So I have a little favourite thing I’ve been meaning to share with you. By now you probably know I love The City and Kelly Cutrone — the tell-it-like-it-is fashion PR guru and author of If You Have to Cry, Go Outside. Well, I must have been searching for Kelly Cutrone’s commentary on The City one night, I don’t know, but I came across her new internet talk show with (who knew?) her BFF Justine Bateman, whom most of us remember (and probably wanted to be at one point) from Family Ties. The show’s called Wake Up and Get Real, and it’s a series of short YouTube vids of the two of them telling it like it is.

I think I’ve watched every video they’ve published because I have all that time on my hands, you know. Although I (obviously) loathe the one where Justine shows us exactly what she does with the poor gophers on her property, the show’s da bomb. And the work Justine has done to help save the internet is really admirable.

Although she is a wee on the skinny side, I love the show she did on weight. It’s positively brillers….

And, most recently, I loooove the show she did on her “OLDER FACE”!

Is it just me? Is she not teh awesome???

Kelly and Justine always seem to talk about the things I’m thinking about. I’ll be 36 in September, and I’m thinking about aging. Ever since my tooth situation, I’ve been feeling less attractive than ever. And this chai detox? Holy breakout, batman! (Oh yes she did just write that!) But, the thing is, I don’t obsess care about it like I used to. I feel like my “inside” has finally taken over the “outside.” Maybe that comes with a) losing a front tooth, and/or b) gaining 80 pounds in pregnancy and actually living to tell about it (versus when you were in your 20s and almost died when you gained 0.5 pounds since breakfast)? I do look a lot different than I used to, and, like Justine, I feel more represented by my current face. Welcomed frown lines provide the perfect balance for my sweet-and-innocent, smiley features. I still look younger than my years, or so they tell me, but whatevs, you know?

That said, this extra weight on me — this 10-20 lingering pregnancy pounds — does NOT represent who I am inside. When I look in the mirror before I go to work in the morning (still shocked at the image of me in work clothes after all these years!), I look much thinner than the me that I see in photos or occasionally catch glimpses of in store windows.

I don’t know what the story is with my weight. But, if I keep going as I am — speaking from the inside, and hopefully worrying less and less if people are staring at my, erm, gumline — I feel like it will just melt away. All that, and maybe a jog now and then? Me? A jog? You read that right…. I keep hearing it in my head. And my intuition is on fiyah lately….

Sort of like a few weeks ago, when I was naming our new puppy Betty White, and all I could hear in my head when I was thinking up names for her was “BETTY…. BETTTTTYYYYY!”

WELL, just this morning, I learned that the old woman who died in our living room four years before we moved in here was named BETTY!!!! And her last name began with a W!!!!! And sounds a lot like WHITE!!!!! Eeeeeeeeeeeaaahhhhhhaeeeaearardafdeqrgaq4go!!!

CREEPY!!!

Anyway. Here are some other hot “older” celebs I love and want to age like….

And, of course….

Love!

xo Haley-O

I don’t believe in writer’s block. In fact, I believe more in the Loch Ness monster, Big Foot, the Abominable Snowman and Santa Claus (FTW!) all together than I do writer’s block. It’s a myth. A big old myth created to give writers a Romantic excuse for wasting hours staring at a screen white with nothing but a blinking cursor. I don’t believe in it.

Indeed, you see, I can’t. If I believed in writer’s block, then maybe it would happen to me. To think, after years now of writing this blog, I could experience writer’s block and lose everything — my quirky sense of humour (or so they tell me), my oomph, ma mojo — out of nowhere? Like a sea monster emerging out of the murky depths and screwing with the writer waves of my unconscious: gobble gobble hiss gobble gobble neener neener…?

I don’t think so.

Sure, I don’t blog as much as I used to. My mind is tired. VERY tired. Mothering two kids aged 2.5 and 4.5 is harrrd. (Aye, there’s the monster.) These days motherhood is so hard that I hereby give Argentina permission to cry for me.

