Win A Book To Curl Up With on Christmas Eve

Here's the bookand here's part of the back jacket copy:

Gracefully capturing the strange alchemy of people and places, Kaya McLaren's story of redemption and rediscovery will inspire readers to find the magic and power in every day shared with the people they love.

Here's what you have to do to win it:

1. Write in a comment why you want to win it. Why should you, of all my millions of readers, be the one to curl up with Church of the Dog? Make me laugh; make me cry; make me want to spend the postage to send it to you in time for Christmas Eve.

That's all. Nothing magical. Just a comment. From you--to me....

Civil Discourse

I've been writing a variation of this post for some time now--since, actually, the 2008 Presidential Election started getting loud, which was during the Primaries, as I recall. I've thought it so often that I had to go through past posts to make sure I haven't said it all before. The truth is, I have. I've written bits and pieces of it in my Tweets and my Comments on other's blogs and as red-starred warnings on my own blog. Most people have heard me; some, the tone deaf and determined, have not.

There is a nastiness abroad that is passing for "political discourse." It is polluting the very debates we need to be having in order to make an informed decision on election day. Disagreement is when you proffer the opinion, "I beg to differ and for this or that or the other reason." Disagreement is not when you're larding your comments with sarcasm, whipping out your wit as if you were auditioning for Counterpoint. I don't care if you're on the left or the right: intelligent people make thoughtful debaters. They use reason to convince, not condescension to score points. They listen and respond, rather than waiting till the other person finishes to throw a zinger or two.

You like McCain; I like Obama...or, as was once the case, you like Obama and I like Hillary. There, we've said it, smiled and gotten on to other topics, good will and friendship intact. We have not loaded our commentary with heavy sarcasm. We have not called each other names or even implied that one of us is an idiot to not believe what the other does.

I cannot stand that hostile "you dumb fuck" tone of so much of what's being written these days. Grace D calls me the Manners Narc, because I have on more than one occasion called someone to task for slamming another's ideas in a less than collegial way. I accept the title, wear it somewhat proudly even. I learned the so-called art of debate at the dinner table with my father. It was our entertainment, but it came with certain rules: Don't get angry and don't get personal.

I work really hard to keep those rules in my discussions these days. You see, I have an absolutely vicious tongue which, should I unleash it, could flay the skin off a lizard. I know that. I've seen it happen in the past. So it's a matter of integrity, of honesty to me that I not use my ability to batter someone with my words to win a debate. And because I work so hard to keep my discourse civil, I expect others to do the same.

When they don't, I absolutely do think less of them.

Los Angeles, San Jose, or Elk Grove - Take Three

So back to our regularly scheduled programming. I'm so sorry to have interrupted it and with such NASTINESS. I can tell by the abundance of comments that you all were just quivering over the MMA Championships. But now you must stopped shaking and come along with me again to The Grand Decision: Should I stay in Elk Grove? move to San Jose? return to LA?

Thus far, we've covered the pros of staying in Elk Grove. Please, as you're considering this, do not make the mistake of thinking this is a choice to stay in Sacramento. That--moving to Sacramento--is a whole other option, but I think we're overloaded enough as it is.

So--what I like about the idea of moving back to LA:
1. I still have friends there, people who do not [necessarily] think I'm weird or too much.
2. I've made some new blogging friends there, which is more than I can say for here (sorry Margaret, but you moved, remember...sorry Steph, but we only communicate on the computer).
3. My family is there. This, however, is not totally positive. All of you who have wonderful, best friend relationships with your sister can go dunk your heads. Mine is fraught with angst, trauma, and drama. In fact, the first time I left LA, it was to move away from her, and I didn't return until I felt relatively certain that I could maintain some boundaries. She is, one might say, a lot of work. But my niece and her family are there too, and I've built good relationships with her kids.
4. I know the city, can scoot around on the surface streets, up and down the canyons like the wind (yes, I realize that scoot and wind are not exactly compatible, but whatever...)
5. I did my MA in Psych there, so all of my internship/job contacts are in SoCal. That's been a real problem for me up here.
6. LaLa Land is, as we all know, home to the greatest density of shrinks and shrinkees and in country. Thus, the opportunities for an internship position down there are considerable. And this, remember people, is what I must do to make money.
7. I feel like LA is My City in a way that it would take [how much, too much] time for me to feel about another place.
8. My doctors, dentists, and hair stylist are there. Not to mention my synagogue, Temple Israel of Hollywood, where I can worship with Leonard Nimoy in the sanctuary where Eddie Fisher and Liz Taylor were married. And my hospital, Cedars Sinai, which I love because every door has a mezzuzah on it and the gift shop sells Seder plates and menorahs.
9. I could go back to California Graduate Institute and work on my PhD, which is--yes--something I vowed I wouldn't do, but that was only when D was breathing down my neck. The fact is that I like being in school. There's an order to it that I need, I guess. I like the rhythms of the term, the excitement at the beginning, the slogging through the middle, and the push to the glory of the end. At which time I get a grade and that's like a little gold star to me.

