he followed. If he was in one of his stubborn moods, I was the only one who could get him to behave. I was his people.

One of the biggest regrets of my life was not being with him during his final moments. I had gone out to get him more meds, and by the time I got back, he was gone. From the looks of things, I think I missed his passing by mere seconds. I scooped him up, told him I loved him and cried over him for what seemed like forever, but was really maybe 15 minutes. Saying goodbye to him was agonizing. Before we removed him from the house, I snipped some of his fur. It sits on the mantel, in a small vase.

I want to believe that Harley knew how much I loved him. He was special. He was unique. He was beautiful. He was mine.

But not for long enough.

I hope you’re frolicking, happy and free on the other side of the Bridge, Harley, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t wish for just one more day with you. Just one more chance to shrug you off my shoulders. Just to feel you tug on my shirt one more time…

RIP, my friend. Until we meet again…

 

An Introduction of Sorts…

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been called quite a few things. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Feminazi
• Witty
• Bleeding-heart liberal
• Opinionated
• Unfair
• Eloquent
• Unbalanced
• Brilliant
• Hateful
• Sarcastic
• Big-mouthed
• Bitchy
• Smart

I’m shocked “stupid” wasn’t bandied about, but hey, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 🙂

Just for fun, and by way of an introduction to my new followers (Hello and Welcome!), I’m going to offer my opinion on each of these descriptions. Cuz, y’know, why not.

Feminazi – If refusing to remain silent while men wage war against women’s rights, shouting down loud-mouthed blowhards, and demanding that women have not equal but the majority say over what goes into and comes out of their bodies makes me a feminazi, then by God, I’ll carry the scepter, and wear the tiara and sash proudly while I take care of my family, build my career and have sex when and with whom I choose, thank-you-very-much!

Witty – Well, thank you. I’d say I try, but honestly, I have to try harder NOT to be humorous. That’s not meant to be conceited, I really have a hard time not letting some sort of humor leak into everything I write. When you write dry, boring copy for a living, fighting the urge to be (or attempt to be) funny is hard. That’s part of the reason for why I blog. *I* need an outlet. 🙂 Imagine a bowl of bran flakes….with a fruit loop in thrown in. Finish that joke however you wish.

Bleeding-heart Liberal –  Not really a fair assessment, and I will explain why later.

Opinionated – Gee…me? Nah, I don’t have an opinion on anything. And even if I did, I would never, ever deign to share it.

Unfair – I think that assessment is unfair. I try to show all facets of an issue before offering my opinion, unless the issue is so ridiculous that there is really no other facet to show other than the ridiculousness of the issue.

Eloquent – Thanks…I try! Not very eloquent, but heartfelt!

Unbalanced – Now see, I don’t know if the person who said this meant “unbalanced” as in only showing one side of the story, or “unbalanced” as in I need to be fitted for a straight jacket and prepped for a frontal lobotomy. Then again, it could mean both. But to quote Sheldon (from The Big Bang Theory), “I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested.”

Brilliant – Really smart? According to the tests, yes. Am I capable of moments of brilliance? Of course. We all are. But brilliant? Nah…I just know what my gifts are and try to use them to their fullest as much as possible. But thank you for the compliment!

Hateful – Nope. I’m not a hateful person. I don’t hate anyone or anything. Hate is a wasted emotion. You spend all this time hating someone, but you never tell that person why you hate them. So, they’re off living their life, smelling flowers and whistling a happy tune, and you’re curled up in the fetal position on your bed, suffering from migraines, ulcers and for the life if it, cannot understand why you’re leading a miserable life. What’s wrong with that picture?

Sarcastic – You must be new here. Cuz I can hide my sarcasm for about five whole seconds. It’s harder to control than my humor. Don’t believe me? Check out practically any other post on this blog — sarcasm enters around word 50 (sometimes earlier) and doesn’t leave until I end the post. But I really think I’m more snarky than sarcastic, but oh well, po-tay-to, po-tah-to. It was still a swing and a miss in the insult department.

