Weekend Update: Week 6 Blatant Self-Gratification

Tonight's weekend update will be followed by the sound of my mother's voice saying, "Stop showing off.* You're not cute," but I have my fingers in my ears and I'm singing "Row, row, row your boat" over and over so I can't hear a fucking thing. I've had an exciting week as a blogger and a story-teller, so I'm going to toot about it.

Earlier this week I wrote a post about three words I never want to hear again. I'll be honest here and say I started writing late--really late--because I was sitting around eating potato chips, drinking wine, and watching TV with a friend. After he left, I blew off a little steam about a phrase Christina Aguilera used on The Voice, posted it to Twitter, Facebook, and Blogher (who promote NaBloPoMo) and went to bed.

Yes, I'm shameless.

Then next morning I noticed a graphic on my Blogher post. Awww, I thought, somebody liked my post. Then I looked at the number of "reads," and said out loud, "Fuck me. People at Blogher are reading my shit." And commenting. I was so excited! Friday the weekly NaBloPoMo newsletter came out and my little post was in there too. And then today, they posted it on their Facebook wall and the number of reads went over 2000. It was like Viagra for my little e-peen clit.


I admit I have no idea what constitutes a large number of reads at Blogher. My big number could be someone else's "everybody hates me today" number. I don't know. I joined so I could do NaBloPoMo last November, posted some of my blog entries there just to see what would happen, and entered a couple of giveaways. Thousands of women blog there, from what I can tell, so I had no expectations. No, I expected less than that. I felt invisible.

Then I won $250 in December. And then I got a little pat on the head massive boner from those unusually big numbers up there. It really was a perfect match. The money love before the sex. My heart is as swollen as my .... well, nevermind.

A couple of days later I posted about that dickhead who shot his daughter's computer. Coraline had stayed overnight, so we spent the morning napping and playing on my big bed. By the time I came downstairs Elvira had sent a message saying I had lots of good comments on that post. And she was right. I loved reading the comments, even the one from the guy who told me to take my head out of my ass and wake up because he has two daughters, five and under, and if he blows holes in their toys with a gun that doesn't mean he's threatening them with violence. Even him.

Although I'm hell-bent on self gratification here, I have to say that it's really readers and your comments that make this worth doing. My belly button would get pretty dull without your comments and feedback. And a big thank you to those of you who have shared my posts on Facebook. You know who you are!

Finally, tonight something happened that has nothing to do with my blog. I went to my first story slam. I've been to many poetry slams, but never a story slam. It's the same premise though: people sign up to tell a story --10-minute maximum and no notes -- and then the audience decides whom they liked best. I wasn't even going to do it. I was just happy to sit there drinking blueberry tea in a trendy new coffee shop with some friends and some strangers on a bitterly cold Sunday night.

But after everybody on the list had told a story, the host Shelly said we'd take a break and asked if anybody else would tell a story after. So I said I would. The theme was love, so I told the story of the first Valentine's Day LtColEx and I were married, and the gift he gave me stole for me.** And for whatever reason, I won.

The experience was kind of like having people sing "Happy Birthday" to me and then getting a gift -- embarrassing and thrilling at the same time. Here's what I won.

A big storage box full of stuff (photo credit to Diplomat)

Cake dildo? Who thought of this?

You can't really tell from the photo above how much stuff was packed into this carton. I gave the Dean Martin and Neil Diamond albums away to a theatre friend who also told a story. And then I was left with a pound of coffee and tea; 100 tea bags; Little Debbie V Day cakes; Meditation for Dummies; two candles; a tiny  red-ribbon-wrapped package with soap, lip balm, a condom and something in a wax paper bag that feels like cat litter and smells like anise  (Elvira will know what it is); a light-up box that reads "Love Is All You Need"; a tiny pink tote bag with two seed bombs, a couple of chocolate-covered pretzel sticks and a cake dildo; various cookies; and some other stuff I haven't dug to the bottom to find yet.

This looks like somebody's grandma on this cookie. I was hoping for Jesus.

I felt kind of overwhelmed .... but in a good way. I didn't go to the slam expecting to tell a story, much less to win. Next month the topic is anger. Hmmm. I might have a story to tell about that.

I'm done bragging. I didn't have to do it. I could have bitched about sitting through hours of conferences with students and feeling discouraged at the number who will fail my class. Or mean people. Or how my Firefox crashes every fucking day. Or how tired I am of the cold, gray winter.

But tonight I shared what made me happy this week. Writing makes me happy. Stories make me happy. And the people who read and listen and then tell me their stories back, they make me happiest of all.


That's it for tonight. Have a great week!



* Where I come from showing off is a mortal sin. If somebody's keeping track up there, I'm sure there's only room to write in the margins anyway, so fuck it.
** I'll post that story tomorrow.