Friday, May 02, 2008

You can't handle the mommy wars

Earlier this week, I spent a couple of hours reading a blog from beginning to end. It's rare for me to do that. Most blogs we review on here, even the best ones, can't keep my interest for more than a couple of dozen posts. The ones that do pull me in are the ones with a compelling story that moves me emotionally beyond just mere interest or a laugh.

The people whose blogs I read daily are people who struggle, who are fully human--warts and all--and are aware of their own frailties. They show me their souls.

So, I was assigned to review this blog. I read for an hour or so, and made several visits. I have yet to see a blog with more words and less substance.

The most striking parallel I can offer is this. Read it. If you can read that goddamn post and not fucking cry like a baby, then you have a black soul-sucking abyss where your heart should be. Then, compare it to this.

So. Your template is like a hideous explosion in a scrapbooking store. Are you sure no one was injured in it's creation? I had awful visions of firefighters walking away from the scene, covered with flowered stickers. For the record, I hate that kitschy brand of faux cute. It's like those Vera Bradley purses that everyone in my neighborhood carries these day, overpriced and hideous. And everyone pretends to like them, and says how cute they are at the bunko party, and inside their heads, if they are sane at all, they are thinking, "Girl, in what world is a puce and hot pink paisley purse gonna match anything?"

Think of me as your crotchety old Aunt Ruby who will stand up in the Chuck-a-Rama and speak truths like: "Why are you wearing that ugly leopard-skin shirt?" The truth is: ugly is ugly. I have nothing to gain by lying to you and kissing your ass.

I would say that you write acceptably, if this were high school and the teacher was counting words on a page for an assigned number. At least, you use correct grammar and punctuation. However, after reading for an hour, I find that I don't give a good goddamn what you have to say because there is no heart. Even when you write about the mommy wars, you write meaningless tripe that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the complex issues and emotions involved, and even manages to misunderstand the perspectives involved.

Your blog is the same as millions of other blogs from standard-issue, boring, cookie-cutter, entitled, overpriced-kids'-clothes-shopping, SUV-driving, suburban women with too much time on their hands and an incredibly superficial view of the world and their place in it.

Every single one of your posts is about 3 times as long as it should be, and filled with so many words that reading them brought me within an inch of a fatal head explosion. Take this post. Do you not realize that it really could be said in a single sentence? Maybe two. How about this:
"I need to lose weight."
There's your post...5 words. Now, do the same with the others.

PEOPLE: Writing is more than stringing a bunch of words together on a page. If there is no point, DON'T FUCKING DO IT.

I don't hate you. Frankly, I can't muster enough energy to hate you. Your blog bores me to tears. I'm sure there are other people, just like you, who would read it. I'm not one of them.

Here's a life tip: Get off the damn computer. Go hug your kids. Thank your husband for the fence. Tell him that you don't appreciate him nearly enough. Give him a well-deserved blowjob. Go outside. Sit in the sunshine. Shut the fuck up. You can thank me later for this one, when you're old and wise like me, and have actually been through some shit.

I know you are probably going to think this is a hate-filled and unfair review, but in some tiny part of your soul, you also have to know that what I've written is true. Every post is an apologist treatise for your life.

Before I end, I want to show you some real, compelling blogging:

This.
This.
This.
This.
This.

Please, stop with the posing.

54 comments:

  1. Really?

    Hmm.

    She kinda just strikes me as a lonely housewife who's struggling to improve herself and keep up with societal demands.

    Like, it'd be a shame for a college degree to go to waste, so she's writing a manuscript.

    Or, she wants more energy to love those kids and cherish her husband, so she wants to lose weight and feel healthier.

    Sounds a lot like a valid struggle to me - something you say you look for in blogs. Maybe you sold her short because of a poor template design?

    ~ Driz

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  2. Nothing on this blog kept me locked on and I tried.

    I do have to say that it brought tears to my eyes to see my Jadon Riley post listed. Thank you.

    Oh and Driz still needs to get laid.

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  3. Well... I disagree a little with Love Bites. But not all that much. Because the posts are way too long and that makes them tough to read from beginning to end.

