Mama loves parentheses

Guest review by jen’lltellya.

Today it’s all about Warm Chocolate Milk. Yellow makes my brain hurt. The thought of Warm Chocolate milk just makes my stomach churn. Some mommy bloggers drive me crazy. I got lucky this week and got all three.

When you first open Warm Chocolate Milk, you are greeted by a huge blog header surrounded by vast amounts of mustard yellow. You are greeted by Susan who explains in her “About me” that she is a 30-something married whose whole existence is it make warm chocolate milk for her two boys. I’d like to think my own role on this planet is more than being subservient to the chocolate milk demands of the spawn of my loins.

Susan also likes parenthesis. Lots of them. She is prolific in her use of parenthesis. I’ve never seen a blog with so many aside comments. Susan, not everything is an aside. Not every post needs them. Commas can also be your friends. They, like parenthesis, like to be used. See? Commas.

After you get through the yellow, the extra parenthesis, the queasy feeling you get from thinking about hot chocolate milk, Susan isn’t a bad writer. She is honest and open, and even better, you find some funny in her world.

She identifies herself as a mommy blogger. Susan, rip yourself away from that. I think you are selling yourself short, especially when you delve into unexpected places like this. Then sometimes, you whine but then you say hobo baby and I laugh. Hobo baby.

Stop it. I want to be mean. I tried to be horrid and harsh, but I like you. I want to hang out with you, make you mixed drink you’ll like.

You say, “I write this blog because I love to write, and because the connection that is made here to other women is important to me.” Well, you don’t have to be a mommy blogger to connect with other women. You just have to relate to them through your writing, talk about the other things you think about, not just what the kids do.

Change your damn template. Come up with a new blog name besides warm chocolate milk. Warm chocolate milk just screams bottles buried under the back seat of the car in the summer. You are not a milk maid. Your whole existence is NOT to make your boy children chocolate milk three times a day.

I give you two stars because you made me laugh and for your honestly.



You get a meh for your template.



Go find something that’s more about who you are instead of the crap you have on your blog now.

We're here, we're queer, get used to it

One of the things that amazed me, when I started reading Lori Hahn's blog, lo these many moons ago, was how normal she was.

I mean, not normal in the bad, boring sense, but normal in the good sense: down to earth, funny, wise, basic. The kind of girl you'd want to get together with and drink red wine and talk about dating and work and teen woes and vaginas with. The kind of girl you'd want to cozy up to in a chic restaurant and share dessert with. Cool normal. The fact that she'd be talking about dating girls, and I'd be talking about dating men wouldn't matter, because in our essence, we'd be sharing the same struggles...balancing work/lovelife/motheroood...growing into our own as women...finding work we love to do...finding people we can work to love.

So, last month, when Lori closed her blog, I was sad. But like so many bloggers do, she closed a door, and opened a window: Our Big Gayborhood.

And, like most things, it's a mix of goods and bads.

The good:

I like most of the writers, and I find the topics they select, for the most part, interesting. I like the header image, the fact that the blog uses tabs, and most of the content. In an overall sense, the blog experience is more positive than negative.

But, I think it could be improved. So, that's what I'm going to focus on:

1. Some stuff has gotten lost.

Blogs are primarily a vehicle for telling stories, unless you're Glenn Reynolds or something (and who really wants to be him?). The blog is too newsy and not storied enough...for me. Way too many of the posts read like a fifth grade report on being a lesbian.

If you're going to out politicians, I want juicy details. TELL THE STORY. Tell it in a way that sucks me in. This story is full of juicy, schadenfreudian details, and THEY AREN'T TOLD in this post. Instead, the author jumps directly into lecture mode.

Beyond that, the organization of a post is crucial, and subjects need to flow into one another. The post could have started with the idea of people turning colors based upon sexual identity (great visual), and then have segwayed into the fall of the Republican hypocrite, who's clearly magenta on the color scale. Then, move into a discussion of public figures, and the issue of outing themselves or being outted. The organization of the post is the main problem that keeps the reader from being fully engaged. I'd urge, for political commentary, some reading of Leonard Pitts, Jr., who does an excellent job of merging story telling with political commentary. For instance, here's a good example: Jihad Jane. Pitts uses Jihad Jane's story to make a point, but first he has to humanize her...let people in...help them understand her. He tells her story to make his point. He doesn't make his point to tell her story. That never works.

You can't just stand on your soapbox and yell, people will avert their eyes and walk on by. Instead, you have to expose your humanity and vulnerability, and show people why they should care. You have to make them WANT to care. Jihad Jane's story is compelling not because she is so different from all of us, but because she is the same. It's our sameness that brings us together, not our differences.

2. I'm not sure who this blog is written for. I'm a straight girl, and this is a pretty queer blog. There are a lot of subjects here that appear to be written primarily for queer audience, and frankly, I don't get them and/or have a lot of interest the subjects. So, who is your target audience? If it's me, you need to do things differently.

Lori's blog was compelling because she was so very human, so very much like me....middle-aged, looking for love, raising kids. I could relate to her and thus enjoyed the gift of looking at life through her queer eyes. But, this blog doesn't connect to the average reader as well, probably because it feels much less personal and revealing.

The difference is like reading a term paper written by a high school student, and reading that kid's secret journal. The one is always going to be more compelling than the other.

3. Gayborhood needs editing up to some consistent standard. It's awesome to have a diverse pool of writers, but you need to tighten things up.

Some posts are conversational, others read like a college term paper:

When the United States Army announced the creation of a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942 not everyone was happy. A writer for the Miami News spoke for many of his fellow Americans when he decried the plan, saying women who would be interested in enlisting were “the naked Amazons and the queer damozels of the isle of Lesbos.”

Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Of course women who weren’t stereotypically feminine and who loved the company of other women would have been especially likely to get excited about serving in the military during World War II. Other young women may have signed up assuming they were heterosexual, but once they enlisted, the military was to many of them like a poor woman’s Wellesley or Bryn Mawr: Like students in early twentieth-century women’s colleges (those wonderful hotbeds of lesbianism), women who joined the military now found themselves in an environment where females worked together in important pursuits, and where they could become heroes to one another without the constant distraction of male measuring sticks. It’s not surprising that many women discovered lesbian feelings through their military experiences in World War II.

Wow, that's a fucking wall of text that will knock the blocks outta your brain. Break some of those sentences up into smaller pieces, remove the redundancy, and clean that shit up. Y'all need an editor, BADLY.

For instance, this piece could be incredibly poignant, if it had told the story, instead of turning into a "my summer vacation as a transsexual" report. TELL THE SMALLER STORY, instead of trying to turn the post into something larger. If you tell the small story properly, the larger point will be made.

4. The blog template, itself, isn't particularly user-friendly. You have tabs, you just need to use them more wisely. A lot of what is in the sidebar should really be behind a tab. Put the Author blog links behind a tab, use the label function and put a list of topics on another tab, etc. etc. For a multi-writer blog, I'd recommend something more like what Gawker does, because you're really becoming more of an online zine and less of a blog. And, the focus should be on the content, and not on the sidebar.

So, there are the cons.

But then, there are jewels like this that are the whole reason that I blog, and read blogs, and review blogs.

So, my candid advice is: do more of this, and less of this. Stop throwing words and labels at people--feminist, homophobe, patriarchal, heterosexual, queer--and focus on being HUMAN. Your best posts do that, your worst posts use words like walls.

I'm saying that selfishly, of course, because some parts of the gayborhood are just too preachy to engage me. I received all the preaching I ever needed during the first 22 years of my life, growing up Southern Baptist. The baptists have their own dogma and special words of the faith, too, and they are turn-offs to anyone outside the clique.

When in doubt, Hedon is always right:

I guess what I’m recommending is to simply live your life. When you find the right person, grab on and make the commitments between yourselves that will make your lives a joy.

For now, I give you one star, with the promise of more if things get better.

What Doesn't Itch

A reivew, by Dartboard Jones.

Bienvenidos, Amigos. It must be slim pickin's for writers these days, because one of the crazy bitches at AskAndYeShallReceive is actually going to let me review. Needless to say, I am drunk with power at the moment and I can't wait to tear into someone else's shitty website.

So who's up? Sartorially Inclined. A blog about men's fashion.

Okay, I'll give this a shot. I probably should preface with the fact that I barely know how to dress myself. I buy clothes once a year and it's usually when I pilfer from the discount rack at the Gap outlet.

I think I'd almost rather collect DNA samples from Oprah Winfrey's used incontinence pads than read a blog about fashion, but Madame Bellicose told me if I didn't do it she was going to beat me with a 9-iron.

To start things off I dig the use of a SAT word in site name.

Sartorially: adj. Of or relating to a tailor, tailoring, or tailored clothing: sartorial elegance.

You bust out that word at a Harvard bar and I guarantee you get Minny Driver's digits. How 'bout them apples?

Not much in the About Me: "How would you describe your style?" I asked. He replied, like the perfect eloquent jackass he was, "Smooth and slow burning."

That's it? Well at least I know you are a pretentious pink-shirt wearin' douchebag. Not a necessarily a negative in my book, provided you keep me entertained from this point forward.

The layout is sexy. It's stylish. It reminds of LeBron James wearing an argyle sweater and a polo shirt. You can't exactly explain why, but damn he's looking good. Simple black text on a white background with a neat and recognizable logo at the top. If only every website that is submitted for approval here was like that, I imagine Rassles anger induced hemorrhoids would go away.

So with such a leadup, what would you expect? Maybe some fashion tips for a cro-magnon dude like me who want to spruce up their look. Maybe insider reporting on the fashion industry? Some snarky writing about do's and don'ts of fashion this year?

Nope. None of that. Instead you get....well, I'm not exactly sure what the fuck this is supposed to be. He does things like posting a bunch of pictures of green things. Then he takes an album cover and posts things that have the same colors in them. Then he had a post of pictures of basketball players, recycled from a GQ list. Hey I have an idea, why don't you either post an interesting link, OR contribute something to the blogosphere, instead of repeating what someone else said. If I wanted a list of things to read that other people wrote, I'd go to Digg goddammit! I don't know, I guess for a guy who buys his underwear at Walmart and owns one suit, maybe I'm missing some inner fashion brilliance. Maybe I'm not.

Look, L.A.S., let me be clear. I don't dislike you, I just think you are boring. The frustrating thing is that he writes for Debonair and the articles could actually be contrived as interesting. Well, as interesting as Brooks Brothers loafers and Ralph Lauren cardigans can get. I personally would rather read a phonebook. But it's not like L.A.S. is bad writer. Every once in a while he'll put out a gem. I just wish it happened more often.

I've decided that reading this blog reminds me of a job I had in college once where I swiped ID cards at the campus recreation center. I would sit there staring at the wall as I swiped ID cards for hours at a time. It was safe. It was never stressful. It was also the most boring 20 hours a week I've ever had.

My advice L.A.S. ? Be more insightful than just posting pictures of clothes you want to buy, and then maybe we can talk about giving you some stars.

Because you bore the ever living shit out of me.

Are Your Parents Siblings?