What happened to me this past week as I sat down to my Macbook day after day, laying weary finger pads ever-so-softly on keyboard, just like my high-school typing teacher taught me to do — asdf   jkl; — was not writer’s block, but a classic case of “mother burnout” and “fustafation” (Rascal’s word for “frustration,” my favourite of all his fabulous words, next to “Podowdow,” his word for “potato”).

Yes, I’m tired. Burnt out. Needing-of-break. Disillusioned by BLOGGING. Why do I do this? Why does anyone do this?

I’ve been trying to force myself to blog at the end of these crazy “fustafating” days — in which, sayyyy, the kids are fighting non-stop, begging to the point of whining, screaming (my God, the screaming), NOT LISTENING TO ANY THING I SAY, pulling the cat’s tail, throwing stools and bowls and trains against freshly. painted. walls….. And why am I forcing myself to blog? For FAME? Sometimes I wonder. Why FAME? Why do people want it? The friends on Facebook, the Twitter followers, A-list, B-list…. What am I? Where do I fit in this community? Where have I been trying to fit in? WHY!? I… I… I….

It’s an ego thing. This social media phenomenon is DESIGNED to grow ego. It’s Starbucks CHAI LATTE CRACK for the ego. COME TO ME. READ ME. BE MY FRIEND. You LIKE me! You REALLY LIKE me! I’m KING OF THE WORLD!

I’m just not interested. I can’t be anymore. I’m not HERE for that. Seriously. I’m a mom wayyyy first. And, maybe because of the overwhelming pressures of motherhood, I don’t know, I find myself getting sucked into the social media vacuum when I finally sit down at the end of the day, selfless, and then sucked into Starbucks’ titillating, sugary wafts when I drop the kids off at school, and twitter when I get the chance, and now Facebook. One day I will write the book on SPIRITUAL social media practice. (Or, at least the blog post?) Agent…, agent…, anyone? Beuller? Is there an echo in here? *Crickets*?

Heheheh, I just said “titillating.”

There’s no such thing as writer’s block. No. There’s pressure to write — either self-, editor- or whatever-imposed.

All I know is first comes recognition. I won’t use social media to find myself. I’m just not there (not here). No one is.

A little unsolicited advice then (to myself): when this mythical monster they call “writer’s block” emerges, just remember you don’t HAVE to write today, or tomorrow. When you realize you don’t have to, it vanishes — like the ghost of your late cat that you thought you saw in your peripheral vision. And then maybe you’ll just write anyway. Like I am tonight. Because you want to.

Because you want to play with words.

Also, I’m not going to look now, but my cat is sitting on my lap staring strangely JUST above my head. I know there’s a glowing cat floating up there…. Just know it.

Sometimes there’s just too much going on, and at the end of the day, you just want to sit on your couch and numb out in front of Celebrity Apprentice (BRET MICHAELS, FTW!), be still like vegetables, lay like broccoli…. And that’s okay! It’s usually those days when you’ve eaten really really badly even though you just overfilled your pantry with health foods from The Big Carrot (which is WAY out of your way but oh-so-awesome)….

I won’t find myself there either….

In the olden days, I may have quit blogging if I couldn’t get my energy up to write for a week straight. But, my online blog buddies and truly loyal readers have taught me over the years that that’s not necessary. If I don’t write here for weeks on end it’s okay. And (though my parents would cringe if they heard me say this — hi mom!), it’s okay to be TIRED, it’s okay to be busy, burnt out, fustafated with ev-er-y-thing…. But writer’s block? Feh.

Love!

xo Haley-O

We actually got back from the country on Tuesday. But then Tuesday night we went to my parents’ house for the second seder, and Wednesday night I was preoccupied with a screaming boy who refused to go to bed, until, that is, I tucked him into my bed with the promise that I’d be back in ten minutes. And, well, of course, ten minutes turned into something like ten hours because I’ve been busy obsessing over THIS….

(He was fast asleep within two minutes, anyway, of course….) So, here’s the thing. If I’m going to call myself a social media consultant/specialist, I’d better have a Facebook account of my own — and not just sneak around Josh’s account (*cough*). If I’m going to continue working on clients’ Fan Pages, I’d better have a Fan Page of my own….

