Being Honest With You, My Dear Blog

You wouldn't know it, but I tend to hold a lot back. A LOT. A. LOT. But starting today, I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm going to be more open about things. Is that cool?

Good.

I think I've made this promise before, in other blog posts, but I mean it this time. I really do.

What I usually hold back is, well, the truth about what I'm doing and whatnot. I usually only write about the safe things, things that I'm not afraid for people to know, like me exercising (kicking arse!), running races, music I like, and my random thoughts about current events. Typically those are rants, the ones about current events, and even there, I hold back. I could rant so hard it would burn your brain into a skull-puddle. Skull-puddle. How does that sound? *shiver

Anyway, I hold back the most about my writing. Back when I put links up to some of my stories, you wouldn't know it, but that was huge for me. Enormous. It was quite scary, too. And so far, it's been terrible. No one has even noticed them. I think twenty people have read the stories and they were all in my family.

No big deal. That's what happens when you don't advertise. Plus, who wants to pay for MY stories when you can read my blog for free? My blog is so fascinating. Who needs to get their fix from my stories?

Right now, all that's going on my life is: 1) taking care of Corbet (my son, born eight months ago); 2) maintaining the house (that's hard, if you've never done it before, it involves things like sweeping, folding laundry, dusting blinds, etc. Sucky work, but someone's got to do it); 3) exercising like a banshee; got to get that lithe figure back, you know, ha. Ha ha ha. 4) hiding from the neighbors, who turn out to all be in my ward because I'm back in Utah now ("I saw you out running yesterday." Is a phrase I've heard several times already from ward-members. Still not used to it.); 5) taking care of Corbet; 6) trying to find time to write.

The other day I made a goal. I'd work on my stories DURING THE DAY AT SOME POINT. MAYBE WHEN CORBET IS NAPPING*.

I accomplished that goal once or twice. And then the laundry piled up. And Corbet tried to eat a dust-bunny he found under the linen rack in the master bathroom. That's when I realized I hadn't swept in over a month. So I cleaned. Still haven't swept, but I cleaned the bathroom. Good job, me.

And now I've only written at home once in the past two weeks. Last night. I threw in a scene that was partially inspired by the song "Cough Syrup" by Young the Giant. I liked that song BEFORE it appeared on Glee.

I hate Glee.

Anyway, great song. Can't stop listening to "Islands" by Young the Giant, either. And you know what? That band is awesome. I'm in love.

Anyway, I threw the "Cough Syrup" scene into the manuscript that I finished a month or so ago. The manuscript only took me two years to write or something. Ha. Ha ha ha. That's partially because I had a baby during that time. Writing was difficult while pregnant. And then I had some health complications. I know! Excuses, excuses. So, I think the scene works. I need to reread it again, and touch it up, but I think it's daring. And right. It fits. It really does.

So, there's some info about my writing, which has proven to be the hardest thing for me to write about on my blog. Weird, I know. But honestly, it's because I'm afraid to be a failure.

You know. I just want to grow. Somehow. To combat that feeling I constantly have of being in a state of permanent regression. Like Mister Kurtz. Day by day. The older I get. Perhaps it's merely the "the more I know, the more I realize I don't know" phenomenon, and I'm suffering the symptoms of it. Who can say for sure?

Fear bugs me, anyway, and when I finally realize I'm being afraid, I try to woman up and confront it.

This is me confronting a fear.

Thanks.



*This kind of planning always results in the plan's ultimate destruction. Son won't cooperate when I plan to do things while he naps.

On the News, Again. Couponing.

I think I must be in some cosmic alignment right now.

I stopped at the grocery store for a couple items I couldn't get last week and bam! Someone from Channel 4 news asked if they could interview me for a piece on couponing. Can you believe it? I just barely started using coupons when we got back here to Utah. Money's tight and all that, so, you know, every bit of savings counts. The main thing about couponing is if you have a budget–when you only have $75 dollars to spend on groceries, finding coupons means you can fit more into that budget.

Crazy, I know. That's how money works, kid.

You know, before Corbet was born and I was working, I didn't have time to care about this stuff. But now I just sit around all day being lazy, watching crap shows like Rachel Ray and Anderson (I like both of those shows and they're not really crap, that was sarcasm), and eating bon-bons.  It's true. So I can get more bon-bons for my money if I clip coupons.

Anyway, so, last November, around Stoker's birthday, while I was at the Gateway mall in SLC, I was asked by a Channel 4 reporter if they could interview me for a piece on Johnson's Baby Wash. Whoever did the piece erroneously called me Nicole Smith. SMITH? Come on! Welp, anyway, my married last name is as common as Smith, so at least they remembered that it was a common one. Nice work.

So, if you look up the interview, Corbet looks adorable. He was riding in the Baby Bjorn and he had on his cute crocheted hat one of his aunt's made him. That was the best part of the interview. Corbet. I'm sure they asked me because he was freaking gorgeous.

I worry (of course there had to be a worrisome element to all this cosmic awesomeness) that these two interviews (if they even actually use the footage of me today) will accumulate to my fifteen minutes of fame and after this, no more. It would be excellent if rather than news interviews about random household concerns, I was being interviewed because of my profound blogging wit, or because someone had made a movie based on my socially critical short story, Life Feeds. Wouldn't that be amazing?

Either way, at this point I'll take the news interviews about couponing and Johnson and Johnson's cancer causing Baby Wash for the sheer excitement of being asked about my intriguing life and stirring opinions.