Sometimes I have an irritable bowel that acts up. When my irritable bowel doesn’t act up I am a charming little sweet pea. When it does act up, (and I consider acting up three trips to the bathroom in less than thirty minutes because I need to expel huge volumes of diarrhea) I get mighty dehydrated, crampy, and bitchy. But other than that, I am an easy going kind of girl. B-u-b-b-l-e-girl made me feel the same way my irritable bowel makes me feel sometimes—dehydrated, crampy, and bitchy.

When I made my way to Bubblegirl, I saw this title and thought, "oh goody. I love sex and bendy people!" But then I read on and realized it was a colossal let-down. There wasn’t anything really sexy about it.

Bubblegirl has a disease, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is a group of inherited disorders that affect your connective tissues. Some of the more prominent symptoms of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome include flexible joints that extend beyond the normal range of movement. Oh, and you have skin that is especially stretchy or fragile. Not that you would know any of that from Bubblegirl’s blog.

The title of the blog is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome: Deal With It. The rest of the title should say, "If you like married hypochondriacs that have absolutely nothing interesting to say."

About Me sections are for giving the reader pertinent info that will help them learn about you and your lame ass blog. All I got from your About Me section is that you are from Canada and you like karaoke. If you want people to deal with the fact that you have this disease that no one has ever heard of, write about something other than this fucking disease. It is very hard for others to not define you by this god-awful affliction if that is all you have to say. And unfortunately for me, this is all you have to say. Over and over and over again.

Bubblegirl doesn’t even post enough to actually warrant a review. At the time of this review she has posted 52 times in 2 years. If this is a way of keeping friends and family informed of the latest round of tests or whatever bullshit is going on with you, I have a brilliant suggestion. Get your family and friend’s e-mails together and send them updates. Please do this so that others who want to write and can’t imagine their existence without words in a row don’t have to share space with you on Blogger (which is the only thing you are doing right at the moment). This is going to hurt, but am saying it anyway. While I was trying to find a morsel of redeeming quality about your blog I found myself popping back over to WebMD and the Mayo Clinic website because their info on your particular disease was way more interesting than the mundane bullshit on your blog.

When I saw this or this, I was constantly screaming, "Tell me why in the blue fuck I should care about this litany of ailments?" If you thought having Ehlers-Danlos was shitty, try having to read about all these boring ass things you go through. It is excruciating.

Here is where you have to make a decision. Tell me why you are using a vibrator, how it really makes you feel that you are the real life inspiration for the movie Unbreakable, and explain just what kind of dumbasses stumble across your path as a secretary or just stop. And by stop, I mean end your blog. But I wonder if you want your blog to be anything more than medical updates. If that is the case, why would you ask to be reviewed? You need to read this review, and this hint and then give your final answer. There are about 37 other things I wanted to tell you to do but until you reconcile the content/writing issue, there really isn’t a point to even bringing those up.

I bet you are a nice girl. I bet you are fun to be around for like the first five minutes until you start complaining about your sprained finger from washing dishes. I bet I would have a beer with you if you didn’t post pics of this.

Having a shitty disease and maybe being nice doesn’t make me be nice. Dame Chisel doesn’t like to waste time. And your blog is a waste of time. A long, boring, mind-numbing waste of time. This review was my first for AAYSR. I am almost pissed that my reviewing cherry was popped on this gigantic turd. But everyone’s first time can’t be perfect. Now I can get back to something really worthwhile, like dealing with my irritable bowel.

I wanted to give you this

But instead I gave you this because you do have this awful disease and it’s obviously the only thing you’ve got going for you.

I'll have a cocktail please, with funny in it

Most of the seasoned Askers around here are well aware of the general sentiment of the reviewers regarding Humor Bloggers.

You can imagine the weary sigh I let out when I started reading the earlier posts of today's reviewee to discover yet another Humor Blogger, fishing for ratings. So, another self-awarded graduate from the University of Funny, certified to club me to death with the blogging equivalent of tired, predictable slapstick wants a review. I began to wonder what I could possibly say that hasn't already been said. But a good educator is a patient one, and so I put on my ass kickin gear and prepared myself to write an exegesis on the suck that is Humor Bloggers.*

As I stared squarely at a header that looked just fuckin stupid in Firefox, a template lacking any proper About Me page with the dreaded sidebar of doom, I began to hope for Johnny B's sake that he had spent his time since submitting his blog for review invoking St. Genesius, the patron saint of comedians (which, I presume, also covers self-proclaimed comedians whose jokes flop like bored, neglected genitals. In any case, St. Genesius is also the patron saint of torture victims, so I believe all our bases are covered).

But Johnny B didn't need the help of any saints. (Besides, I gathered he's Jewish so I doubt they would have come to his aid). It turns out he's actually funny. And not the kind of funny that only includes doctored images of celebrity that are apparently certifiably funny because two million other morons have posted them on facebook and have littered your email account with them making you want to telepathically torture everyone on the idiot chain of forwards. I'm talking about the funny that comes from the depths of personality, that seems enviably effortless, that has such delightful subtlety at times making you know it has not been pawned from another moocher or has been rotting in his brain for so long that it comes out with too much volition.

Johnny B has the ability to make the reader feel like they're sitting in front of him having a beer, eating up the fruits of mirth he throws at them. He does clever commentary with personal humor, all the while treating his readers to one liners that stick to your brain throughout the day. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: good humor is like good sex; by surprise, from behind, and riddled with blasphemy, and Johnny B seems to get that.