    I was going to say that I like the template because I really do like pink and brown together, and I really do like the scrapbooking look... but then I realized the paisley on the header was giving me a headache, literally. So I'm sorry, but the template really IS too busy.

    But the post about your anniversary... I could so totally relate. And I exactly get what you're saying there. And it struck me. Perhaps not like Sandi's envy post, but it did really strike me. I see it as a valid example of being taken for granted and I could really relate to your frustration. But what I have to keep reminding myself when it happens is that if I am honest with myself, I do it to my husband too. And I didn't get that sense of self-realization from you.

    I mostly see a superficial glossing over of whatever topic you post about. Which would tend to make the abercrombie award a valid one.

    So I'd say... dig deeper, but edit more. A lot more. Figure out what you really care about, and make us care too. Because other than that anniversary post, I really didn't.

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  4. Betsy:

    That post about Jadon was beautiful, and it DESERVES to be read.

    This blog, in it's present form, doesn't.

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  5. Yeugh.

    What'd she do, design the blog as a grade 3 art & crafts project?

    Where's the elbow-macaroni & glow-in-the-dark stars?

    Blagh.

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  6. My dog's breath smells like dog food.

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  7. Elbow macaroni would be an improvement on this design.

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  8. True - at least yesterday's blogstress' template looked like it was an accident; this is the work of someone whose husband didn't want shitty wallpaper up in their house.

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  9. I think what we are saying here is that diarrhea brown beats paisley.

    Somebody call men's tie designers around the world.

    Paisley is the new poo.

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  10. He may not want shitty wallpaper, but honest to blog, I bet that his house looks like Vera Bradley blew up.

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  11. And Barbie. I bet barbie was somehow involved in that explosion, too.

    I guess what I'm saying here is that I get the sense that Mr. Engineer does a hellalot of shutting up and taking it.

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  12. I dunno guys, you all seem gosh-darned mean. I went and took another look, and hand on the bible, I think you're missing out on a diamond in the rough.

    I admit the template isn't the greatest, but aren't we here to review the writing? She covers a ton of topics, she's pretty versatile and posts regularly.

    I dunno. I'm curious to see how she takes the review.

    ~ Driz

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  13. Oh, Driz, you rabble-rouser.

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  14. Driz,

    The past few days I was gonna say that I couldn't stand you.

    Today I find myself siding with you. And that scares the hell out of me.

    So... are they right? Did you get laid? Cause I'm not sure I can stand agreeing with you too often.

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  15. Dude, she's censoring herself.

    I'll bet if she had a secret blog it'd be all Abercrombie on fire.

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  16. Okay, so I went back and read this chick's anniversary posting and seriously? I wanted to slap her.

    Why? Because I had an exhusband that didn't do anything romantic or helpful like putting a fence up. Putting a fence up would have rocked my socks.

    And if my husband took the first sunny day of the year to put the fence up and it was our anniversary, well then fucking great. I'd sit out on the deck with the baby gate closed, drink a beer and say "Way to work hard, honey bear".

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  17. Maybe that's what it is for me. I am a single mom with two kids who works full-time and handles the mortgage and all the expenses on my own. I have no fall-back position, everything is on my shoulders, from mowing the yard, to fixing the grill (did that this weekend), to paying the bills and planning the vacations.

    If someone wanted to put up a fence for me on my birthday, I'd bring him a cold beer (several, actually), and probably even give him a blowjob.

    I'd be THAT grateful.

    Do you know what fanciful girly gift I've picked out for Christmas to buy for myself?

    Oh yeah, baby...doesn't it make you hot just looking at it?

    Rawr.

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  18. p.s. Driz has been abducted by pod people. This is soooo stepford Driz. It's making my skin crawl, in fact.

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  19. I skimmed. I loathe the color pink with all my shriveled and blackened soul, and the header looks like my grandmother's living room trim.

