"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
March on Washington
August 28, 1963
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I am a reader. Yes, you know that, but I don't just read books-- I voraciously adore books.
I love the weight of books in my hands, the texture of the paper, the quality of the production materials, the thoughtful cover design. The way a hardback sounds when you lay it on a table with a decisive thump, the way a paperback gives to your impatience, the way the typeface sets the tone, the way the layout paces your reading.
A good book is a physical guide through the literary realm of the story.
So you can imagine my sense of defeat when I bought the audio version of Twilight.
Humpf.
When I decided to go to BlissDom in Nashville, it took very little consideration before I chose driving over flying. Yes, flying would be fast and convenient and virtually the same price as driving... but planes are far too fast.
I wanted a nice long drive. Miles of road stretched out before me and my cute little wagon. Hours to just think.
But something inside me said it wanted to spend hours thinking about vampires. Yes, vampires. I was just as surprised as you.
After sniffing out the growing interest around the book within my own Twitter community, I was ready to finally give in to my curiosity.
Perhaps it was the thought of a couple of days with a large group of women, hyper-analyzing minute details and stirring up frenzied discussions about virtual passions that put me in the mood to delve into the world of romantic fantasy during my drive.
The fact that it was teenage romantic fantasy would make it only all the more appropriate. Squealing and the like, if you will. However, I didn't realize it was about teenage vampires until I went to buy the audiobook.
I felt decidedly hip as I went to our local bookstore, thinking I was on the hunt for the au courant goth novel, probably only known to those in-the-know. I give those I follow on Twitter much credit, as it happens.
I breezed up to the audio section at the front of the store and was almost pleasantly surprised that Twilight wasn't there. Clearly, this was a book popular only with my ultra-hip Twitter community, not even to be found in the current audiobook selection.
Tossing my hair over my shoulder and smiling to myself that I was just as edgy as I expected, I strode up to the help desk, pushed aside the piles of gift cards emblazoned with a pair of pale hands holding a blood red apple (vaguely familiar... is that the new logo for the holidays here this year? sort of bizarre but argh! focus!) and asked the woman behind the counter if they had an audio copy of a book called "Twilight but I have no idea the name of the author."
She smiled patiently at me and then literally blushed. In the next moment, she switched gears and plunged forward whole-heartedly, her kohl-smudged eyes widening a bit as she began (good Lord!) gushing...
"Oh my God I love those books! It's Stephenie Meyer. Stephenie Meyer, she's the author. You haven't read them? They are amazing. I'm obsessed. Obsessed. You won't be able to look back. Are they for you? They are for you? Oh I'm so jealous of you reading them for the first time. Oh, Edward. Just wait. Edward!"
"Ah... Right, wait, the audiobook? I'm sure we have it. You looked in teen audio?"
My jaw had dropped open slightly somewhere between her now-clearly-emo eyes spotting an opportunity to talk about the Twilight saga and the second "obsessed." And, good grief, did she say "teen" audio?
No, I hadn't checked in teen audio.
Damn it.
Evidently, I was on the tail end of a trampled trend, not the black-dyed tips of it.
She handed me the audiobook I desired and a humble sigh escaped through my own emerging smirk as my eyes fell on the cover... emblazoned with a pair of pale hands holding a blood red apple.
Right next to the words "Now a Major Motion Picture."
Did I say "trampled" trend? I meant trampled into sticky spilled Coke and popcorn trend.
Sigh.
But wait, it gets better, because...
I was about to find myself holding my own conquered, blood-red heart in my hands at the feet of said Edward.
Because, yeah, he's one of those characters.
Le sigh, indeed.
...to be continued...
... though, in the meantime, I won't laugh at you if you want to buy the audiobook
Hell, Amazon has a whole Twilight store
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We are currently broke. There is a difference between broke and poor, poor seeming to me to be a more permanent situation. We're just plain broke folk at the moment.