The only thing I can really hate on here Johnny B, (are you listening?) is that you seem to have labeled yourself funny, which I think is hindering you from letting readers enjoy the entire spectrum of who you really are. You sometimes seem to want to go deeper, sometimes you meekly whisper about it. I already know you're funny, but what else are you? Your sense of humor is way too good to be smashed up inside a pre-fab jack-in-the-box where there's only room for a clown inside. You can expand your box and also put anxiety and frustration and pride and love and secret hysteria and your colossal fuck-uppery in there, or you can ditch the box altogether. I don't mean for you to peel back the layer of funny and give me tears and pain absent any humor. I'd be willing to bet that if you opened yourself up to sharing more of your various shades, your humor would find a way to seep into all the cracks and crevices available for humor inherent in those other parts of being human.

Here are a few examples of what I mean, examples of humor finding it's way into deeper unexpected places, that I think is probably one of the hardest things to do as a writer.

But you know what? The fact that this aspect could use some beefing up by you wasn't enough to make me put these four stars back in my pocket and save them for someone more deserving.






Because dammit, you made me giggle like an idiot today and blink wide eyed at you waiting for you to open your mouth again.

But if you tried to coalesce and commingle your humor with the other parts of your persona, it would all self-rise into a truly delectable concoction, and you'd get an IFLY from me.

*And then I discovered that Humor Bloggers is no more.

Growing Old Grumpily

I can't wait to get old. I sincerely look forward to a time when I can say whatever the fuck I want and people will just put up with it because, "Poor grandma's got dementia". Old people get to sit and watch their programs all the live long day and they don't have to worry about being skinny anymore and their doctors prescribe them really good drugs. And I wouldn't really mind the grim reaper breathing down my neck because I don't really fear death so much as a I look at it as more of a never-ending nap. I like naps. I assumed when I saw the title of today's blog, Grumpy Granny, that I would be peering into the life of someone living out my geriatric fantasy. I got something much different.

Grumpy Granny isn't even that old. She's 52, which may have seemed old to me when I was in high school but not now. A 68 year old woman could die of cancer and I'd shake my head and say, "She was so young." Grumpy Granny is indeed grumpy and also a granny, so her blog is aptly named. What is she so damned grumpy about? Well for one, all the pussy she missed out on the 45 years she spent living as a heterosexual when she is really a lesbian. She's also mighty pissed off about having to help her incompetent daughter look after her two sons. But, sweet Jesus, I'm glad she's doing it anyway. I'm not a perfect parent by any one's definition, but I can honestly attest to the fact that none of my offspring has ever been injured by a firearm. What else is she grumpy about? I'll let her answer that:

Which brings me to one of the reasons why I’m grumpy. I realized just the other day, as I contemplated turning 50 with excitement, that I have been dealing with the fallout of my really bad choice to be a parent for HALF MY LIFE!!!!!!!! Oh, dear god, half my life. I gave birth to my daughter when I was 25, and it’s been downhill from there. I was a very reluctant parent. I never wanted to have kids, never wanted to be married at all. I just wanted to be me, independent and flaky as I was.

That wonderful slice of brutal honesty is from her very first post, folks. She just jumped right into the blog pool with both feet and I love her for it. As I sit here feeding a newborn a bottle of liquid that is so expensive it might as well be fucking melted gold and listening to another one screaming bloody murder in the bassinet because he has a load in his pants, it really makes me wish I had met grumpy granny about a year ago and listened to her sage advice about not having kids unless you are truly committed to the lifetime of sacrifice that entails. I love my children and wouldn't send them back for all the opium in China, but having kids is truly not a gig everyone should sign up for. Grumpy Granny certainly doesn't sugar coat her feelings about parenthood. Check this out:

It’s a horrible horrible thing to wish your own child was dead, but half the time I do. All I can see in her future is misery and chaos. And it seems to be just what she wants.

The problem I have with this blog is that it is, at times, a little too "rambling" for my taste. Some of her posts include far too many uninteresting details about her daily life. But there are certainly some great and focused posts to be found as well. This one tickled me. Grumpy Granny is also a decent poet. Her blog is easily navigable although I don't like the fact that I have to click to continue reading the rest of a post. But that's probably because I'm just really fucking lazy. Her header image is boring and her use of the word "Weblog" in the header title is sort of odd. I know that's where the word "blog" originated from but I just don't see it used anymore. She has a very informative "About Me" section which makes reading her blog more enjoyable and easier to follow.

All in all, I rather like Grumpy Granny and her blog. I do wish she would tighten it up a little bit by concentrating on what's relevant and eliminating inconsequential "I did this and then I did that" type of stuff. But for her honesty and good writing I bestow

red rocket, red rocket

Once, when I was about 10 years old, my mom and I walked over to the home of the lady who cut my mom's hair (she was a neighbor, and had a "beauty shop" in her basement). I was allowed to amuse myself by playing with her middle-aged poodle outside on the front stoop. I thought we might play a nice game of fetch, but the dog had other plans. I saw him as cute small and fluffy, he saw me as a sex object. Out of his groin, he sprouted a lipstick shaped erection and began humping my leg. I shook him off. He circled like an airplane coming in for a landing and hit me from a different approach, gyrating furiously on my calf. I ran. He pursued. I dodged. He weaved. No matter what i did, there it was, there the red rocket was, searching for some point of entry, looking for satisfaction.

You can imagine the trauma.

I sat at my desk this morning trying to think what today's blog reminded me of, and this childhood story was the closest parallel I could find.

You show up, there's a red-pantsed rock star looking dude on the header. Then, oddly, this statement:

If this blog helps send just one deserving kid to camp, it will all be worth it.

Umm, okay. That makes no sense, but fine. Then, the author's e-mail address. Again, makes no sense, but whatevers.

As always, my first stop was on the about me, where i learned that the author was "I was born at a young age…" Helpful.