Big-mouhted – I think this one is a bit off the mark, and really doesn’t make much sense considering this is prose and not spoken word. If I wanted to be a big mouth on screen, I’d have to TYPE EVERYTHING IN CAPS AND BOLD IT SO I’D BE SURE YOU SAW IT. I’D ALSO ADD SEVERAL COLORS SO EVERYTHING STOOD OUT, AND USE LOTS OF “!!!!” TO MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTOOD MY POINT!!! 

But that’s not how I roll, so nah, wrong again.

Bitchy – Yeah, I can be. I don’t argue that. Matter of fact, I embrace my inner bitch. I wish more people would do that, there would be much less heartache in the world.  But I really believe I’m bitchy only when justified, and I don’t think I’ve been particularly bitchy in this blog. But I have had my moments. LOL

Smart – Yeah, okay. Thanks. 🙂

So, that’s what others think of me and how I feel about what others think of me. Now, here’s who I know I am:

I’m a woman with an opinion who is not afraid to express it. If I read, see or hear of an injustice, an act of stupidity or other uncalled for occurrence, I will drag it out of the dark corner where it is trying to hide and expose it for what it really is. I will defend the things I believe in until I’m hoarse and my fingers bleed. If you come at me, take your best shot, cuz when I fire back, I. Won’t. Miss.

I’m a liberal who believes that those in the position to help others, should. I also believe that once you’ve been helped, you need to move to the other side of the column and become a helper yourself. If you don’t — if you continue to seek help when you could do for yourself, or you refuse to help others as you were helped, you’ll have to answer to me. And you’d better have a damn good excuse.

I believe that if you don’t vote, you don’t get to bitch. Spare me the “my one vote isn’t going to make a difference”, “the whole political process is rigged” and “our voices aren’t heard anyway” mumbo jumbo. Even if any and all of that is true, our forefathers died so we could vote. If we end up in a situation you don’t like and you did nothing about it, other than complain that the system is broken, I don’t want to hear it. Move on.

I believe everyone should have the right to love who they want, and if they want to get married, they’re crazy more power to them. (Did I mention I’m divorced? lol)

I’m a writer, a designer, a mother, a daughter a sister and a friend. I love deeply and am loyal to a fault. I’m kind to furry woodland creatures, share my toys and color inside the lines (usually).

But most of all, I love being here. It’s beats the hell out of the alternative. I’d rather smell the daisies than push them up from the other side.

And that, ladies and gents, is who I am, or at least a brief synopsis. And that’s who writes this blog. I hope you’ll stick around and see what I have to say. I’m sure it will only get more interesting as the months progress.

Wow…

You have all rendered me speechless. Almost. 🙂

As a writer, sometimes you like things you write, and sometimes you merely peck out what you can and hope it’s not the drivel you are sure it is. It’s the nature of the beast. There are three truths you quickly learn as a writer: #1 — Not everything you write is going to be brilliant. #2 — A writer is often his own worse critic.

But then, every once in a blue moon, you write something and you know it’s the best thing you’ve ever written. Something you are totally proud of.

Yesterday’s post was one of those moments.

However, even though as the writer, you love it; even though you want to print it out, put it in a frame and hang it on your wall, you still pause before you hit the submit button. Why?

#3 — Just because YOU love it, that doesn’t mean your readers will. And if they don’t love it…

Well, there really isn’t a worse feeling for a writer.

So you can imagine my elation and excitement when the comments and emails started rolling in about my post. I smiled with every comment, email, retweet and share.

I’ve been doing a lot of smiling.

So, thanks to all of you for showing my post so much love. To my new subscribers, welcome and I’m glad you’re here.  To my old fans, thanks for the support you’ve always given me. I will do my best not to disappoint.

When I started this blog almost a year ago, I really didn’t know what I was going to write about, or if anyone even wanted to read what I had to say. I just felt compelled to share. My outrage. My joy. My amusement.

Okay – mainly my outrage, but with a tinge of amusement thrown in, because quite frankly, if I couldn’t some sliver of humor in this world’s craziness, I’d be a quivering mass under a desk somewhere.

So, you can count on me to continue to shine light on the absurd, the ludicrous and the deplorable. I will continue to rail against stupidity and the wrongdoings of others. And I hope you stick around for the ride.

