apparently I should be trying to piss you off

This weekend will go down in history as one of many new experiences, from the fancy schmancy hotel staying to the casual conversations with celebrities to being shocked and turning beet red in response to one said celebrity and his surprising action. More will most definitely come soon about all of that-- I promise you, and you may want to slap me upside the head by the time it's all said and done to just shut up already about your LA trip, you egotistical tool.

But, that's not all, for there are other, also blog-worthy aspects of the weekend that range from personal, self-confidence issues to the experience of meeting other, seriously hard core bloggers. When I say that I was a little fish among some can-you-believe-someone-caught-a-fish-that-big-and-won't-you-take-a-picture bloggers, I'm not just being my cute self-deprecating self. I'm talking folks who could casually throw their stats into conversation, with nary a blink of an eye- numbers that elicited tiny, barely audible gasps to escape me. The experience of being with other bloggers was a huge appeal of this trip for me, because I imagined it would be interesting to be among folks who understand the desire to write from one's heart in this type of forum.

It was interesting, to say the least, and a whole lot of fun. And while I still felt somewhat distanced from several people's experiences simply for the fact that my more professional ventures, one of which was the backdrop for my attendance here, are quite separate from my personal blogging, and I just don't have the huge numbers of Interweb readers making their way over here to my silly little space on the net. For me, though, I didn't begin blogging with the intent to "make it big." I don't have ad space, and I'm certainly not making any dough of you modest number of readers. To be quite honest, and I hope none of the six of you out there take this personally, but I don't think too much of you when I sit down to tap away on my little netbook's keys.

Maybe I should be, though. Instead of just writing about my most recent experiences, perhaps I should be blogging with the intent of driving traffic. From tonight's conversation at dinner with several other bloggers, I came away with the idea that if I did indeed want to grow my blog, if I did hope to bring traffic in the types of numbers that I heard about this weekend, I might want to think about being controversial. I might want to piss some folks off. Shall we give it a whirl? Someone said that you have to be passionate about the topics about which you write, so I'm going to test this out, bullet-point style (because it's after midnight here, which translates to after 3 AM for my East Coast body, and I have to be out of the hotel and in a car in less than five hours):

• I am truly passionate about reading, and the power of a good book in a child or an adult's hands. I guess if you don't like to read, you should comment about how my friday's five posts irritate the crap out of you, or how you don't give a rat's patootie about my latest read, and I will tell you to get thee to a library, and maybe it can generate dozens and dozens of comments... no?

•  Okay, how about the fact that I heart NPR. Yup, so much that I blog about my favorite stories from the week each Wednesday. And you know what? I think they're getting screwed by other "media," and I also think they should stop bending over and taking it in the bum, for one thing. Alright, are we getting a little more controversial?

• How about this one? I gave birth to all three of my children sans-medication, in non-hospital settings, attended to by midwives only. Yeah, how's that hit ya? I was a fan of the movie The Business of Being Born, and I do think there is an overmedicalization of the entire pregnancy and childbirth experience in our country. But you know what? That's just my opinion, and it certainly doesn't bear any weight about anyone's decisions but my own. If you want to give birth in a hospital, and get an epidural, well you know what I say?  Well, crap, I say, okay, it's your body and your child, and if you're an adult who's gotten this far in life, surely you're capable of making a decision for your own family and your own body that works for you. Hmmm... I guess that one kinda fell flat on the whole controversial attempt, huh?

• I breastfed all three of my children, although for JAM it just didn't work for more than a couple months, for a variety of reasons. With Red and Pudge, it went just as long as I had hoped and was overwhelmingly positive. But, again, see the last bullet point. If that doesn't work for you, then what's that of my business? As long as you're not handing the kid a bottle filled with whiskey, I've got nothing on ya. Okay... next...

• Oooh, here's one. I circumcised both my sons. Well, hold up a second, I did not do the actual circumcision, as I have absolutely no medical training to do so and I probably would have passed out in the midst of it, but I did sign a ton of papers that allowed a couple of docs to do so. The thing is, I haven't signed any papers for a doc to circumcise anyone else's little boy's little guy, so my gut tells me that this point should be a moot one, but who knows, maybe I'm getting closer to the controversial line?

• Ooh, I got one-- immunizations. I do believe that this one is about more than just you and your child. Go ahead and rake me over the comment coals, but I think you're potentially screwing with my kids' health and the health of our community in general if you opt out of the routine childhood vaccinations. And honestly, I'm not going to buy the vaccs cause autism garbage, so don't even try serving it up. I'm getting better at this already!

• Wanna talk religion?? Oh wait, I'm not ready to go there. Definitely not. I've got strong views on this one, but this kinda circles back to the earlier points that lean toward the "to each his own" attitude. Except, of course, when your religion tells you that it's okay to hate these other people, or bomb these other people, or claim land from this other group, or deny this group the same CIVIL rights that are attributed to you and yours. Then it's so NOT "to each his own," and more of the "leave me the frick alone." 

 Did I do it? Did I piss anyone off? Are you so irate that you're compelled to leave me a comment, or send me an email or maybe even start up a hate group about me on Facebook?! (Can you believe that one is real? And honestly, the blogger is a really nice guy, so I don't know what the group is all hating on!)

Okay, so I hope you- regular reader, first-time reader, whomever- can read the sarcastic tone in my voice. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the big bloggers who I've had the immense pleasure of hanging out with for two days, of course. They were a lively group, so very fun to spend time with, and quite diverse in their focuses, interests and blogging approaches. It's been interesting to hear how different blogging can be if you're experiencing it in a more "big-time" sort of fashion, too. I'm not sure if that's something I aspire to... while it would be certainly nice to translate other people's clicks into paying some of my bills, I just don't see it happening. I'm not sure that I'm destined to get the types of discourse in my comments section that others may experience, either (unless of course my stalker-in-law ever decides to publicly make her presence known again).

At the end of the day, I guess I blog for the simple fun of blogging. For putting abstract thoughts into concrete words, with the occasional accompanying photo. For the hope that someone might enjoy an NPR story, or a book, or a joke, or a funny kid story as much as I did. I do hope that I reach a person or two out there, but I don't see my style of blogging or inspiration for blogging changing anytime soon.


Living with small stats and a big heart,