I'll be honest, I spent 45 minutes reading posts, all of it with that damn poodle of a blog trying way too hard to rub his penis on me.

I couldn't do it. The content TRIES TOO HARD. There's too much. For every hit, there are 10 misses.

Consider this post, for instance. It illustrates really well that Bschooled is doing it wrong.

It's too much, B. You don't need 3 mediocre sponsors. You need ONE GOOD SPONSOR. You don't need 10 crappy humor bits that try too hard and miss. You need ONE GOOD HUMOR BIT that hits the mark.

You need to learn to edit yourself. Your natural impulse is to go all red rocket crazy, throw some shit on a page, and hump us all to death. Take a valium, FFS.

If you aren't spending time on /b/, go there and absorb some juicy goodness that isn't dated as fuck. Just mind the splooge puddles over there. If you are spending time on /b/, get the fuck off the computer and get a damn life. If you don't know what /b/ is, that explains a lot.

Your blog could be funny, your charicature of the Iron Chef commentators was dead on. You have a great ear for dialogue. But you're ruining it all with your fucking red rocket.

In honor of you, I present a new rating: Doing it wrong.

I want you.

Interested? E-mail me at pillars_of_color@yahoo.com. I'm looking for regular and occasional reviewers.

In Which I Talk To a Dave Matthews Band Fan For the First Time!

Brooke moved from the US to a penal colony called "Australia" because she found love. Now this is pretty much a perfect blog to review, because the writing is fun and everything else is horrendous, which means...

Hooray for constructive criticism!




So let's get to it:

What's a blog? Well, probably not a good name for a blog, for one. Not much we can do about that. Here's a start, though. While you and I are very different people in real life, blogging allows us to dig deeper and find the things that unite us. You know, the important stuff. While in real life, for example, I will never know a fan of Dave Matthews Band, and consider that name blasphemous, especially so soon after the death of a real musician (Mark Linkous Rest in Peace), blogging allows us to connect on another level, where musical tastes are meaningless.

So, the design. You need to move this blog away from the iWeb platform and onto a real blogging tool like Blogger or Wordpress, which will get rid of most of the annoyances. It's very easy. You will no longer have "Read More..." links that add one line to the post. You will no longer have a strange URL like http://www.whatsablog.com/whatsablog.com/home/home.html. I mean, I don't even know what's going on there. And you will have posts named after their titles, rather than after the caption for the pictures. Look, you like your blog enough to submit it here, so it's time to do get rid of the weird stuff. No big deal. I'm not angry or anything. But come on. COME ON!

Man... Sandra Bullock is making me cry. Goddamnit.

Where was I?

In your About page you say you love shocking pink. Now, I don't know what mental disability or childhood traumas make people like shocking pink, but you know everyone else hates it, right? I'm not saying people hate it like it's a quirk. If I see you chew gum with your mouth open I get a little annoyed. But if I see shocking pink on a blog I want to kill someone.

And as long as you're asking What's a blog, I can tell you it's no excuse to use i instead of I. Most likely, your response to that will be "That's MY style." Well, it's your style, and it's the style of many other bloggers who write annoying blogs with no capital letters, because HEY, it's the Internet, and it's our democratic right and duty to choose our style and do away with the Fascist capital letters. You know who writes with capital letters? The Man, that's who!

But that's just another example of the same problem. You don't hate your readers, so stop treating them like they're your enemy. Get rid of "Read More" links, use a real blogging tool. No more pink. Capital letters are there to help the reader. If they're not there, you shift the attention from the content of your writing to your style of writing. And why does your font turn bold when I click on individual posts? What's going on here?

And I'm saying all that because it's a damn shame. I like you and I like your husband with that perfect hair of his. I like it when you write, "and i said to the universe, ‘fuck you, universe’!" I think you're funny, you know? And honest.

But then you had to take it too far, didn't you? I like butts. Some of my best friends have butts, but it's a thin line between putting it out there and putting IT out there. It's okay if you decide to write three posts about a butt problem, but "i finally had the mother of all turds" is off-putting. To me. I mean, if you wrote that to test your readers, then I guess I failed. I failed to see brutal honesty in the pooping-blood stories, I was too conservative to get over the use of i, I failed to click on "Read more..." and I failed to appreciate the shocking pink.

But it's your job, as an intelligent writer, to ask yourself if the failure is not actually yours. Take your time. Your defense mechanism might dismiss this review. But then, go back and think about it all. Are you confusing brutal honesty with over-the-top poop-stories? See, you write about your pre-turning-30 feelings and mention a letter you wrote to your 30-year-old self when you were 20. Now, printing that letter on your blog would have been honest. Showing me your 30th birthday-party underwear is nice, don't get me wrong, but when you wake up from your hangover, maybe we should all reflect together. Let's read that letter, think what we did wrong and what we did right, think about our 20-year-old selves, and most importantly, rethink those underwear.

You get spray tanned. You like E! Channel. You read Perez Hilton and Dooce. You call your husband (who surfs, by the way. Yep), Hubs. You like Dave frickin' Matthews. We're different people is what I'm saying, Brooke. Yet we're the same. And your job is to show me that I'm right. Your job is to show me that even though on the surface we're different, our humanity unites us. I see your humanity when you write about offending your father, and I see our common bond when your husband is away and you write "it’s so damn quite in this house." But there are not enough posts like that, and when they're there, you quickly move on, as if you're afraid to come out as depressed. Living in Australia, you might appreciate this one: Nick Cave was asked in an interview why he left sunny Australia to live in dreary London, and he answered, "Because in London you're allowed to be depressed."

