washwords

In continuing to review some old-school lessons (want to write? READ) I’m trying something new with the blog here and again…. excerpting some of what I’m reading RIGHT now – and sharing the thoughts/discussions/arguments/emotions these writers have spurred in me.

Today, I am thinking about authenticity, thanks to Suburban Turmoil,  who discusses the reaction to her meeting up and befriending a slightly more …. traditionally Christian blogger and fellow parenting-blog award-winner, Angie.  While many of Angie’s readers were positive, Suburban is careful to stress, there were others….

Suburban Turmoil: “Christian”

They were bothered by the profanity on my blog. One mentioned my “immodest picture.” And there was more:
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So I’m a week late, but here I am, apolitical Washwords, blogging, as promised, about cupcakes.

(See, I can be sweet!)

I have a regularly scheduled appointment every Wednesday (it lasts 50 minutes) at a place near the fabbbulous newly opened Hello Cupcake. They sell… you guessed it: cupcakes! Yes, they’re pricey; yes, they are the kind of thing I might blog about as being the worst kind of emperor’s-new-clothes pretentious (ohh I HAVE to have that $3.00 cupcake! in the brown box tied up with string!)

But

I DO have to have it. Hello Cupcake’s cakes are pretty. They have pretty names (Peanut Butter Blossom, Peppermint Penny, De Lime and De Coconut); they have pretty colors (Easter egg pinks and greens and buttercreamy white and tan); and yes, they come in pretty brown boxes with pink stickers.

And

they’re delicious.

So… I’ve started a new tradition. Every Wednesday when I go to my Regularly Scheduled Appointment, I bring back cupcakes (sometimes 4, sometimes 6) to deserving fellow workerbee pals. Because let’s face it, someone could ALWAYS use a cupcake.

Response has been amazing. In the last few weeks I’ve given cupcakes to:

* Pals finishing hellatious, hellatious jobs that have Read the rest of this entry »

Can’t we all just get along?
After spending the morning on blogher, reading about the NYT relegation of the blogher confererence to the style section and whether “mommy-blogging” is a term of empowerment or a mechanism for belittling, I came to Joy Nash’s “A Fat Rant” on Gena’s On the Stoop (and from there to LaurieStar’s response, “A thin rant.”) This fem-centered morning has me thinking a lot about the way we treat each other, the way we think of “women’s issues” and “women’s places,” be it in the media, the blogosphere or the mall.

YouTube – A Fat Rant

YouTube – A Thin Rant

I’m neither Joy’s size nor Laurie’s (though closer to Joy’s by far!) and I admit being one of the eyerollers at the tiny ones. More because “it’s not fair” – a big thing with me, I realize. It’s not fair that skinny girls are (See more after the jump.)

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