Given this current cash hemorrhage flow problem, I have turned to my online ventures to help stop the death throes gap. As a blogger, this means advertising.
One of my favorite blogs is Jessica Knows, currently featuring 15 Days of Marketing. 
This is right up my alley of pressing needs, as her post on building your brand through a solid biography page, reinforced through a meticulous Press page is just what I need to focus on as I decide how to pitch the advertising opportunities available on Velveteen Mind.
Fortunately, I'm fairly happy with my current "About" page, needing mostly to add Press and my advertising rates. Oooooh, that's right... advertising rates.
I'm brainstorming, kicking around numbers based on basic research I've already done for the advertising available on Blog Nosh Magazine, and I come to a brilliant conclusion: Small businesses and personal blogs will receive a discounted rate, while larger businesses will receive a higher rate. You know, the big boxes like Kodak and WalMart shouldn't get the sweet deals I give the mom and pops just trying to scrape together a living. Let's call it a "luxury tax."
Man, I am so funny. Crack myself up.
Heeeeey... wait...
What exactly is different about my "tax" plan and President-elect Obama's?
Damn.
I'm going to have to reconsider this redistribution of the blogosphere wealth.
In the meantime, I did pick up one very clear and easy-to-utilize tip from Jessica Knows: ScratchBack's TopSpots widget! In short, it's a tip jar with benefits. If you would like to support Velveteen Mind and/or Blog Nosh Magazine, you simply toss in a tip via PayPal through the widget in the right sidebar. It's the one under "Subscribe" that says "Are You in my TopSpots?" on a blue bit of paper. As thanks, you receive a text link for your blog or business on Velveteen Mind (or go to Blog Nosh Magazine and do the same). Simple. Clean.
I don't mean that I literally want you to tip me right now yes I do, just swap the name of my blog for yours or your friend's and you see the intrigue.
Tip jars always felt tacky to me, yet I never hesitate to chip in when someone requests a donation for their services, whether it be NPR or a free web application I use religiously. I love tip jars on blogs, even when I'm only tipping a buck or two. ScratchBack gives bloggers a really easy way to give back a tangible thanks, though, which is quite my style.
And no, this is not an ad for them. No commissions paid.
I'm just, you know, spreading the wealth.
Sigh.
Damn it.
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{Audioblog} Listen to or Download 'The Trouble With Pies' read by the author
A pear pie made me stop blogging.
Rather, the promise of a pear pie.
No. Precisely, the absence of a pear pie.
The day before we evacuated for Hurricane Gustav a handful of weeks ago, I dropped by our elderly neighbor's home to find out what their evacuation plans were and to share my family's. They are a wonderful couple that have lived in this home for over thirty years, friendly and both interesting and interested.
Needless to say, I rarely visit them. Yep, I'm that neighbor. I'm the one that smiles and waves, greets you through the fence, buys lemonade at your child's lemonade stand, but generally doesn't step into your yard.
The day I stopped by to discuss evacuation plans was not the first time I had knocked on their door, but it was the first time I accepted an invitation to come inside. I did not have our two toddler boys with me at the time, so was enjoying the rare moment in which I could make decisions independent of everyone else's immediate vicinity to impaling devices. As such, I happily stepped into what I expected to be a very similar floor plan as our own home, our houses being two of the oldest on the street.
The home I found myself standing in was, instead, the home our house wishes it could be. I did not hide my enthusiasm for their renovations, so the Mrs. welcomed me to tour the home with her so she could point out the changes.
After a walk-through that had my brain mapping out blueprints for the virtual mansion I wish our home could one day become (okay, more like bungalow with a larger family room), we returned to the kitchen to find the Mr. waiting for us with a plastic bag full of something heavy and plentiful.
Pears.
Mr.: Do you like pears?
Megan: Sure, we love pears.
Mr.: I thought you might,
so I picked these while you were with the Mrs. They are from our tree out front.
Megan: Oh my, thank you! I always wondered if those were edible.