Honesty is not about poop-related injuries, but about writing to find the truth about yourself.

Because I want you to move to Blogger, I give you this button:

And because I love you and believe Your Truth is Out There, I give you

List of pending mastication

It has been pissing rain for three fucking months where I live and it's beginning to put me in the sourest of moods. I think I'm in need of some comfort food.

Nothing cheers me up like the smell of slow roasted and then flash fried blogger served on a skewer.


For your dining pleasure, this week's menu includes:

Just Making Convo...

What's a Blog

Grumpy Granny

Late for the sky


Someone hand me a bib, cause this could get messy.

More than stale cookies and tears

I used to date this guy in high school whose parents were total AA freaks. They lived it, they breathed it, and they definitely needed it as surely as they needed gravity, or the universe was going to implode. Their AA buddies filled the table at Christmas and Thanksgiving and perpetual diatribes were recited about how they were still alcoholics even though they hadn't touched a drink in 8000 days. It all seemed very confusing and pessimistic to me.

Well, my boyfriend thought it would be a great idea for prom to get his hands on a bottle of bubbly to celebrate the occasion – that romantic little underage devil. His father found his poison in the boot of his car and off to the AA meeting he trotted with his "alcoholic" son in tow kicking and screaming. When it came time to stand up and tell his story, he truthfully said he was there because his father had found an unopened bottle of champagne in his car that he had been reserving for prom night. To my knowledge, despite this humiliating event, this guy did not go on to be an alcoholic, but I think he did lose a lot of respect for his father.

When I first got started on An Addict In My Son’s Bedroom, I had to scroll back up to the top and do a double take on that picture to make sure it wasn’t ole Bill and Connie terrorizing yet another of their progeny by projecting their own controlling obsessions onto a normal, albeit slightly substance-curious young man.

But as I continued to read, I thought, “Holy Shitstorms. Mom, quick, shackle down the boy’s legs. Dad, grab his arms. I’ll just saw off his fingers and ears so he can’t call his drug dealer anymore.”

This is not the blog of misguided obsessive parents. This is the blog of two crushed and desperate yet hopeful and persevering and especially loving parents of an addict with all of the confusion and ups and downs of optimism contrasted by let downs that the vomit-inducing rollercoaster ride has held for them.

Truthfully, Askers, the writing itself has been peed all over in grammar and punctuation mistakes and there are incomplete sentences bespangling almost every single post which are like flashing red no-vacancy lights in the middle of the peaceful desert that distract the ever living rattlesnake piss out of me.

But my question is, Mom and Dad, do you really care?

You Askers may be shocked to hear this coming from me, but I do believe there is a place in the blogosphere for mere support groups, the kind in church basements where everyone and their half-literate twitchy-eyed step-uncle are welcome to tell their cockeyed tales of survival. At the end everyone gets a hug and a cookie just for breathing. But most of the people that show up for that kind of gig don’t come around here and ask for my opinion on how they expressed themselves and on the fucked up outfit they're wearing.

But, since you asked, Mom and Dad, I’ll tell you that I - as someone who does not need this particular support group - don’t feel like sitting there on one of those uncomfortable folding chairs sipping instant coffee out of a styrofoam cup with the powdery cream shit in it listening to your meatless updates on how things are going and hearing you yap about your woodworking during the breaks, while staring at your template that I want to punch the boring out of, all the while trying to figure out if it's Mom or Dad whose actually talking to me.

However, I will gladly stick around despite not really belonging there, or caring for your outfit, if you give me the heart and soul and self-reflection and real depth that I know you’ve got in you. No one is born with the skill of writing, Mom and Dad. But you know what? You weren’t born with the skill to make this either and you managed to do it with chisels or whatever. As I’m sure you are discovering, you have to hone your ability to be effective through writing, it requires carefully forging your thoughts, brainstorming on ways to transmit feeling through prose via verbal experimentation. Rather than just saying “I’m disappointed”, an effective writer finds a way to make the reader feel the disappointment without ever saying that word. Rather than saying “Here’s a list of advice”, an effective writer transmits the advice by brutally and intimately acquainting the reader with failures and successes. Sometimes you really get that. A lot of the time you get it. But sometimes you don't.

A great blog doesn’t just require something to talk about – you clearly have that part covered, and that is something that I as a blogger struggle with. A great blog requires a shit ton of time-consuming drafts, zillions of scratched out words and paragraphs, and an assload of extremely tedious re-reading and editing, and yes, the use of a dictionary and thesaurus. This all sounds like a real drag and is probably unnecessary if all you want is support and community and self-reflection. But you would be surprised at how through the self-editing process, you can experience a thrill in discovering that unexpected words - those tiny seemingly insignificant units in a language - can testify to how you feel better than you ever imagined. You begin to scrutinize under a microscope how those words match up with all the turmoil and joy and ambiguity inside and in doing so you force yourself to go deeper and deeper into the core of what it is you want to share with the world. And this, Mom and Dad, is in itself an intense process of self-discovery and one that can create some of the strongest bonds of supportive community possible.

For the most part, you already know all this. But for the times that you forget it, you get a post-fart hug and a stale cookie:







But for the times that you get it and for making me care about Alex, you get some stars.








I dare you to earn more though.

Eat My Baby

This week we get a double penetration, oops I mean double feature. For every good raccoon, there's a better bimbo to boot. Monday gave us back our resident beast and now we've got our favorite bimbo back, but make room for her because she's filled with Angry Baby. Maybe she finally ate one of those biscotti Ghost is always hawking. ~Miss Missives

Hello boys and girls, it's me. Your favorite ex-hooker turned Bimbo. I was so excited to get an email from my friends at Ask about doing a review. I mean, I'm pregnant and completely hormonal. My husband is certainly tired of me being such a cunt to him, so it was time for me spread my hatred and hormones elsewhere!