So, there you have it. I HAVE CAVED. Yes, I have caved. And, whad’ya know? There’s a whole space right down there in the comments for you to tell me that (let’s see, what have I heard so far on twitter, Facebook, email, and PHONE [what is "phone"?]), “Haha,” I have “caved,” I “couldn’t resist,” “It was only a matter of time,” “Welcome to 2006,” etc., etc.. Go for it. Have a BLAST. I deserve it.

While you blast me in the comments, I’d love some advice. What do you think a blogger should be doing on Facebook? We tend to overshare…. Do you want to see all our tweets (I’m thinking no…)? Or does that get annoying? How much is too much status updating (I have a debate going on). If you become a FAN of Cheaty Monkey (DO IT), do you expect some extra goodies (I’ll see what I can do) — like REAL fan pages?

Discuss.

Love!

xo Haley-O

So he’s walking around with his father’s iTouch now. And he’s talking. A lot. Unfortunately,  he likes to start most of his words with “f.” This is only really a problem when he’s yelling words like “cracker” over and over again in the grocery store — which has been known to happen. “F*CKER!!! F*CKER!!!” Nice, Rascal. Nice.

So I have a cold — again. Because I don’t take care of myself: I don’t do enough yoga, I don’t eat right (despite what everyone thinks for some reason), I don’t take my vitamins, and my sniffly kids and smelly cat constantly cover me with sloppy kisses. I am so loved. Loved enough that I don’t care that I have the sniffles right now.

So I don’t care about a lot of things I used to care about. Including getting out a decent blog post every time (ahem)…. The internet can suck you in and spit you out and suck you back in again. It spit me out yesterday — and I quite like it here, all spit out. I’m in a good place. I think I’ll stay here. Covered in spit.

So I just wrote three freelance pieces. Yes, I’m freelance writing, like professional for, like, here and here. And I have very little writing steam left in me tonight because of the hours of writing, the sore eyes and sniffles. I really wasn’t going to blog this evening. But the internet spit me out yesterday, so you know….

So now that I’ve written something here, I DO have to go to bed and attempt to read this month’s book club pick (450+ pages!): The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.

So far, it’s excellent. I can easily say I’ve never read anything like it. Deep into the heart of the Mississippi, the Internet spit me out, 1962….

So I remember a while back, this blogger I used to read. She said she loathed when people started sentences with “So.” And so ever since then I’ve been a little self-conscious about my “So”s at the beginning of sentences. But, you see, I don’t care so much now because the internet spit me out. It had to, you know. I wanted it to.

Love!

xo Haley-O

“Oh, I’m sorry! My name’s Nick. I’m a reporter out here in Santa Monica, and I just finished up an interview with Julia [Child] for our paper out here.”

I was really going to have to get my phone number unlisted.

“I’d like to get your thoughts on some things. Because I asked her about you, and frankly, she was kind of a pill about it. Is this a bad time?”

“Oh. No. It’s fine.”

When I hung up the phone five minutes later, I felt numb.

…I sat on the couch beside Eric…. “That was a reporter from California. He just interviewed Julia. He asked her about me. She hates me.” I giggled, like I do in these breathless situations. ”She thinks I’m not respectful or not serious or something.”

…Eric put his arm over my shoulder. “What is she, ninety?”

“Ninety-One,” I sniffled.

“See? She probably doesn’t have the first idea what a blog is.“

…”I don’t know. Maybe she thinks I’m taking advantage or I’m — I’m not –” I was taken surprise by a sudden rush of tears. “I thought I was — I’m sorry if I –”

And then abruptly I was wailing….

–Julie Powell, Julie and Julia, pp. 333-334

So there was a Simon Fraser University Masters thesis written extensively about me and seven other “mommybloggers” (grrr…). I heard about it yesterday, of all places, when I was sitting at Podcamp TO, listening to a panel discussion, of all things, about what happens when social media goes wrong. My heart started pounding when I heard — my face turned beat red, palms sweating, hands shaking.

I’m used to people responding to my individual posts in the comments, on twitter, even on email. I’m definitely not used to someone reading my blog from start to finish, making gross assumptions based on posts here and there, and then publishing these gross assumptions and frustrating misreadings in a thesis — both offline and on — and not telling me about it, even after the fact.