The trip’s a helluva lot more fun with someone riding shotgun. 😉

I Struck Down the Soup Nazi!

Well, I helped, anyway.

I’m going to keep this short — I’ll probably post more about it tomorrow.

Every Sunday for the last year and a half, a friend of mine and his wife have been making soup for the local freeze shelter (that’s a shelter that takes in homeless people when the weather is cold). Well, this past week, my friend was told by the Health Department that he could no longer provide soup to the shelter because he didn’t have a commercial kitchen or a permit.

This upset my friend, and as people often do, he posted about it on Facebook. And we were rather annoyed for him.

After doing some research, my friend discovered that although he couldn’t take a whole pot of soup down to the shelter, there was nothing illegal about an individual taking a single serving of soup to another individual.

See where I’m going with this?

So, tonight, I participated in some civil disobedience. Yes, it was technically still not legal for him to serve the soup, but since individuals delivered it, it was okay.

Sorta.

Well to me, and the rest of us who pitched in, it was perfectly okay. Matter of fact, a good time was had by all.

Anyway, that was my first act of rebellion since college. Felt good. Might have to see what else I can get myself into…

🙂

Thanks, Facebook!

Today, Facebook, you managed to both annoy and entertain me.  Now that more people are being converted to the new Timeline, I’m getting a bunch of visitors that are friends of my friends (but not friends with me).

For the most part, it’s been pretty uneventful, and I’ve even added a few of them as friends as a result of conversations we’ve had. So, that’s cool.

But

(Isn’t there always a but!)

Every once in a while a friend of a friend is not, well, friendly.

This first happened a couple of weeks ago. A friend of a friend made negative comments about something I posted. We had a brief back-and-forth, and basically, I told him to go away.

Then there was today.

I posted a picture of a truck covered with bumper stickers…I’m not going to post the pic here because I don’t want to take someone’s Facebook life and put it out in the Interwebs…but the picture garnered a decent amount of attention from my friends…

And this friend of a friend. He spent the better part of the day trying to convince me and all other commenters why we were wrong to think/believe what we did. And he was rather condescending about it, not to mention he contradicted himself more than once.

My friends, of course were not going to back down — I even had friends of friends chiming in to argue with him. It was a rather enjoyable scene. So much so, I kept my opinion out of it…for the most part.

I think these types of friends of friends need a name — I vote The Truth Bringers. They come onto a stranger’s Facebook page, and proceed to tell the page owner why they and their friends are wrong. They are trying to shed light and knowledge on the obviously unlearned (and probably unwashed) masses. It is their sole purpose in life to convert us to their ways…

Which means it is OUR purpose to smack them around, then kill ’em with logic until they are forced to utter phrases such as, “I’m not going to try and convince you anymore.” and “You’re all stupid poopy heads!”

Or something like that.

So, thanks Facebook for the entertainment today. I appreciate it, and I look for more to come.

Cuz, I’m sure there will be more.

PS — if one of my friends goes on your page and acts like a Truth Bringer, let me know. I doubt it will happen because I have the COOLEST, SMARTEST FRIENDS ON THE PLANET, but just in case, I’ll take care of it.

Social Media 101

Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. Klout. WordPress.

You’ve heard the terms, and most likely you use at least some, if not all of the sites/services I’ve mentioned above and others. But how do you use them? And did you know they are excellent vehicles for marketing your business?

Now, although collectively, they are referred to as social media platforms, don’t let the “social” part of the name fool you — the sites above are legitimate ways to market your business.

One of the many hats I wear on a daily basis is Social Media Manager. I have several clients for whom it is my job to run their social media campaigns. I post to their Facebook pages. Send their tweets. Write their blog posts.  I also do these things for my own business, which is why if we’re friends on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you are probably almost tired of seeing updates about this blog.

[I hope you aren’t tired of the updates, cuz I hope you look forward to reading my blog, but I had to throw that out there because, well, it was the polite thing to do. :-)]

I enjoy interacting via social media, either as myself, or representing my clients, but I can understand why others might not enjoy the experience. Social media done right, is hard work. Sometimes it’s tedious. Sometimes you just don’t want to be bothered with interacting with others. And that’s okay, but you’ll need to get past that if you want to create an effective social media platform.

