I'm over at DC Metro Moms today with a dilemma related to celebrating Mimi's 6th birthday. Feel free to go read the whole post, but in short, I'm looking for alternatives to the traditional birthday party.
Any other antisocial lazy non-party-lovers in da house? Care to share your ideas for helping to mark the day with a fabulous set of events that don't necessarily involve cake, shrieking kindergarten students, and goody bags?
OK, I thought I'd try something different for tonight's creative endeavor. Once again I am dabbling in the world of fiction, only this time I'm sharing a half-baked idea.
My hope is that you all will provide me with the next part of this story, to be continued later in the week. (Perhaps this "class participation" effort will make up for the fact that I haven't been able to make the blog rounds much this week. Sorry.)
If you want to play, please leave a comment letting me know what you think happens next. I will choose one or more comments to serve as the components for the next part of the story. Your responses can be serious or humorous, but let's keep it R-rated or tamer, please. ;-)
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Molly slid under the bleachers, threw her bookbag on the ground, and kneeled among the tall grass. She glanced anxiously at her watch -- 12:38.
"Caren's always late," she fretted to herself. "I hope I'm not late to American Lit class again, or Mrs. Johnson will be really pissed."
While she waited, she observed the surrounding area from her secluded vantage point. It looked quite different in the daylight than it had the previous Friday night, when she and Johnny snuck away from watching the football game for a brief necking session under those same bleachers.
Yeah, it had been hot and heavy for about 3 minutes, until Molly got nervous that they might be discovered by mean old Mr. Fredericksen, who patrolled the bleachers with a flashlight every few minutes. Although Johnny protested, she was able to convince him to go back out and finish watching the game. Unfortunately, he sulked for the rest of the evening, and barely pecked her on the cheek when he dropped her off at home.
Molly had thought it was smart to play hard to get. Caren just said she was a prude. And although Molly hated to admit that Caren might be right, Johnny hadn't called her again.
Molly sighed deeply and glanced at her watch again. 12:41 now. She had about 15 minutes, tops, before she'd have to run off to class, and still no sign of Caren.
Suddenly, Molly heard a rustle in the grass behind her. She whipped around, expecting to see one of the gym teachers, but came face-to-face with the ripped knees of Caren's jeans. Caren stood above her in a menacing pose.
"Scared ya, huh?" Caren laughed as she plopped down in the grass next to Molly. Rummaging through her backpack, Caren pulled out a package of cigarettes and a lighter. She offered the pack to Molly, who shook her head. Shrugging, Caren lit one for herself and exhaled heavily.
"God, Josh is such a prick," Caren said between drags. "I'm totally over him. I told him there's no way I'm going to the movies with him this weekend. He can take that slutty sophomore for all I care. What's her name, Julie? Jenna? You know, the one with the--"
"Caren," Molly interrupted urgently, "I know you wanted to meet me here at 12:30, and it's almost a quarter of, and I need to get to class by 1:00. We have a test later in the week, and Mrs. Johnson gets angry if I'm more than five minutes late anyway...." Molly knew she was rambling, but she couldn't seem to stop talking. Caren had that effect on her.
"Oh yeah, right." Caren replied nonchalantly. "What I wanted to meet you about. Look, I need a favor from you. It's really important."
Molly glanced warily at Caren. "A favor? From me?"
Caren sighed. "Yes, a favor. I need you to..."
What's the favor that Caren needs from Molly?
It's high time for another Fast Five (a.k.a., Ayunan Cinco for all of you Spanish speakers).
Today I wanna know:
Here's my answers:
If you are so inclined, please leave your answers in the comments!
Some wise person (I'm too lazy to look it up) once said, "the devil is in the details." I do believe that the little things in our lives say a lot about who we are -- and if you add up all of a person's quirky little preferences, you can learn a lot about someone.
So, with that in mind, I thought it would be fun to do a "fast five" -- five easy questions that are short enough to answer in the comments. This is along the lines of Mothergoosemouse's Thursday Third Degree, though not as thought provoking ('cause frankly, I don't have the brainpower these days to think of any interesting questions!)
I wanna know:
Here's my answers:
Who wants to play???
There have been several excellent posts lately that discuss the nature of commenting on blogs -- namely, why people comment (or don't) and how often they comment. Those discussions really got me thinking about another social construct of the blogging world: the blogroll. I have been planning to do something about my own blogroll for a couple of months -- namely, to make it more useful and reflective of the sites I regularly read and enjoy. But everytime I prepare to tackle the blogroll, I get overwhelmed and become extremely indecisive about how to handle it. And I bet I am not alone, so I thought this might be a good opportunity to discuss blogrolls and what you all think about them.
When I first started blogging, blogrolls were my primary way of locating new sites to read. Once I stumbled upon one or two blogs that I liked, I'd click on their listed blogs to locate new sites of interest, and when I set up my OWN blog the first thing I added (after a post or two) was a new blogroll. Other than the Crazy Hip Blog Mamas directory, I've never really used subject-based blog listings to identify potential blog reads; I find I have the best success when a blogger I like links to other blogs that THEY like.
My first blogrolls were short and sweet -- I tried categorizing blogs roughly by subject (initially I included cooking/crafty blogs along with some favorite personal blogs) and had no more than 10 to begin with. But of course once I started developing a community of blogger friends, I really wanted to recognize the fact that I was reading their sites, and my blogroll started really growing. These days, my blogroll has become unwieldy, to the point where I'm not sure anyone can find blogs of interest (and I'm not keeping up well with the ones I used to read daily). And since I get my blog fix in Bloglines, I'm not even using the blogroll myself to keep up with my favorites.
