MEAN, JUDGY, SNARKY AND FREQUENTLY WRONG

Just the other day Jen on the Edge posted about people making mean comments on blogs and personal attacks on bloggers. That day my sister sent me a link to an article about her husband who was selected to be the new Fire Department Chief in another state.

The article had a nice photo, comments from the selection committee who chose him unanimously over all the other candidates and how much they admired his career and his attitude. It also mentioned that he is from California and that he had retired from his previous position as Assistant Chief.  (He is 51.) It listed his new salary.  It also mentioned that he and his wife have a second home in Coeur d'alene Idaho, which is about 40 miles away from the location of the new job - so they have local ties.

Scrolling down to the comments - wow.  What a bunch of haters!  Out of the 20 or so comments there were only 2-3 that were positive and welcoming.  Mostly they were nasty about being from California, which I ran into when we moved to Washington State back in the '90's.  I would have thought after all these lean years that the benefits of business, tourism and money to buy homes flowing in from California and other states would be appreciated - apparently not. I guess they prefer for their economy to be stagnant rather than have to interact with us lepers from California.

The second wave of vitriol was about the fact that he had retired and was now taking another job.  He is only 51.  He has a son in college and a daughter in high school.  They don't know the circumstances of his "retirement" or how much his benefits are or when they even kick in but they are attacking him for "double dipping" in the public sector.  They also don't know that my sister is permanently disabled from complications of breast cancer treatment so they do need an  income.

Third wave of criticism?  That they have a vacation home.  Like the good financial planning of my sister and brother-in-law and the way they choose to invest should be on the table for discussion. Not to mention that my sister worked over 20 years as a Neonatal Intensive Care nurse - no taxpayer money involved.

I suppose commenting on blogs and postings has taken over from the days of gossiping over the fence or at the water cooler.  Except in those days it was kinda done behind the back of the person involved - fewer hurt feelings.  My sister and brother-in-law sort of laughed off the comments, but we all know it leaves a residue of hurt and mistrust behind, no matter how we try to rationalize it away.

We all need to remember that we don't always know the whole story and walking a mile in someones shoes is the least we can do before we go all judgemental and snarky.

SEARCHING FOR THE BLOGABLE

I know I used to work all day and then write posts in the evenings.  Somehow I am not managing that well these days.  I realize my posts have been less topical and more me, me, me.  Sorry.

I can't quite figure out what has changed except that I am a bit more isolated from the world at large. The empty nest means I am not getting that youthful influx of music, media and angst.  Also, working with a bunch of men is much less conducive to postable topics.  I also seem to want to complain about things.  A lot. 

I'm enlisting Nancy Drew to search for  my blogging mojo and will  make it more bright side than it has been in the past many months. 

JOGGING THE BLOGS

It was verrry slow this weekend at work.  I spent some time looking at some of the media sites I like to read online, but I had finished that and didn't feel like reading the book I brought.  So I read a couple of blogs I wanted t catch up on and then I clicked that thing on the top of Blogger that says "Next Blog".  Ever done that?  It can be sort of interesting.

The first one that came up was written by a 26 year old man in England who is touting his RC lifestyle.  I read through a few posts and find that RC stands for restricted calories.  He listed his daily calorie intake at 1400 and is saving up to move to California to meet his online girlfriend who shares his interest on healthy eating.  He seems to be very concerned with looking younger.  When I was 26 I wasn't thinking about looking younger.  As I recall I was thinking about whether having great sex was a good enough reason to keep seeing the guy I was going out with.

So I moved along past 3 blogs in a row that mentioned Jesus in the first few lines and found one by a woman who was very into scrap booking.  I can't identify because I am about 76 years behind on my scrapbooks and none of them have pretty little cut outs and fancy paper.

