High (Twenty-)Five

PixieMama made me so happy today, just because she mentioned me and called me friend. Honestly, I've said it before but it's worth the repetition: I frequently fantasize about dinner parties (or picnics or cocktails or barbecues...) with the other special needs mamas (and a few dads, too) out here in the blogosphere. I can almost see it like it already happened and I am looking at the photo album -- Drama Mama gives me makeup tips, Mama Mara makes me laugh, Nik's Mom breaks into song... the fantasy is that vivid, as is my longing for some fun. Let's call that fact #1 of this list of 25 things just about my blog, inspired by my friend PixieMama.

2. I started my blog like many others -- after reading and researching to figure out life with my child -- and I felt like writers such as MOM-NOS and Gretchen gave me a lifeline to hold on to when no one else possibly could.

3. For a long stretch, I reached for blogging almost nightly the way some people run toward that cocktail, pill, or cigarette. It was the ONLY thing that took the edge off my pain.

4. But, sometimes it doesn't.

5. I blog on an old IBM ThinkPad that gets too hot and burns my thighs, and I think each and every time that next time I'll sit at a desk. Never going to happen. I blog sitting up in bed, and I think of the famous literary figures I studied in college who had their writing rituals in bed, and how I wish I had some of their genius instead of just a litany of complaints and burned thighs.

6. When it's a choice between blogging and exercise, I blog.

7. At weddings they give prizes for the guest who came the farthest distance. I ought to give a prize to my friend Gwyneth, who reads my blog in Malawi. Her life is so incredibly more interesting than mine that I'm blown away whenever she comments. (Hi, Gwyn!) When I read about her work in humanitarian aid, I can't help feeling ashamed of my whining ways. If you want to read just one more blog, and one not about special needs kids, you should read hers -- it's fascinating.

8. I never care what my blog LOOKS like. It would seem wrong to skip showers, abandon makeup, have hair bigger than Chaka Khan's, have hair of epic proportions that gets all frizzed out, and then dress up MY BLOG.

9. I rarely edit. I'm lucky if I take the time to spell check. I just rapid fire, publish post, sleep.

10. I read my own posts often. Not recent ones, older ones. It helps me.

11. I have been looking for an EASY (read: fast) way to print out all my blogs, maybe in a book-like format. I want to give it to my son someday.

12. And I'm terrified of my kids reading my blog someday, too.

13. A lot of people doing searches for content about actual roosters stumble onto my blog. It's hard for me to imagine that people want to have rooster-themed birthday parties, but apparently they do.

14. Sometimes I read my blog aloud to my husband, especially if I've written something funny. I like reading it out loud, and it always makes me wonder what it would be like if we all podcasted our blogs. Who has a Southern accent out there? Me! Can you hear it through my text?

15. When I worry about people I know reading my blog, it spoils my ability to write, so I have to put that out of my mind.

16. My favorite thing about blogging is the community. And yet the truth is the process helps me so much that I'd do it even if no one read anything I ever wrote.

17. I am disappointed in my self-centeredness. I wish I had more perspective, more literary style, more worldliness. But at the same time, I don't write my blog to be writerly. I write it for survival.

18. My favorite posts I've ever written are ones about my grandma.

19. The morning after I post, I always look for comments as soon as I wake up in the morning, before I'm even out of bed. Aren't iPhones great?

20. I got accepted into an educational program last year that I reallllllly wanted, and I deferred until next year because of the rooster. Now, as I contemplate doing the online program next year or just dropping out altogether, I find myself listing in the "drop out column" this reason: I don't want to give up my blogging time.

21. Before I travel, I feel a pang knowing I won't be able to blog. This weekend I'll be out of town. I'll miss you!

22. I don't have any tattoos, and always swore I'd never want one. Now I know, though, what I'd get if I ever change my mind: a rooster and a peach.

23. I have a stat counter. Isn't that funny? Why do I have one of those?

24. I'm jealous of people who grow up blogging. If I'd had blogging growing up, wow, things would have sucked much less.

25. It's a stretch to find 25 things to say about my blog. Who knew? What about you?