Edgy Mama

I hope some of my local peeps are planning to attend the Type A Mom conference here in Ashvegas next weekend. It should be lots of fun–mommy bloggers from all over the country will be gracing us with their presence.

Here’s the Mountain Xpress story about the con (plus an interview with me–the other side of the mic can be scary). The cost for the weekend is $200, but if you input the code “mountainx,” you’ll get $75 off (almost half price–woohoo!).

Here are some of the basic details from the Mountain Xpress article:

What: A mommy blogger conference that’s expected to draw about 250 people to Asheville. It’s organized by Asheville resident Kelby Carr, a former newspaper reporter who turned to online writing and launched the Web site http://www.typeamom.net in 2007 as a way to feature the work of mommy bloggers.

When: Thursday, Sept. 24, through Saturday, Sept. 26.

Where: The conference is based at the Crowne Plaza Tennis & Golf Resort in West Asheville, but there are tours and speaker dinners scheduled around Asheville.

Cost: $200 for the weekend. Use code “mountainx” to get $75 off the ticket price.

Highlights:
• General panel discussion on Friday from 8:45 a.m. to 10 a.m. on social and collaborative blogging.
• Mom Market 8-10 a.m. on Saturday featuring local businesses and mom-made wares.
• Blogger Town Hall, 1:30-2:30 p.m. on Saturday, to discuss a variety of issues connected to blogging ethics.

Visit http://www.typeamomconference.com for full details.

I never blog anymore. I link occasionally. I link to my EM column, which is where most of my creative energy goes. Sorry, folks.

Here’s the deal. Blogging’s dead. There are 80 million something blogs out there–people throwing themselves into the Internets like so many migrating birds. And I’m a bit bored with it all. I’m even bored with myself. Or maybe I’m especially bored with myself.

That, and I’ve been moody lately. Not sure if it’s menopause, depression, or winter–or a combination of the three–but most of my daily energy seems to go into maintaining focus and getting through the day without an irrational meltdown.

I also haven’t been drinking, except on a few occasions that I’ve been out. So Mama’s mood equilibrium enhancer is now on the “bad” calorie/health list. Which sucks for me.

The combination of cold weather, dry skin, dieting, and the lack of a pre-frontal lobe in my kids is conspiring to make me crazy. Or crazier than usual.

So one of two things will most likely happen. One, I’ll continue to ignore the blog except for occasional links in order to provide some kind of connection for my 10 regular readers. Or two, I’ll go on a slightly manic writing spree, where I’ll talk too much about myself and then feel embarrassed afterwards. Not sure which one’s coming.

But right now I’m going to bed, because I’ve been chugging water all night, and I’m bored silly.

Can you tell I’ve been a bit bored with the bloggie? It’s summer. The kids are with me a lot. I’m sweaty. I’m renovating my house. I’ve been working more than I planned to. No one’s reading blogs anymore. There are too many blogs out there.

Excuses, excuses.

A long-time reader of this blog, who also lives in Asheville, told me recently that I wasn’t putting as much personal stuff out there. He’s right. I started getting burned by the haters. As the Dixie Chicks sing so eloquently: “The calls and conversations, accidents and accusations, messages and misperceptions, paralyze my mind.” I hear ya, Natalie.

Also, with my column’s success, I suddenly have a small (very small) measure of local noteriety. And truth be told, I get a bit weirded out when people I’ve never met recognize me.

I’ve also come to understand that the Internets is an unforgiving bitch, and whatever you put out there is nigh near impossible to delete–or take back entirely–what with caches and feeds.

So, yes, I’m a little less personal, perhaps. A little dull. And I’m spending most of my creative energy on my paid writing these days.

Perhaps I should delete the bloggie. Is it worth keeping if I only update once or twice a week? You tell me.

Everyone’s talking about the Wall Street Journal article about famous mommy blogger Dooce.

What a journey she’s had. Yowza! As a “D” list blogger, I can relate (distantly) to some of her travails.

Like Dooce, I attract my share of haters–both here and, occasionally, at the Mountain X Web site where my weekly column runs. I do moderate comments here (mostly to deal with spam) and I’ve learned just to hit delete when I sense irrational hate. Which doesn’t mean I don’t encourage healthy debate. Disagree with me, correct me, tell me what you think. But do it nicely, please.

Unlike Dooce, I don’t get enough hate mail that I feel the need to print it all out, lay it out in the driveway and run over it. Thank God.

Like Dooce, I make ad revenue–it’s basically beer money, not in the guesstimated range of $40,000 per month that Dooce pulls. I haven’t chased up ads energetically, not that I could possibly ever be in her league. Who is? In fact, I’ve just realized that my Google adsense hasn’t been updated since I moved the bloggie to Wordpress (gotta check on that).