The next one was all about MMORPG and how they could be improved.  I had to look up what MMORPG was and the definition is:  Massively multiplayer online role-playing game, a genre of computer role-playing games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world.  The links have many boobalicious babes in leather or armor and muscle bound guys with clubs, swords, dragons and stuff like that.  Okay.  Moving on. Oh, no!  The next 5 blogs are all about gaming and computers.

Sensing a some kind of trend I changed over to another blog I like with a political bent to see what followed it when I hit "Next Blog."  It was nature photography in New Zealand!  Next it was one about fostering greyhounds, then one written by a dog named Sunny all about living with her human mom.  The next 5 were about dogs and goats and then suddenly we switched subjects to the America's Cup Race.  The next 7 were about boats and sailing.  Then suddenly...embroidery, quilting and fibre, whatever fibre is.  There are a lot of really talented women out there, but I stopped clicking through after 10 of those.

After that I decided to read my book for a while.  But not until I came up with a name for what I was doing.  I wasn't surfing the net so much as I was jogging the blogs.

WHAT'S UP

I am just completely without any writing inspiration these days.  I am tired of politics and all the complaining and excuse making.  I would talk about my new job but it is probably boring to anyone but me (training is going well and I like it!)  I am itching to start decorating (just for something new and different) but will wait until it is December, at least.

Had a fun Thanksgiving dinner with my sisters and families.  Lot's of champagne and silliness.  The kind of silliness I am a bit embarrassed to print here!  Although I am not the one who was biting or squirting whipped cream - I did participate in the penis game with all the females in attendance including my young nieces.  Ally started it...  We had to explain to my sister Nancy that we learned it from the movie "500 Days of Summer", which we loved.  However, it may not have been the most appropriate thing for Thanksgiving with a couple of girls under the age of 12.  Ah, well.  The menfolk just watched football and shook their heads whilst drinking expensive microbrewery beer.

So now we move on to December.  I have my birthday on Wednesday which is nice, although I am not thrilled with how much closer to 60 I am getting.  They say something about "sixty being the youth of old age"  so 57 must be the old age of my youth!

Oh well,  this is why I have not been writing much.  I have been wandering around my head.  Soon I will be writing about what I had for lunch...

WHY BLOG?

When I was in high school I was a writer for the newspaper. I was also into the idea of being a writer. To that end, I loved to read quotations by famous authors and I even copied them down and pinned them to the bulletin boards I had artfully arranged to cover the hated wallpaper in my room. My interests ran from the Beatles to The Prophet. I had books of quotes about love that I poured over, trying to find out what love would be like if it ever came my way.

When it was time to go to college, I decided I should be a journalism major. I knew I didn't have enough of a creative spark to be a fiction writer, but I was good with facts and writing plainly. After I had devoted several years to my J degree (as we cool J people called it) I realized that I didn't really want to chase stories in some little town until I could chase stories in a larger town, until I could chase stories in a place I would really like to live. But by then, it was too late to change majors and I really didn't know what I would change to, anyway.

So right out of college I went into sales. Yuck. Then I went into restaurant management. Better, but long hours and not intellectually satisfying. Then I went for career counseling and found out I had a lot of interests. Duh. Since I didn't know what to do, I went to law school. I liked it for 2 years then it dawned on me that it required a certain amount of picky meanness that I couldn't summon up.

I finished it and found a job in the marketing department of a small company. My writing ability, my law background and my creative side all came into play. It was a really great fit. They even said I could come back part time after my twins were born. Then the company was sold. I had the babies and realized I didn't want to go to work, and we could afford for me to be home.

Why, oh, why I am writing about this? To try to figure out why I am blogging.

When I had to go out to find work after 12 years of being home with kids. No one knew what to do with me and I didn't know what I could do anymore. In the job I have, I have been able to rediscover the writer in me. First by answering e-mail. Later by writing articles for our site and others. Then we started blogging. I am a "ghost writer" in some of the work that I do, but other things are in my name - all in my "voice."