    The writing needs tightened, a lot. If she wanted to write about how she got to be a latchkey kid at 8 (solidarity, sister! latchkey kids, unite!), I might be interested, but the rant about out the world hates her because she stays at home? Is kind of tired to me. Like she says, it's her own choice, tell the world to fuck right on off, as opposed to discussing how unfair it is. Lara has a point: it is very superficial, glossy even.

    Also, as I was clicking through the blogs at the bottom, I was all "Holy shit, that's me!" when mine showed. Thanks! And Betsy's post about Jadon was gorgeous.

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  20. Captain Steve:

    Don't you know that I like you? Don't you know that I love the very lowkey way your write about yourself? I have you linked ON MY PERSONAL SUPER SECRET BLOG. You are on my list of daily reads, even if I don't comment a lot.

    Do you feel special now?

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  21. Awww, shucks.

    Love Bites, that's exactly it. Maybe you have to be in a place where you do absolutely everything, with no help in sight before you realize that sometimes, just sometimes a fence is the sexiest thing out there.

    My husband puts gas in my car and stains our deck. To me? That is the cat's pajamas folks.

    Hell, I'm going to hand him a beer when he gets home tonight... and I think he's going to get lucky too.

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  22. Seriously? Alexander Hamilton has never looked sexier to me than the day he stood on a ladder and cleaned out my gutters for me.

    You better believe he got a blowjob for that.

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  23. Yes, the staining of the deck. I did that, along with power-washing the entire exterior of my house, earlier this year.

    Good times, people, good times. The glamour of my life is appalling. I'm like a fucking rock star diva in how I live.

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  24. I actually don't mind kitschy, but even I think this template is too busy.

    Much like myself, if ever someone spent more time chasing her own ass with too many words, this chick is that person. I got lost on several posts and had to start over.

    But I like the blog. I'm the rare person that can see both sides because after years of being a single parent with no help at all, at the same time I'm told I'm going to die young, I recently walked away from a decent career. I am now a kept woman.

    Now I spend my days wondering how the hell that stain got onto that article of clothing. Not to mention how the fuck I'm going to get it out.

    Oh, and wasting time ranting on this website. Like I don't have a perfectly nasty floor to mop.

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  25. For the love of hardcore Jesus, I don't hate her because she's a kept woman. I hate her because she's a superficial, wordy twit.

    I like kept women. I wish I were one.

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  26. "For the love of hardcore Jesus" is now one of my favourite expressions...it ranks up there with "god bless those pagans".

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  27. If you see a t-shirt that says:

    "Superficial, Wordy Twit"

    Don't be surprised. That? is fantastic.

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  28. Also, I hate the fact that I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she has wallpaper that matches her blog somewhere in her house.

    And really? People should be unceremoniously executed just for that.

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  29. p.s. My ideal job would be concubine.

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  30. Well the anniversary post struck home to me because that's all my husband does. Work. Work comes before me, before the kids, before anything. Work is about all we do around here, and he expects us all to work with a good attitude alongside him. And I face the rest of my life knowing it will probably always be this way. And I'm really sick of it.

    If he never built fences, then yeah I can see your point. But I married him cause I kinda like him. At least I used to. And I'd like to have a little time to ENJOY with him, without having to grab the shovel and dig fence posts alongside him.

    I probably have more than my share of blog posts that sound JUST like that anniversary post because I know I vent about it too often. It's the one thing that keeps me from hurting him.

    The other thing is that he's a powerlifting black belt, and I'm just a wimpy pacifist. LOL

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  31. I feel totally special now!

    I want a "God bless those pagans" shirt. Like, now.

    At some point I think I will be a kept woman, just simply because it is my theory that you should get married 5 times: 1. For love, because you've got to get that shit out of your system. 2. Money, then he dies. 3. For kids and housework 4. For a nursing home companion 5. For money, except this time it's your money he's marrying you for, because he's 18. And the circle of life continues.

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  32. Hell's bells, I don't think I've ever been as misunderstood as what I've been since I logged online this morning. I'll come back when I can figure out how to take my foot out of my mouth and make sense.

    Trying to form complete thoughts has exhausted me. I don't even want to fuck Driz anymore, and I've fantasized about that since he started the "I Fucking Hate Driz" movement on my blog earlier.