Jewelz is the blogger I was given to review, and oh my GOD am I ever happy that this is the shit I was handed. Let's start with first impressions. I hate your header and it makes me want to punch kittens. You look constipated in the picture too, just FYI. The column on the side with recent comments is kind of retarded, but doesn't really bother me all that much. The thing that does bother me about your layout is the option at the bottom of EACH post where it says, "You might also like..." and links to other posts.


I'm a fan of bold print. Big fan actually. But holy mother fucking overkill woman! Almost every single post has bold print. It's like you're assuming that me, the reader, is too stupid to follow your train of thought, and you need to make each new topic bold just for their inferior ass.


As far as content goes, there really isn't any. Grammatically, you're not a bad writer. I guess I just don't get why you have a blog. Is it to get more business for your company? It's almost like you're Perez Hilton but the only person you're interested in writing about is yourself. I'll give it to you; you're very pretty and I'd totally fuck you. But is it necessary to relentlessly post pictures of yourself in a bikini and in slutty dresses in almost every post? If you're interested in having a blog that has actual content, then write. Stop promoting yourself and your business. Stop talking about how "cool" you are and just talk about YOU!


Overall, I didn't hate you, I just didn't like you. Maybe eat a slice of humble pie and figure out why exactly you're blogging.

A Tale Of Two Blogs

A review by Here In Franklin

If you go back to Jane’s very first post, from December 2008, here’s what you get:

"Have been super busy over the past couple of months painting new Christmas ornaments for our internet store. Since I wanted to paint something different to add to our collection, I researched the Pennsylvania Dutch folk art designs that my daughter and I saw on the barns and storefronts when we visited the area a couple of years ago."

A few days later, the next post offered up this little gem:

"Since I'm a self taught decorative artist, I began researching glass painting and soon discovered that I needed all new paints and all new brushes."

Holy mother of God— Madame Bellicose, she hates me. She gave me a blog about glass painting to review written by a 68-year-old woman in Bum Fuck, North Carolina. Jesus palomino.

I don’t give a flying fuck in a rolling doughnut hole about glass painting, but Jane’s writing wasn’t bad, so I kept on reading. I read memes and read about all of Jane’s super awesome awards—to date I count 20 on her sidebar including one from Sniffles and Smiles, one from Mom and Pops Place and one from the Chatty Crone. Jane—trust me on this—the only award you want is an IFLY. Ditch that crap—they’re not worth the pixels they’re made with.

So on I read…studio blah blah blah…cats blah blah blah…baggy of pot in the mail blah blah blah…

Whoa…from memes and awards to pot in the mail…and not just in the mail, delivered to your bosses office? Tell me more.

That’s when I realized that if you’re 68 in 2010, you were 26 in 1968—the summer of love. Our glass-painting grandma has quite a past up her sleeve. Trouble is, you have to dig to find it.

Jane, you’ve traveled the world, dated some interesting men, worked for a KKK lawyer and partied with sheiks. You shared the same outhouse with a rattlesnake. For the love of God, why are you writing about glass painting? You even fell down a sewer hole—don’t you realize how lucky you are??? That’s blogger gold.

Here’s the deal…I don’t know if you want your blog to be a memoir of your wicked youth or more of an outlet for your online store, but you should decide. At the minimum, figure out a way to categorize your posts—don’t make me dig through five posts in a row of memes and awards to find a gem. Separate them out—“home renovation,” “life abroad” and “peeing with snakes” for example.

Then, and this is the big one…beef up your storytelling skills. You’re Southern…you have it in you. Don’t just tell me you ate a sheep’s brain…tell me where and when and why. Don’t just tell me it was disgusting, describe the texture…tell me if ketchup or mayo would’ve improved it. Tell me if you barfed later or just discreetly coughed it into your napkin.

You have a lifetime of stories to tell, Jane. I’m guessing there are a lot of people out there who would enjoy reading them.

I’m giving you two stars. Lose the memes and awards and bring some order out of chaos and you’ll be upgraded.

Roped in like a fashion model on an Ex-Lax farm

There are some things that I, your darling Fontaine, do not wish to read. Here's a list of just a few:

-The 'deep' thoughts and reflections of those in their 20's
-Those in their 20's talking about 'navigating' their 20's
-Those in their 20's stating they are searching for peace, happiness and love
-Pretty much anything written by those in their 20's

With this in mind, imagine my reaction when Madame Bellicose emailed to tell me I would be reviewing a blog called The View From Here this week. It is not one, but five, 20-something women blogging together. That's right, I said five 20-something women blogging together. It was as if someone suggested I allow myself to be stripped down naked, strapped to a dirty bed in an abandoned psych ward somewhere in the woods of New Hampshire, and willingly subject myself to the latest treatment of being spoon fed rusty barb wire by the innovative and caring Dr. Finger Fuck.

Now that I think about it, Dr. Finger Fuck and his 'treatment' seemed highly attractive compared to the notion of having to read a blog written by five 20-something women.

I wanted to crawl through my computer and turn Madame's trusty and snappy riding crop upon her face. Alas, I'm willing to do pretty much anything for 'Ask', and opened the link anyway.

And then I found myself watching a Jay Z video without having the reaction of wanting to wander off and get my laundry started due to being bored out of my wits. Why? There was nothing else to the post other than some little comment about having a pre-concert 'drank'.

And I got all riled up at Marion Barry all over again. Why? I've thought of him as a stupid, stank and rank Jenny since the 1980's. How did these reflecting and navigating 20-somethings rope me into this?