I know that I am not a superior writer - I have seen too many blogs that are wonderfully written to suffer that delusion. I just know that I want to write and I seem to think of things to write about. This forum of blogging makes it possible to do something beyond scribbling in journals. Maybe people other than my friends and family will find me and enjoy something I write - that will be cool.

OUR PERSONAL FINANCIAL CRISIS

Tomorrow I am participating in a day in the life photo essay along with about 80 other readers of my favorite blog Derfwad Manor.



I'm not an above average self conscious person, but I was thinking about what kind of impression my average day may make. What does my life now tell you about me without knowing what has taken me to this place? Some background is in order.



I will only go back as far as our very own financial crisis. I had been a SAHM for about 12 years as my husband climbed the corporate ranks. He worked long hard hours, traveled and I managed the rest of our lives. We moved to Bellevue WA when he was recruited to a company there - had a big house with a lake view and great school system. All was going great when out of the blue the owner of the company, who had lured us there with promises that Tom would take over the company when he retired, asked Tom to return his stock options. Whaaa? That is what he had been taking in lieu of raises and bonuses. Turns out that the owner had decided to cash in on all the great value that Tom had added to his company, and he wanted to cut Tom out. When we decided not to take a chance that he would do the right thing during the sale of the company and refused to turn over the options, Tom was fired.



Bla -bla, attorneys, a settlement, a job in Silicon Valley, a move, another nice house three more years, dot com bubble bursts, move to a smaller house, get a new job. Employers make promises, Tom builds business, brings in clients, earns big commissions. New employer decided he doesn't want to pay. With no notice, stops paychecks, drops insurance, locks Tom out of his office. Have any idea what COBRA insurance costs??



Bla-Bla, attorneys, a settlement, a new job? How many times do we walk this road? My husband was a highly compensated individual. Obama would raise our taxes. We didn't live high. We live in the San Francisco bay area - we were house poor. When we took vacations, they were long weekends - usually driving distance, I shopped Mervyns and Target and sales at the mall. We drove our cars for 10+ years. We were preparing for our twins to go to college and putting money in our retirement accounts.


Tom worked really hard to get his law degree and to become a licensed attorney in California. And yet he had never practiced law, always working in the corporate environment. It wasn't the ideal time to make such a big change, but life is short and he was 49 years old - if not now? He set up an office in our very large garage, made up cards and letterhead and a website. Oh, and he switched sides - he would represent employees only - not corporations.



When you start from nothing, it takes time to get to something. We went through our savings and retirement money, we borrowed from my parents against our house. We had all kinds of stuff go wrong. I sold the ring I got for our 10th anniversary, we sold all kinds of stuff. We hung in there.



After 8 months I finally got a job. No one was sure what to do with a job candidate with a law degree, marketing and management experience who was now middle aged and last had a job before there were computers at every desk. Last time I worked, I had a secretary! I felt very lucky that I was hired by a woman with her own business who took a chance on me. The older kids could drive to get themselves around, the job and Tom's schedule were flexible enough to get the little one to and from, so the timing there was one of the few things we had on our side.



So now it is 5 years later. We had to declare bankruptcy, and some time later sell our nice house and move into a small rental. The downsizing came just months before the twins went to college. One to Penn, one closer by in Monterey. Tom has a nice little office a few blocks from home and now has the ability to pick and choose his clients. His income is rising. We have paid off the bankruptcy, we're building our credit and retirement accounts, and in 3 years our 3rd child will be going to college, and we may then move to another area and buy a house. It is all survivable. He talks about me coming to work for him, but I like my job.


I work for an artist. Cool, huh? Most of the business is web based. I started out processing orders and answering phones and e-mails and pitched in wherever I could as an employee of a small business. Now I have moved on to other duties and we have added one full time and a part time employee the office. One of my favorite new duties has taken me full circle, I am involved in the marketing of our business by writing about it. I blog and Squidoo and This Next and write articles to drive traffic to our website. I am a part of a growing business with a boss who lets me know she values me.


And tomorrow you will meet the gang at Kyle Design.