Mr.: They aren't good for eating, but they're fine for baking. I thought you could bake a pie with them when you get back.
Megan: (trying to comprehend a couple foreign words he used in those sentences) Sure. Absolutely... I. will. bake. a. pie.
Mr.: smiling proudly, having helped a young mother provide a special treat for her young family...
Her young family who are actually completely oblivious as to what a pie is or how one would be made from scratch and then baked in that big white thing we make grilled cheese sandwiches on top of, if we're lucky.
I left with my bag of freshly picked pears, plopped them on my kitchen table, and then forgot about them. What did stick with me, though, was how casually he had said I could "bake a pie with them." As though of course I knew how to bake. A pie. With fresh ingredients.
I am a young mother, with a young family, on a tight budget, and I do not know how to bake a pie. I sure do have a cute apron, though. One I designed and had made from a vintage table cloth. One I had made by a friend I met online, from a table cloth I bought online, and which I intended to sell online in order to help support my family.
That is the mother that I am. 
I don't bake pies, creating them from scratch, slipping them into the oven to bake, then serving them to my expectant family at the dinner table.
Rather, I Google pie images, digitally insert them into graphics programs and then virtually publish them from my digital desktop for my statistically relevant online audience to consume.
I suspect I'm missing something here. For all that my .com resourcefulness gets me, I suspect that a certain amount of real "calm" could be gained from that real pie.
And that is what stuck with me.
In the days to follow, long after the pears had to be thrown out, I was still thinking about that pie. That damn pie.
After a long day of wrangling editors and answering questions from PR emails, I turned off the computer, loaded the boys in the car, and headed over to my parents' house for a bit of a break. After satisfactorily distracting the boys, I plopped down on the couch and found a movie to watch. Waitress starring Keri Russell was on, a movie I had heard great independent-movie things about.
And I'll be damned if it wasn't about pies.
What followed was roughly two hours of watching pies being made. The filmmakers might suggest that there was a plot line and a romance and something about marriage and babies and career, but all I saw was pies. Pies, and a simplicity that my life has been missing lately.
I've written only one blog post since then, because I more or less turned off the computer and started reassessing the clutter in my life, both literally and figuratively. For those of you that have been reading me a long time, you know I do this every now and then. I don't make a big fuss about it, I just don't show up for a few weeks.
But this isn't about blogging. I'm not looking for comments that read "I'm glad you're back!" or "I missed reading you." The web is stuffed full of enough to keep you occupied, and I think that is precisely my point.
This reassessment of our priorities and taking inventory of our homes and goals is relevant to every single one of us. Or at least it should be.
When I wrote Gravel Paves the Road to The White House, my point was not a small towns vs. cities one. Rather, it was about taking the time to listen, to absorb, to process and integrate the mass amounts of stimuli we are faced with every single day. It was about taking the time to settle the white noise in our heads.
You didn't notice it happening, but then you step outside one evening, discover it quiet, and realize that you have cocooned yourself within a wall of static.
That pie. That damn pie that I never made, sliced through my static.
This is about simplicity. It is about appreciating what I already have at my fingertips. 
What I've struggled to build but then sometimes take for granted. It is about what I let slip by me every day and never notice. It is about that woman that I'm going to get around to being.
So... I've been cleaning. Decluttering. Stepping back and asking questions, making decisions, taking action. Slicing through the static I've let accumulate, static that I've allowed to drown out something important that I can't quite put my finger on but that I can sense is still there.
Maybe it's the stress from all of this screeching panic on the news each day. The economy. The bailout. The election. The noise the noise the noise.
You don't notice it sneaking up on you. You don't think you even care. But then there it is. Regardless of how much you think it affects you, you find yourself needing to make a decision, put your foot down, stake your claim.
Close your eyes, take a breath, exhale. Open your eyes. Step back. Sit down. Stand up. Move forward. Slow down.
Steady yourself.
I'm going to make that damn pie.
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