At first I was furious. And I definitely (over)reacted on twitter:

I got really upset that The Thesis wasn’t in fact about the “works” themselves or the genre of blogging, as indicated in The Thesis’ abstract, and that, rather, it was about our lives, our income, whether or not we love that our children are away (for 2.5 hours, hello) at preschool, and so on. When Danigirl sent me the abstract (which was all I could see for hours until I got home to open the pdf file that contained The Thesis), I was a little flattered and excited. To be studied in the context of Bakhtin’s Dialogic, for example, and to be categorized as “Canadian Women’s Literature,” was so cool. Bring it on!

But, when I opened the document and searched my name…, I was floored. All those assumptions about all sorts of irrelevant stuff. It hurt. Bad.

I think the thing that bothered me most was when The Thesis writer suggested that I may have contrived how I started blogging in the first place. I told the world that Ali Martell introduced me to blogging when the Monkey was 8 months old, and that’s the truth — no questions asked. But, according to The Thesis writer, I “contrived” this bit in order to appear flippy and erratic or whatever. In another post, she ingeniously discovers, I mention that Jennifer Lawrence, who happens to be the author of the blog MUBAR (which no longer exists), helped me out when I was clinically depressed while pregnant with the Monkey. (And, by the way, an article was written about my prenatal depression and published in some major psychiatry journal — APA? — and, you betcha, the author asked my permission even though they used an alias and I’d never find it in a million years!). Yes, Jen Lawrence helped me, but it was OVER THE PHONE. I didn’t know she had a blog, or what a blog was.

Why does this bother me? Because it’s an insult to my integrity as a blogger. SURE, I might exaggerate things — for entertainment’s sake — here and there, and less so these days. But I would never flat-out lie. I would never “contrive” something. To me, that’s the ultimate insult to a blogger.

Somewhere, way out yonder in the internet ether, there’s a great old email conversation in which Ali reveals to me, “I HAVE A BLOG,” and to which I reply, “WHAT’S A BLOG???”

Anyway.

Whatever. I’m really okay now. I’m flattered that I’m in an MA thesis, even though the reading of “me” is false and unflattering for the most part. As you can see on twitter, I felt beyond violated and uncomfortable when I first read the thesis. But, I haven’t looked at it since, and I’ll never look at it again — and I feel better. And I can laugh at the broad assumptions, as I’ve also done on twitter:

And, this one….

Oops, how’d that tweet get there? (Disclosure: CONTRIVED.)

Here, see I can make light of The Thesis writer’s totally unfounded statement that I am the most “affluent” of all the bloggers (if she only knew!?):

Should the student have contacted me? It would have been the nice and, I think, scholarly thing to do.

Do I blame the student? Do I “hate” her SORT OF like Julia Child hated Julia Powell? No. I’ve done a Master’s Thesis, and I know how difficult that can be on several levels. This writer wrote the thesis in 2008. She’s obviously young, likely not a mother. There I go assuming, though….

As with all controversies surrounding “mommyblogging,”  people are now taking the opportunity to troll thoughtful posts on the subject and preach about the ethics of “mommyblogging.” We’re putting ourselves and our kids out there for scrutiny and misinterpretation, so apparently we should just suck it up, not react, and just plain expect this. But, surely we’re allowed to “giggle” or “wail.” On twitter?

Know what happened to me today? I went to Starbucks (shut it — I’m not affluent — I got a card for Valentine’s Day). Rascal and I sat beside a woman who was typing on her mini laptop. When she got up to leave, she said:

You know, I’ve been watching you, and you’re a wonderful mother. I see the way you talk to him and look at him, the way he looks at you. And I don’t see that all the time, unfortunately. It’s amazing to watch you. And I’m a therapist….

That compliment, that observation of ME, was so beautiful and so welcomed given my current frustration. And, so often, my readers and fellow bloggers, whether in comments, twitter, or email, make me feel THAT good with their genuine, caring feedback and friendship.

You can’t read a blog and claim to know the writer. As I stated several days ago on twitter,

You can’t judge a blogger by his or her blog. It’s not a novel. It’s its own genre. One absolutely worth exploring at an academic level.

