Velveteen Mind

The Thong Song

Guest post from Janet at From the Planet of Janet:

Yo, bunny lovers everywhere.

I am your hostess for the day. Let me just say up front that I'm a guest posting whore. I'll guest post anywhere, any time, for anyone. Given the opportunity to write ANYWHERE but my own blog ... I'm there!

So today ... I am here to save the bunny from NaBloPoMoFo-dee-oh-doh anihalation anhialation anialation a fate worse than death.

Yeah, so now that I have your attention, let's talk, yeah?

I want to talk about thongs.

No, silly people, not those things that my 13-year-old daughter, the Roo-girl, wants to wear under her way-too-tight skinny jeans to avoid panty lines.

What we called thongs back in my day (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) are these:

Yes, I know. We now call them flip flops. And they are, of course, everywhere.

I remember some of my friends called them zorries "back in the day," but in my house, they were thongs. Just thongs.

So in addition to guest-blog whore, my other name is Eeeeevil Mother. I totally LOVE making the Roo-girl cringe.

And I can so do this by telling her how many different colors my childhood thongs were.

And how they actually were made of RUBBER.

And how I wore my thongs IN PUBLIC. Where people could actually see them. And they looked!

And how I sometimes kicked OFF my thongs.

And how I never wore my thongs in the house, but always when I went to the beach.

And how, when I went to camp, I wore my thongs to walk to the showers.

And how my thongs were soooo comfy that I wore them for days at a time!

This makes her a nut ball.

But I do love me some thongs flip flops. I love them because I can show off my pedicure:

Now that the weather is getting colder, though, you might think my thongs are inadequate for keeping warm.

Ah, but no:

My daughter says I'm a geek.

I just think I like my thongs. No butts about it.

Stop by and visit my planet. The weather's fine. Perfect for wearing thongs.

What's Wrong With Me?

Guest Post by PunditMom

I have  grand plans.  I have plenty of ideas.  I make lists.  I get myself geared up.

And then I can't get started. 

I have book ideas dancing like visions of sugarplums in my head. 

I have a vision of a house that's neat and tidy.  I fantasize about finding a way to get the family to the dinner table together with something a tad more nutritious than pasta with sauce from a jar.

Then after I do morning school drop-off, and maybe run an errand or two, I get home and immerse myself in my office and get stuck.

Sure, I can crank out the blog posts.  And there's satisfaction in that.  I'm a writer, after all, and there is the immediate gratification of seeing my words out there in the bloggy-sphere.  I'm even getting noticed a little bit for it, so that satisfies my ego.

But I've got to find a way to snap out of my funk and find another path. 

I don't want to stop this, but my life needs to be about more -- more comfy-ness in my home, more time focused on PunditGirl, more time to get the fingers moving on other stories I need to tell that can't be told in this virtual world.  Time to focus on me -- because at my ripe old age, I have finally figured out that no one is ever going to put me first except me.

So I'm going to start being more selfish about my time.  But I feel guilty about that.  My problem, I know.  I'm working on that.

Why am I writing this here and not at my place?  Because I still need to keep these thoughts and feelings private from certain people, but I still need to put them out here somewhere so I can get them off my chest and find the motivation I've been lacking for a long time to take care of me -- physically, mentally and emotionally.

Any thoughts on where I can find the impetus?  I know a body at rest tends to stay at rest.  I need to get this body movin'.

We've all been there or we all are there, so head over to PunditMom and show her the solidarity I know is there on this one.  An absolute treasure trove of solid posts, you'll be glad you did.  Just be prepared to get lost in the good stuff...

My Imaginary Friends

Guest Post by Megan from Sorta Crunchy

One might think that a little girl who is the oldest of four would have no need for imaginary friends.

But oh, gentle Velveteen readers, one would be wrong.

I didn’t have just one imaginary friend, I had many. And actually, they weren’t so much imaginary friends as they were an imaginary audience. They like to sit and listen while I narrated my day to them. As I got older, they would follow me around while I went on walks or rode my bike or did household chores. I would explain to them, step-by-step, exactly how to get the mirror in the bathroom sparkling clean. They hung on my every word because that is a very fascinating subject, and I have a very fascinating way of explaining things.

And now I am going to tell you something that I feel terribly embarrassed and awkward and clunky talking to my friends and family about, and yet somehow feel completely comfortable revealing now to a roomful of strangers . . . I still have imaginary friends.

Although I no longer narrate the minutia of household chores to my imaginary friends (that’s what my daughters are there for!), I do still have this need for an audience. And this, Velveteen readers, this is why I blog.

I started my blog thinking I would just keep it to myself. Just stretch the ol’ writing fingers and let my mommy brain aspire to dwell on something other than how to get cloth diapers so sparkling clean that my bathroom mirror would be jealous. But then that itch for an audience started to get to me. I began wandering around from blog to blog, clicking from blogroll to blogroll, mostly because I couldn’t think of much to say on my blog (aside from talking about bathroom mirrors and cloth diaper laundry), so I worked my way around blogdom, listening in on what other people were writing about.

And now I am going to tell you something else that is actually not a secret at all to anyone who knows me . . . I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut sometimes. I’m not speaking of confrontation or controversy here. No, really I just like to chit and chatter. Twitter and tweet. So naturally as I blog-hopped, it felt so wrong to just read and leave.  It felt wrong in the way it would feel wrong to sit across the breakfast table from someone who invited you to come by and hear about her day or her politics or her heartache or her joy and to never offer a word in return.  To sit silently in the space of such personal conversation just didn't seem right to me.

So to right this wrongness, I started commenting. A comment here, a comment there. Nothing really witty or clever, for no one has ever accused me of being either of those. Just an “Amen, sister!” and “I am right there with you on this” and a lot of “Thank you for sharing this.”

What I began to notice is that sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, these people for whom I had left comments would stop by my blog and leave a comment here and there, too. And this, then, led to further discussions via email, and I soon discovered that rather than my blog just being a medium for me to indulge in my sorta self-indulgent tendencies, it was actually becoming a vehicle for meeting all kinds of people. Meeting – dare I say it? – new friends.

Alas, the realm of blogdom is heavy on the electronic and light on the face-to-face, so these aren’t the sort of friends who will be popping over for a cup of coffee anytime soon. Because there are quite a few of my blog friends (or blends, as my friend Julie would say) who don’t have pictures posted at their bloggy homesteads, I don’t even know what most of them look like. Trying to explain this mode of friendship to non-blogging friends and family is a bit like trying to explain the imaginary audience of my youth.

“No, mom, she’s a real person. No, I haven’t met her, but I highly doubt she is really a fifty-eight year old man in his skivvies in the Ukraine. Her English is far too good and she knows way to much about how to clean up toddler puke out of a brand new carpet for her not to be who she says she is . . .”

I’m afraid my tendencytobabbleitis is acting up and Megan may be beginning to regret having invited me over today, so I’ll wrap this up. What it all comes down to is I am so thankful for this “blogging phenomenon.” For me, it’s a sweet oasis in the midst of diapers and nursing bras and potty learning and goldfish crackers. Best of all, it’s afforded me some wonderful friendships with some amazing imaginary friends.

If any of ya'll wanna join my menagerie of imaginary friends, stop by SortaCrunchy where the door is always open and shoes are always optional.