September 10, 2006

In the years I’ve been keeping an online journal, I’ve only had a few angry comments. I’ve chalked this up to the fact that I’m too uninformed to be very opinionated, and therefore incapable of much shit-stirring. If only I were smarter, so as to have a longer, more useful stick with which to stir the shit! But alas.

As it turns out, being kind of stupid can be controversial too. I don’t think posting my horrible idea of a Steve Irwin Halloween costume was quite on par with, say, fooling hundreds of people into replying to a Craigslist sex ad and then publishing all of the responses, including their email addresses (which, oh my god), but I admit it was pretty obnoxious. I actually didn’t feel remorseful about it at all, though, until Jem–who I like very much–mentioned that the joke hit too close to home for her, as one of her close friends is related to Steve and is in mourning right now. Then I thought about Terri Irwin reading my retarded blog post, as improbable as that would be, and…yeah. Sometimes there are things you should probably just keep to yourself, or only share with your equally-awful husband.

However, if it shook loose a few readers whose immediate reaction to the entry was to tell me I had no morals or heart, and that they certainly hoped no harm would ever befall Riley (insert Ominous Tones of Deserved Retribution), well, I don’t mind that one bit. Begone, froth-mouthed crazies, to a land where no one ever does anything to offend you. I recommend one of the outer rings of Saturn.

Something kind of interesting: my daily traffic on that website has nearly doubled in the last couple days. One of the Irwin Post comments asked, “Are you not getting paid for this site?”. I’m not positive what the relevance of the question is – I guess the implication is that I should avoid any subject that has the potential to upset the readers I am being paid to write for. My guess is that ClubMom doesn’t have a real big problem with the boost in viewers. Presumably whoever is currently paying for that big-ass ad tower on there (at the moment, Home Depot, I think) doesn’t mind it either.

I get paid by the month, not by number of viewers, so from that perspective I don’t care if people go away, and in the words of one reader, “tell all of their friends about my pathetic lack of taste and decency” (wait, so you’re going to send around a link to my blog with the instructions to avoid it because it contains a lack of both taste and decency? Jeez, warn me ahead of time, why don’t you, so I can ask for more bandwidth) and never come back.

But I do actually care about a bunch of people having such vitriolic anger towards me; if every entry I posted – here or elsewhere – had comments like that (setting aside the question of what objectionable content, exactly, I’d be consistently producing to generate that sort of feedback) then it wouldn’t be rewarding at all. It wouldn’t be worth the check, and it certainly wouldn’t be worth the time I invest in it.

So my sappy, lame-ass point here is, I’m awfully grateful for the lack of hateful comments you leave me. You have helped me feel confident enough to write about things I never could share with strangers (you don’t feel like strangers). Thank you for being the most supportive, sane, non-butt-kissing, non-burn-her-she’s-a-witching, stupendously cool group of readers a person could hope to have.

Finally, to Jem: I’m sorry about that post.

:::

Today is Sunday, and it was a fine, fine day. The temperature was, in my Northwesterner’s opinion, completely perfect: 71°; the skies were clear and bright and you could just barely smell the onset of fall in the air, that crisp cool delicious odor of firewood and apples and leaves.

Lately we’ve been noticing an odd number of people who seem to be poking around in the tiny section of woods that skirts a park near our house, and JB finally asked someone, “Hey, are you looking for a geocache?” (They had that guilty look about them, a contrived sort of nonchalance, and of course the GPS is a dead giveaway.) They allowed as how they might be, yes, and so we looked it up – sure enough, there was a tiny cache hidden there, which we found this morning.

We hadn’t been geocaching in a long time, and I had forgotten just how fun it is. We packed up Riley and searched out two more in the neighborhood, discovering a park we’d never seen before in the process. That’s my favorite thing about geocaching, you find all kinds of cool trails and parks and places to come back to.

We also visited Old Navy, where JB updated his jeans wardrobe and I picked out some ridiculously cute shirts for Riley, and later we found a new cheap rug to replace the cheap white shag. I like this one much better, so now we have an extra rug. Clearly, we need a dead body to roll in its dog-fur-coated innards.

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Rug, 2.0.

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Old Navy shirts. I love the one with the fox: WHAT!

In case you were wondering, the boy continues to be cute. It’s getting harder and harder to take pictures of him; man oh man, he’s always on the move, rarely staying still long enough to stay in frame.

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He looks like he’s dancing here, but I think he’s just in mid-wild-step. Rug 1.0 blinds us all with its shaggy whiteness.

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He digs the straw action, but every other sip comes with a near-death experiences as he hacks on the inhaled liquid contents. Babies! They’re, like, soooo clueless.

As for the dwindling remainder of this day, JB and I are going to continue on our marathon of watching the first season of Rescue Me, which despite some overall cheesiness, I’m really enjoying. Did you know you can say “shit” on FX, but not “fuck”? Just a little wisdom-nugget for you. You’re welcome, and good night.

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squandra
squandra
18 years ago

I wish I could find a diplomatic way to say … well … um … Mary Sucks, The End. Because really, that’s about the size of it.

But still, your target audience is probably not, you know, EVERYONE. Right? And I think your readers thank you dearly for knowing that. Also, your responses in the comments? I have a crush on you now.

P.S. If they liked that, maybe they would love a little suggestive children’s book interpretation? “… In my pants.” Hee! You had my boyfriend and me rolling.

goddess of clarity
18 years ago

De-lurking to say that on the Halloween after Princess Di died, I dressed up in a white gown, blonde wig and tiara, death mask makeup, with an imprint of a Mercedes Benz hood ornament on my forehead. (Couldn’t find a steering wheel to hang around my neck.) Half the party-goers laughed hysterically, half shot me dirty looks. In other words, it worked!

Great blog, by the way. I have no child running around (nor any maternal instinct to speak of) but good writing is good writing.

Melissa
Melissa
18 years ago

Okay, late in responding. I’m the one who sent ya the octopus costume link as an idea and I must say, I think the “stingray” costume is very creative. People wear sick costumes all the time. You weren’t planning to parade Riley in front of Terri Irwin and her family or anything. I think it’s natural to joke about people who put themselves in the limelight…let’s face it, he was a character! I think the people who attacked you in the comments went overboard.

Amanda
Amanda
18 years ago

Thanks to you, my husband *will* be going as an anonymous jackass in khaki with a stuffed skate (not a stingray) strapped to his chest, because we have no sense of humor and we’re tasteless, just like you I guess. But if my hubs says “Crikey! I’ve been stabbed in me pumpah!” once more before Halloween he might get stabbed in the pumper with my FORK.

Jane Applegate
17 years ago

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