If you’d like to see a copy of The Thesis, just contact me — which is easy to do for the record….

Love!

xo Haley-O

It’s so tempting. So alluring. So inviting. FACEBOOK.

I remember when I first heard about it. Was it, what, three years ago? Josh’s friends asked us if we’d heard of Facebook — “omigosh, you guys, it is so addictive.” Soon, all my friends and family (minus my parents who, sorry it’sgrandma, have no clue about social media, let alone INTERNET, let alone COMPUTER) were on Facebook. But, not me.

From that first day I heard about it, I swore I’d never sign up. “I have a blog,” I’d tell people, “Isn’t that enough internet presence? Plus, if I wanted to stay in touch with EVERYONE I’ve ever known, I’d call them up, or we’d BE FRIENDS NOW.”

Now I add to that: “I have a blog, and I’m on TWITTER. Isn’t that enough internet presence?”

But, then, this morning I go for Starbucks chai tea lattes tea with my friend Eden Spodek — PR/social media guru/BARGAINISTA par excellence — and she makes me believe (ME) that I may want to be on Facebook. Apparently, I need a page for “Haley-O” and a “Fan Page” for “Cheaty Monkey.” I have no idea what either of these things are. Me, freshly self-proclaimed lover of social media.

So, do I? Or don’t I? Must I?

Do I need the added TIME SUCK? Do I need the added PRESSURE (how many friends do YOU have)? Do I need PEOPLE I’D RATHER FORGET reconnecting with me and finding my blog? Do I need all the “I TOLD YOU SO”s I’ll be hearing when/if I finally succumb? Is it worth it? Necessary? Should I? Do I? Must I?

To help you think better, here’s a picture of Minden and me in bed together — for you to meditate on, of course….

I had Josh take this picture, by the way — just to rub it in. Because he MUST be so jealous that I have such a furry cuddler in my life. Lucky me, I tell you. I love this cat. Facebook? Yay or nay?

Love!

xo Haley-O

Today I went to a conference. If you follow me on Twitter you won’t be surprised to learn that I sit hear typing with bright-red bloodshot eyes because I basically tweeted the whole conference via blackberry, or at least most of the great things I learned at CaseCamp — a so-called “unconference” about what venerable organizer Eli Singer calls “deep deep internet culture” — except for a certain genius session about viral videos by a certain SAM REICH of the certain COLLEGE HUMOR, who insisted that whatever happens at CaseCamp stays at CaseCamp. Crush. Check it:

I can do that.

I have the cat….

I just need to get him in the mood and start stalking him. Then he’ll be a STAR like Ninja Cat over there, and like — I haven’t told you yet — RASCAL, who’s going to be doing his first (and only) photo shoot for bTrendie (and if you want to see the photo next week, you’ll have to join with code CHEATY, aiight? Don’t worry you’ll love it — we’re better than ever). He’ll be modeling TEA clothing…. Can you HANDLE it? I can’t.

But, it’s okay if we can’t handle it because, ya know…, there is NO SPOON….

And can you believe Kanye had the nerve to interrupt OBAMA?

“IMMA LET YOU FINISH” — BWAH!

I think CaseCamp ’09 should have been subtitled “IMMA LET YOU FINISH.” Because Kanye and his recent MTV outburst was the joke of every. single. session. And it was hilarious every. single. time.

Indeed, one of the things I learned at CaseCamp was that this whole Kanye IMMA LET YOU FINISH phenomenon is actually a MEME — pronounced MEEM — the most infectious meme around right now (click that one, it’s hilarious). And guess who’s making a mint from it….

I had a GREAT time at the conference, despite the fact that I shed all over my black shirt because I’m apparently a cat now and the weather’s changing (or I desperately need a haircut), and despite the fact that I walked into the men’s washroom — which, according to CaseCamp would classify as EPIC networking FAIL — and stumbled beyond embarrassingly when I introduced myself to the adorable Sam Reich.

Apparently, I love social media. Apparently, I love tweeting and blogging, and I love hopelessly losing myself in this truly awesome deep deep internet culture of ours.

Love!
xo Haley-O