I even found myself watching an entire video clip of an Alexander McQueen fashion show and dreaming of, just once, strutting my stuff down the runway of anorexiaville while not giving two shits (unless, of course, I've been supplementing my eating disorder with Ex-Lax) that I look like a human toothpick that could be blown in half by a 2mph wind gust.

At the video's end I found myself slack jawed, wide-eyed and wondering, "Did that just happen to me? Did I just admire a fashion show? And actually dream of being in one? Sweet tap dancin' Jesus, how high am I?"

Indeed, five 20-somethings had roped me in and roped me in big. I lost all navigation of my own; not following my usual review protocol of rigid adherence to methodically picking through post after post, scouring the 'About' section, making notes, and then winding it all together for my review.

I simply started reading. I simply wanted more.

Rum Punch
Amaretto
mint julep
5 and a possible
courvoisier
Bellini

Who?Are?You?
I want to know what you did over the weekend. What concert you're going to next. What pains you about attempting to simultaneously respect the rules and live your own truth.

How did you get this quick and witty? You made me laugh out loud. A rarity in the world of blogging.

How did you know the best way to get an old broad like me to actually consider doing a little 40-something navigation of my own was to first entice me into dreaming of ripping the pants off of 'BSteve'? I actually found myself wondering what would have happened if I would R.S.V.P.'d in the affirmative to that invitation to Germany so many years ago, and even reconsidered putting off my trip to the Festival in the Desert another year. And no, none of you are welcome to call me an old broad, lest you want to be shamed into admitting you got bitch slapped by a 40-something whose rudder was off kilter.

Here's a word to you wise, witty, thoughtful and navigating ladies:

1. It's time to edit the shit out of your posts. Though you did rope me in, there were times when your brilliance was dulled by having to slog through lazy misspellings, improper grammar and syntax, and even lazier punctuation. I am using a post by Bellini as an example, but you are all guilty. Create a system of review of your own to help one another work out the kinks before you publish a post. (Yes, I know it's amazing that I'm actually suggesting the kink be taken OUT of a situation.)

2. Knock it off with anything blah. By that I mean I never, ever, ever want to read a post about "this happened and then this happened..." out of any one of you ever again. Did I say never? I mean it. I am more than disappointed that one of you posted this on the very day I am writing this review. This 'turn that frown upside down' crap about a lost i-pod, a snow storm and things being strange at work simply will not do. Ever. Never. Stop it. All of you.

3. Tighten up the information about yourselves and your blog. I do not recommend blowing your anonymity, but do think your blog could benefit from more concise descriptions of each one of you, and an overall 'About' page that describes just how brilliant you are, the reasons you are blogging, and what to expect. The blurb on the front page about blogging about 'everything and nothing' and the 'insane and mundane' is beneath you and your blog.

4. Keep going. I may forever prefer being spoon fed barb wire by Dr. Finger Fuck to reading the ramblings of a passel of 20-something women, but would be more than happy to keep this blog as one of my regular reads if you're willing to follow my instructions in 1, 2 and 3.

List of bent overs

I guess I'm a bit behind schedule. What can I say, Monday was a holiday where I live and I was busy being fed peeled grapes by a certain leather clad, magic-bullet-equipped janitor to worry about my pedagogical responsibilities.

So here you have it - the upcoming ass tearings:

The View From Here - "WE ARE: 5 women navigating our twenties in search of peace, happiness and love (or not)"

Gaston Studio - "Primarily, stories of my life living and working abroad many years ago, with a little bit of current life thrown in."

Philly Jewelz - Social Butterfly - "A personal blog about my life, travel and thoughts as a girl living the city life."

Parents of an Addict - crap, I know, we were supposed to review you last week. My fault.

May the lube be with you.

Just Give Me Medicine, Dickbag.

Hey kids, Miss Missives here with a blast from the past, a reviewer that makes your knees weak and your stomach lurch. Makes you want to be a dirty girl and then shower off the stink of him. He'll bang you by a dumpster, then spend the night ransacking your trash cans. He goes by many names like Pirate-fucker, Butt-boy, Gok, Captain Biscotti, and of course, Admiral Ghost. You can find him here and his new digs here. Oh how we've missed him.

Well hello again, motherfuckers. So we meet again. Allow myself to introduce myself. I'll save the pleasantries for the comment section, let's get on with today's shitstain.

The Angriest Pharmacist, um, fuck who am I kidding? I'm sure that you, sir, are the most entertaining motherfucker ever to become an ordained pill pusher, but I honestly can't bring myself to give a shit. Really. What is this shit? When I was summoned from the black beyond, I was really hoping for another shot at glory, but I can see that I have lost favor with the gods. Here, I'll give you the standard:

1. Your template is complete shit.

2. Your writing is complete shit.

3. Your passive/aggressive dealings with the world are, in fact, complete shit.

4. I bet you're a kickass pharmacist.

Being the Ghost of All Ghosts, I don't gamble much, so number four is pretty much me throwing you a spiritual bone. Before this review turns nasty, I want you to go find someone for me, Pharmacist. Go find the stupid asshole that pushed you into blogging. Shoot him. Twice. Then call me, and I will run over his carcass with my wife's Escalade. You've had more than two years to get your shit together, and your first post isn't much better than your last. Seriously, if your blog was a sexual position, it would be Abstinence. I'm a bit rusty, maybe, but I know bad blogging when I see it, and well, I saw your blog.

So, who missed me? Anyone? Really? Keep your mouth open, I've been dying to share something with you. Hint: It's my penis.

For the pharmacist:

blech.

Somebody clean this shit up.