Anyway, I have been thinking about ways to cut the blogroll down. Obviously the best approach to managing a blogroll is to remain selective about who you add to begin with -- I know many bloggers have talked about how they do this, by only linking to blogs that they regularly read and would recommend. But what do you do with an existing blogroll you need to cut back? Here's some options that I've thought about:
-- Removing links to favorite bloggers who already have a huge readership -- i.e., Dooce, Finslippy, Amalah, CityMama. I actually have done this to some extent. The idea here, of course, is that EVERYONE is already reading these bloggers and that they don't necessarily need the extra publicity. Also, I haven't interacted with most of these bloggers personally, and most haven't visited my blog that I know of.
-- Removing links to bloggers whose sites I don't visit as much as I used to, and/or who don't reciprocate by visiting and/or linking to my site. I am not sure how I feel about this. I hate to remove someone from my blogroll if they still link to me, even if they don't visit much anymore (cause maybe they are just busy and still love me!) I also hate to make it seem like I won't link to you if you don't visit and/or link to me, because I don't expect a reciprocal blogroll link from anyone. And to be honest, although I used to always link to people who linked to me, I am not sure how much I can keep that up anymore without my blogroll REALLY getting out of hand. (I want to, and right now I still am linking reciprocally to any sites that I know link to me, I just don't know if that's going to get out of hand.)
-- Creating a tiered blogroll, like other bloggers have done, to indicate the faves that I must read every day, and list the many other excellent blogs that are out there separately. But this can be difficult to do -- probably the top 5 blogs are easy to list, as well as several of the ones who are on the current blogroll but whose writers have not commented on or visited my site in a while, but I bet there would be a gray area. (I think the bloggers who have done this from the beginning have done it so well and diplomatically, so I am in no way criticizing what they've done -- I'm more concerned with changing from one blogroll to a tiered one since it would be a new approach for me.)
-- Including a long blogroll that's annotated (like this one) -- to describe in a couple of sentences what I like about the blog. This is what I'd planned to do when I launch my site redesign (if that ever happens), but 75 blogs annotated is still a big honkin' list for people to get through.
-- Removing my blogroll altogether. I know it's an option, but I am loathe to do this. I've read discussions about how the blogroll is going to go away as a social construct in blogging, but it seems odd not to have a blogroll on a personal blog where you have a regular readership.
Being the policy writer I am, I almost feel like I have to formalize an approach for handling the blogroll and then publicize it and stick to it (gah, I know, I am such a dork). But I don't even know what the heck my approach should be! So I am interested in any and all thoughts on the following:
I don't expect you all to answer each question, unless you are so inclined -- but if you are interested in a specific aspect of blogrolling, have at it! I'd love to get a discussion generated, and I will plan to respond in the comments section as well.
After steadfastly refusing to wear anything except skirts and dresses for the past year, Mimi suddenly decided this weekend that she wanted to wear pants. Apparently one of her classmates has been asking why she never wears pants, so Mimi decided she should wear pants, "so Laurel will be proud of me." Not wanting to let peer pressure be the determinant of how Mimi dresses -- I realize we're in for many long years of this with our girls -- Mimi and I talked about the advantages of dresses versus pants, and we decided that it would be a good idea to expand her wardrobe repertoire a little bit.
Unfortunately, a quick trip to her dresser made me realize that out of the 10 or so pairs of pants there, she's outgrown all but 2 due to a recent growth spurt. We made a trip to Target to look for pants, but the size 4 and 4T pants she tried on were either way too big in the waist or too long for her legs. The pants she's wearing now are Old Navy 3Ts with elastic and a tie waist, but they're from early last spring so they're not in stores anymore. Does anyone else have any hints for outfitting a really, really skinny little mini? She's been potty trained for a while, so with just the little panties on her she's got the littlest legs and butt ever. I'm starting to wish I'd tried harder to keep her in dresses and tights! Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
(picture shows Mimi demonstrating "the layered look" -- the pink underskirt helps to camouflage the fact that that little size 2T miniskirt is still too big for her and keeps sliding down on her hips)
Don't you ever feel like you just HAVE to get something off your chest that you can't say in real life?? You know what I mean -- when someone does something and you open your mouth to respond, and you realize it wouldn't do any good, because you'd just make the situation worse?
Well, here's your chance to vent about what's bothering you in the relative anonymity of the blog world. Tell that next door neighbor just what you think of his dogs that are always pooping in your yard. Yell, virtually, at that grocery store cashier that had such an attitude when you had "the nerve" to bother her when she was on the job. Give some lip to that rude relative that insists on dropping by without calling first. It's a judgement-free zone, and what you express here stays here. Consider it a bitch-and-whine free for all.
OK, I'll go first:
May I just say, "I TOLD YOU SO!!?!??" You seemed to think that just because you paid all that money to an external source have those documents written that they'd be excellent and solid. Even when I started to give you the heads up that there were problems, you shrugged it off. You seemed to think that *I* was the holdup because I spent so much time working on the documents. I was fixing them, I wasn't goofing off! But now you are starting to realize for yourself. Ha, ha, I told you so! I WAS RIGHT!!!!! So there!
Boy, that felt great. Who's next?
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