Like Dooce, I’ve managed to inadvertently offend a few family members with my writing. I’m typically much tamer than she is (one reason I’m still D-list). Unlike Dooce, no one in my family has stopped talking to me, although a few of them have stopped reading this blog. I’ve offended other people as well, some of whom have read stuff into my work that I never intended.

Like Dooce, I have blogging boundaries, though quite a few more than she has. I don’t put names of family or friends out there, unless I have permission, or I’m talking about other bloggers or celebrities, who’ve put themselves out there already. I don’t name my kids. While I do write a lot about my children, there are a number of personal issues and relationships that are just none of my readers’ beeswax.

Basically, I’m happy being a “D” list blogger and doing it my way. But I’m glad there are bloggers like Dooce putting it out there, warts and all. You go, girl.

Or at least, I’ve been waiting for. The first Edgy Mama T-shirt!

Specs: long-sleeved, 65 percent poly, 35 percent cotton, soft, clingy, stretchy, feminine styling, dye-sublimation imaging, comfy. The type of shirt I wanted runs small. I’m wearing a large in the photo, and I’m a medium-sized female. I also have XLs, which are a bit bigger. The Tees are $20 each, which includes shipping. If you or your Edgy Mama wants one, click on this button to pay via Paypal (there’s another button in the left sidebar).

And e-mail me at janusatannefittenglenndotcom to give me further instructions (size, mailing addy, tell me why you’re an Edgy Mama).

Special incentive: if you or your EM e-mails me a photo of one of you wearing my T-shirt, I’ll post it here!!

Believe it or not, it’s taken a team to produce this Tee. I need to thank original designer Eddo, Mt. X designer Jon Teeple, logo repairman Eric Sopp, and the sweethearts at Halcyon Printing, Mark and Shannon. Also, I owe Matt a Tee for winning last year’s T-shirt design contest, which I never followed through on.

So, my business manager (E-spouse) thinks these Tees are a money sink. Prove him wrong! Order yours today! Then send me a photo of it adorning your hot bod!

I’m not a very good blogger. I don’t link much, either in my posts or in my sidebar.I don’t know much at search engine optimization or what my Technorati rating means. I don’t join blogging networks. I don’t even check my stats very often.

Yesterday, I did decide to check my stats, which have been pretty consistent for the past six months, according to the colorful bar graph. Then yowza! October brought me almost 13,000 unique visitors. That’s about twice my typical monthly visitation. I had close to that many folks, for some reason, last March, but nothing near that high since.

So what’s changed? My guess is that having my column at Mountain Xpress link to my website has increased the numbers. I’ve been writing my Edgy Mama column on-line since about mid-August, and it went to print in early September. Ironically, I feel that I’ve neglected my bloggie quite a bit since then, primarily because my weekly freelance responsibilities have doubled.

This increase makes me think more about my audience–you. Are you mostly from the Asheville area? Are you mostly coming here for more parenting stories? Basically, who are you and what kind of writing do you want?

There’s going to be a lot of me in tomorrow’s Mountain Xpress, Asheville’s weekly alternative newspaper. Luckily, there will be no photos of me. Although I’m a little hurt that they didn’t want any photos of me. Even though I’ve gained five pounds. Which is probably why none of the other Asheville bloggers want to see me naked.

Really, I’ve got to stop eating or something. That’s at the top of my to-do list. Stop eating. What’s up with me gaining five pounds before my high school reunion, which is in mid-October? I’m supposed to lose five pounds, before I gained five pounds, which makes the math really suck.

No, I haven’t been blogging much, but I’ve been writing like a fiend. I promise to get back to you with more bloggie goodness soon. One of the problems with being a freelancer is that you’re always pitching story ideas, and then when editors say “yes, great idea, and here’s your deadline,” you say, “Hurrah” until you look at your calendar and see that you already have three articles/columns due that same week, sometimes two on the same day (today). And then you scramble. And you run around all day doing interviews and taking photos and making phone calls and waiting for sources to call you back. Then you write all night. And you hound your braintrust friends to edit your stories, and say, “Can you do it like right now, pretty please? Because I need to turn it in before I take the kids to swim lessons and cook dinner and pretend I have a life away from this laptop.”

Then you have a week where you get pulled over by the cops twice in one day, on the day before you have an appointment at the DMV to get your stolen driver’s license replaced. And you end up with only one ticket, but it’s a “you must show up for night court” ticket, even though you’ll probably get off because your record is as clean as the inside of your washing machine. Because you haven’t been pulled over by the po-lice in 22 years, and how they managed to find you twice in one day is just beyond comprehension.

And then you wrench your back. Getting out of bed. Which reminds you that you should not get out of bed on Sunday morning, ever. No, no, no. But the drugs are working. Kind of. Except at the end of the day when you’re writing furiously to meet deadline. And wanting to say “hi” to your bloggie buds.