Or hire me. 🙂

So, if you are up to the challenge of launching a social media campaign, here are a few tricks I use to get things started.

1. Know your product. I know this should be obvious, but you would be shocked the number of people who don’t really know what their product is. For example, if you’re a freelance writer, what’s your product? Do you have articles you want to sell? Selling an ebook? Or are YOU the product? Decide what you want to market before you start the marketing process.

2. Know your target audience. Who does your product appeal to the most? As a jewelry designer, my audience is primarily female, 9 months of the year. The other 3 months, it’s male, but in those three months, I make as much as I do the other 9 months combined. My writing market is primarily small and home-based business, and solo/entrepreneurs and it’s year round.

3. Go where your targets are. Not everyone uses the same social media sites. Believe it or not, everyone is NOT on Facebook, at least to the point where you can just use it to market your products and services exclusively. Men pay more attention to Reddit and LinkedIn, females are Facebook and FourSquare oriented. Older social networkers are on sites like Reunion.com and Gather. Figure out where your potential customers spend their time, and focus on those locations.

4. Create information for your target audience. If you have a product with a wide appeal, you can usually get away with one informational statement, but if you have a niche product, you will need to target that niche. With the jewelry, I promote everything across the board 9 months of the year, but for those all important 3 months, I go to where the guys are and promote my female jewelry heavily. So, you might have to tailor 2 or more messages to reach the audience you want, but it can pay off.

5. Be consistent. If you are going to market once a week to your general market, and once a week to your niche market, then stick to that plan. If you start out doing one blog post a week to inform your customers of new products or services, then stick to that schedule. Whatever you decide, you should be consistent in your delivery. Delivering around the same time of day is also helpful, but not really required. (So, says the blogger who is still trying to determine the right time of day to post her blog! I’m not perfect, even *I* have to tweak things! :-))

These tips can get you started. If you have any questions or would like getting started, email me or leave a comment.

 

Relationships – The Good, the Bad and the…

This post is about relationships. As writers, our relationships play a huge role in how and what we write. Sometimes it’s a good thing, and sometimes it can hold you back. And let’s be real, a writer’s life is difficult enough without creating our own barriers. And I know this from experience – I once had such a barrier, and it was a biggie.

My mother and I have mother-daughter “moments,” but unfortunately, we have never managed to string enough moments together to call it a true mother-daughter relationship. I love her and she loves me, but we’ve just never gotten along all that well. When I was growing up, we would have wicked arguments that would leave us both angry, frustrated and in tears. It wasn’t the most ideal of situations, that’s for sure.

However, I have been fortunate enough to forge a solid relationship with my daughter. We are close – crazy close. I can’t think about her without smiling.

But as much as I love and cherish that bond, it makes me wistful for the bond I’ve never had with my own mother.

Actually, “wistful” isn’t a strong enough word. Sometimes, I ache for it. The ache is particularly strong when I watch my mother lavish love on my daughter. I often find myself feeling like I’m on the outside, looking in, wondering why my mother can so obviously bestow love and affection on MY daughter, but could not do the same for me. If I’m not careful, the ache can quickly turn into resentment.

The adult me gets that my mother is the person she is, and for reasons I cannot fathom, but have learned to accept, she did not have the capacity to be the kind of mom I always wanted. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t the best mom she could be or that she didn’t love me. And over time, I’ve learned to live with that. But sometimes, and especially when I see my friends mention their relationships with their mothers, I still feel a sense of loss.

Bottom line: It is what it is. About 15 years ago, I realized I had two choices: I could continue to resent what I didn’t have with my mom, or I could embrace and appreciate what I did have. After a lot of soul-searching and teeth-gnashing, I choose the latter. My relationship with my mom isn’t perfect, but it does exist, and for that I am grateful.

So, my advice to you is this: Instead of trying to make a relationship what you want it to be, just accept it for what it is. You will experience a feeling of peace you’ve never known and you’ll be able to build on that relationship and hopefully create something you thought you’d never have.