    Somedays I really shouldn't get out of bed.

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  33. I have my theories on my why he would rather build a fence than spend time with her...

    But I'll keep those to myself.

    Lord knows, she whines enough.

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  34. I agreed with your take on the blog. As for the SAHM v working mom post, her kid might have learned to count to ten just from watching Dora everyday.

    She seems nice enough, but if she thinks like she writes, I wouldn't be able to be a soulmate, I would just be wishing for each conversation to end.

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  35. AKKK! Sorry! I posted that last comment on my daughter's profile! LOL, she staying here for a week. So it's just me and as for the fence post, hubby is getting the wrigley's treatment from me tonite right after work. Ever try that?

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  36. Jan B, are you planning to wallow in the gutter with the rest of us pigs and tell us something naughty? If so, pull up a chair and stay awhile. ;)

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  37. I did ask for it. TO be succint, I don't have a lick of wallpaper in my house. Period. My house is very...umm, not VB.

    I also am a frustrated writer first, a wife second, and a mother third. If you look at the blog posts, that was one of the two? times I complained about my hub.

    And my kids learn from ME, not TV.

    Thanks for bending me over. Can you use Vaseline on the exit next time?

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  38. When you've earned vaseline, you'll get vaseline.

    Now, it rubs the lotion on it's skin, or it gets the hose, again.

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  39. Oh now see, we are totally different.

    In my house we lick the wallpaper and use Vaseline on the entrance.

    To each his own I guess.

    Oh and Love Bites:

    When I was pregnant I told my husband to say something to my tummy because our son could hear him. And he chose that very movie quote to say.

    Therapy anyone?

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  40. Yup, she's a waste of food.

    A mother third? Are you kidding me?

    I'd threaten to hit you with my car but you'd probably total the thing on impact.

    I'll let gravity and father time do my dirty work, and wait patiently for the eventual implosion.

    ~ Driz

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  41. Driz--I was referring to blogland, not real life, in the listing of what...you know what? Never mind.

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  42. I hope, hope, hope, hope, hope your husband reads your blog, Lovey, and can get his balls back before it's too late.

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  43. Hah. I'm so right.

    Her blog designer says this about Lovey:

    She's a strong, dominant woman who likes to have things her way. I wouldn't call her a control freak (to her face), but she certainly wears the pants in that family.

    Can someone translate that out of friend-speak for me?

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  44. I hate long posts but I like this blog.

    I just don't read all the words.

    Sometimes ADD is good...

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  45. Shhhh, don't startle the DRUNKEN HOUSEWIFE is my new hero.

    Love Bites, thanks for linkin' to that post. I am a better woman for having read that.

    I do believe that may be the best damn post I have ever read.

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  46. My husband does read my blog. We also dicuss a myriad of things that never make it to the blog. He owns his testicles, and they're impressive.

    My blog is a place for ME to write about ME. Things that bother ME. It's all about me, and sometimes, it's all about shallow me.

    Why does one rant piss you off so much, anyway? I'm lost on that one.

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  47. What makes you think I'm pissed? I think you are seeing emotions that aren't there.

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  48. drink some red wine and the emotions will go away.

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  49. I promise.

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  50. Love Bitch: Any chance ya'll will put a search box on your sidebar? Typing search?q= everytime I wanna look for something is a pain.

    金太郎: You're totally right. It is done with the elevator of the house! However, you were hasty; it did more with favor, when the door opened.

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  51. I will totally do that sometime this week, Bagela. I'm in an airport right now and on a laptop with fake nails...you know that shit is hard on a laptop.

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  52. Thank you for putting up a link to me, dahling, and to put me with my lovey, Capt. Steve, it's all just too fabulous.

    I have to say that clearly the diss wasn't based upon the offender's template, since everyone at Ask And Ye Shall Receive fucking hates my template with a vengeance (sorry! I am not a graphic artist! And every graphic artist I ask to help me, says she will but then ends up just leading me on and then blowing me off, and not in a good way).

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Grow a pair.