A blog that isn't all sunshine and roses.

My gal pal Jennifer  sent an email to day with a link to this blog with this post.
(And for the record, I don't think she is happy at all.  Momentary happiness, possibly.)


The following is my comment to the post:

A friend emailed this post to me and the subject line said "I don't know what to make of this post."



I had never seen your blog, before. I read and read and read and hit links and hit back and hit more links. Like a train wreck, I couldn't take my eyes off of it.


I can't decide if you are psycho or just the most honest person I've ever read. I make jokes about my own blog that it is the life I wish I had. Part of that is because every ounce of creativity and expression dries up when I am in angst. Perhaps I should push through. I try to write my blog for myself, but as Steve Martin says, anyone who says they are writing for themself is a liar because anyone who writes is writing to be read. I feel as if my own blog is sunshine and roses most of the time and we all know that isn't real life. I was almost offended when someone said it was a sweet, happy blog.


Because I have been an enabler in the past and still have enabling tendencies and because I try to see the best in people...I'm going with you are the most honest blogger I've ever read and even if you are psycho, you aren't afraid to tell the world, which takes a lot of balls.


I will keep reading and get back to you on this.


Cheryl

I would urge you to read her blog and get back to me on this.  What do people really want?  Do they want to read it all- the good, the bad and the ugly?  Is it poor manners to reveal all?  Is nothing sacred?  Do we want to air our dirty laundry in public? 
 
The first blog I ever read was Stephanie Klein's Greek Tragedy.  Doug sent her blog to me in an email saying "I ran across this and thought you might enjoy it."  I don't know how he ran across her blog.  I started reading her blog years ago when her twins were born prematurely. 
 
You know how you happen upon a blog and you read and read and read and keep going back and back and back and gobbling up their life?  That is how I was with Stephanie Klein.  That is how I was just now with Penelope. 
 
I love a lot of things about the blog community.  I think it is hard to explain to someone who isn't a part of the blog community what it is like.  First of all, it takes a certain type of person.  Writers are usually open and spew and put themselves and their lives and everyone in their lives into their blog.  Someone who is related to me has said "don't put this in your blog and don't put photos of this in your blog."  I understand that and respect her wishes. 
 
When I write something positive about Doug, his chest puffs up and he struts like a rooster in a hen yard.  And when I write something negative about him, he either doesn't mention at all or he will say "did you have to say that about me?"  This is when I say "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.You are with a writer." 
 
Personally, I would rather write about something on my blog than on facebook.  I grew up singing in a church before about six hundred people.  Then later in life I found myself singing in a little country church before about fifty or sixty people.  When I sang in front of six hundred people it was easy.  I was singing for the masses.  They were a blur.  When I sang before fifty or sixty people in a small country church, they were literally up close and personally and eye-balling me.  I could see their faces!  It was a lot harder to do that.  For me, that is how I compare my blog and facebook.  My blog is for the masses.  Facebook is for the country church. 
 
I've gotten to know some of the people whose blogs I read and some of the people who read my blog.  One person I've become closest to says she  aspires to be more with her readers.  I know she and I are very real in the emails we exchange.  Another woman that I email with behind the scenes says that one thing she likes about the blog community is that we share things with one another that we wouldn't share with family. 
 
I know that I write because I need to write.  I know there are nights I cannot go to bed until I write about something that is on my heart and mind.  And I know there have been nights that I've got out of bed to write. They say that sixty thousand people read Penelope Trunk's blog. 
People must want it all.  The good, the bad, the ugly.

Must. Pick. Up. Dry. Cleaning.

What is the longest you've left something at the dry cleaners?  I drive past my dry cleaners twice a day.  On the way to work and on the way home.  The ticket is in the cup holder in my car to serve as a reminder. It is my cream silk blouse with ruffles.  I iron, but I cannot get the wrinkles out of that silk blouse. 

A guy that I went to high school with owns a dry cleaners.  He had a guy leave a brown leather coat there for a year.  After a year had passed, my friend started to wear the coat.  That was when the owner of the coat returned to claim said coat.  My friend had to clean it again before he returned it to the rightful owner.

Do you take clothing to the dry cleaners?  There was a time in my life when my dry cleaning bill was one of my biggest bills.  I worked in advertising and lived in suits.  I wore suits daily.  Thank goodness those days are behind me.  As a rule, I try not to buy clothes that need to be dry cleaned, but I am drawn to linen, cotton and silk.  I always joke that the way that you know that linen is linen is because it is wrinkled. 

Everyone that knows me knows that I iron.  My ironing board is set up all the time.  Usually with a  stack of clothes sitting on it.  I find ironing soothing.  The hiss of the steam smoothing out all that is wrong.  People tease me about ironing.  I like to be pressed and fixed.  If a collar is crooked or there is a wrinkle down the front of what I am wearing, it makes me crazy.  I ironed for an hour or more today in preparation of the upcoming work week.  I am an extreme ironer, but not like this: 

No, I don't ride my board this way.

Um, yeah. 

Is this for real?

Do you iron?  Do you take things to the dry cleaners?  If so, what is the longest you've ever left anything?

Shop Girl

I just finished watching the DVD of the 2005 movie, Shop Girl.  The movie was produced after Steve Martin wrote the novella by the same name.  It is hard to imagine that the same "wild and crazy guy" wrote such a sensitive story.

In the movie, Ray Porter, played by Steve Martin, is an older man who goes after a younger woman - Mirabelle, played by Claire Danes.  Who wouldn't want to go out with Claire Danes?  Doesn't she have the most beautiful mouth? 

Martin's character claims that from the beginning of the relationship he is straight up with Mirabelle, telling her that he doesn't really want anything.  Of course, typically female, Mirabelle doesn't hear him say that to her.  She gives herself over to him with her whole heart.  And then she is shocked, hurt and disillusioned when she finally realizes that he doesn't love her.  Then Martin's character is surprised to learn that maybe he really did love her, but of course it is too late and Mirabelle has moved on with a man who gives himself over to her with his whole heart.
The man who wore the bunny ears, wore the arrow through his head, sang King Tut has some kind of unusual effeminate feelings deep down inside.  In the book, Shop Girl, he writes with the voice of a woman with a tone that rings true.  To this woman, anyway.  Somewhere deep inside the outer shell of insanity, there is a man who plays banjo, collects art and continues to write.  He has a new book coming out and I can't wait to read it. 

The movie Shop Girl made me cry.  I've been the woman loved by the man who didn't quite love enough.  I was the woman who gave my heart over completely believing that in the end, I would have the man.  He held himself back, tied to money and a past life that he couldn't break away from.  He is the one that haunts me.  The one that I see the back of his head and quicken my step or drive a little faster just to catch the face and see that it isn't him.  He stands at the edge of my dreams, observing even in my subconscious.  Movies, lines, words, scents, songs all bring him hurling back to me.  Victimized, I am attacked by memories that I do not invite.  I cannot push the memories away.  They wash over me, hurting me all over again.  I've heard that he is with someone else now.  A younger woman.  I imagine she thinks he hung the moon.  Or, maybe she is independent enough, hip enough, cool enough that she can handle someone who doesn't give himself over and who is still tied to his old life.  I am not that hip or cool.  Do I haunt him?  Do I appear in his dreams?  Does he imagine that he sees me only to realize that it isn't me?  I do not know.  I just know that all of what we had back then or what I thought we had back then is nothing, now.   Sometimes that is still unbelievable to me.  People reading may wonder who he was.  Some probably think it is my children's father.  It does not matter who he was.
I'm just glad that I am not the one that is with him now.