Tomorrow I'll do Why I Would Even Consider San Jose as well as The Problems with Elk Grove and LA. Please do say tuned. And don't be so silent....

We Built It Because We Needed It

If you want to see why MidLifeBloggers.com had to come into being, go check out the comments that the post on plastic surgery is generating. I crossposted it from ByJane. Compare the different conversations the two sites are evoking.

This is what community is about, and I am so proud to be a part of it.

MidLifeBloggers.com - how's it gonna work?

Here's one explanation, long-winded probably, but jeeze, folks, I thinking out loud here. I mean, isn't the normal thing for a web site to be presented, all pretty in beta, with the major issues worked out? Am I capable of doing the normal thing? NO.

So look at it this way: you are being treated to an insiders look at the creation of a website...by someone who knows nothing about creating websites. This is flying by the seat of my pants, people, which is how I've always done it. Problem is, you're all on the plane with me. However, I promise that we will not crash and burn. Equally, expect a bumpy ride from time to time.

Here's what I'm imagining: The main blog posts of the site will be written by all who have and will join the group. We'll take turns. At least in the beginning, I'll serve as the editor. So say you've written a post on your blog that you think would be perfect for MidLifeBloggers.com. Write me an email, send me the link, or just copy it into the email. I, in turn, will post it on MidLifeBloggers.com.

My vision for this whole project is a place for all of us. I can see other avenues within the site that would work for less formal dialogue. I'm hoping that the category Conversations will work in a quasi-interactive way. Ask a question; get a bunch of answers. Okay, that's vague, but maybe by tomorrow, I'll have sharpened it up. Or maybe you'll join me in brainstorming this thing. How 'bout that...huh? huh?

Love,
Jane

MidLife Bloggers - We're Here!

There's a conversation going on at BlogHer that I've been having with myself for more than a year: Where are all the middle-aged women bloggers? | BlogHer?
Cecelia over at MetaFootnotes started it several weeks ago when she introduced herself to BlogHer. She wrote about trying to find "a voice that I want to hear." That voice is of a woman in her midlife (fill in the age range yourself; these days when 60 is the new 50 and 50 is the new 40--who knows).

"I'll admit it. I envy the mommybloggers. Twenty years ago . . . I would have found those sites a lifeline, a very Godsend. But, despite the obvious fact that theirs are among the most powerful and prolific voices on the Web, the Mommys don't speak to or for me. I have different issues now, and I'd like to talk about them and hear others talk as well."

Cecelia finishes by putting a call out:

"If you are a woman of a certain age (and doesn't that sound better than middle-aged?) and know of blogs that talk comprehensively about this wonderful, frustrating stage of life, please let me know."

Almost four weeks later, we're still talking and the topic is getting stronger and stronger. I'm going to link at the end to all the women who have (thus far) taken part in the conversation, but in this post, I want to highlight a few voices, as well as my own experience.

I've been blogging for, I dunno, four years now (see how the memory goes!) and for much of that time I've felt like I am swimming upstream. Or--here's another metaphor--battering on a door, saying 'Let me in. Hear me. Speak to me.' The problem isn't ageism. There are blogs out there that speak eloquently to and for the Elders. BlogHer has a subcategory just for them and Denise, who's the Community Manager at Blogher, point to that site." However, I am not an Elder. My interests have nothing to do with issues of getting old and infirm and living on a fixed income.

My interests are more in line with Tanis, who doesn't have a blog yet (but should!):

"I'm looking for an arena to be heard and to listen. A place to discuss teenagers, new relationships and a not so new body, a busy career or lack of one. Self discovery, confidence, what to wear, family dynamics, alone time and what comes next in life."

I too want to see myself on BlogHer. I brought it up last year at BlogHer '07, and I was told that someone was going to be doing it. But someone isn't. Debra Roby of A Stitch in Time says that's because it's too broad a topic. Middle-aged women don't blog about their issues "any more than young bloggers specifically blog about what it's like to be a college student, or a quarterlifer." Well actually, Debra, young bloggers do blog about exactly that.

My sense is that the reason we midlifers aren't seen and focused on as a viable community within BlogHer is that the powers that be, the decision-makers of BlogHer aren't in our demographic. That's somewhere down the line, when I get older, but definitely not now, is what I imagine them saying. Now I'm about getting and doing and being and making and--wow! there's the whole world out there to conquer.

A good part of that conquering the world is making BlogHer a respected entity, building it into a viable player within the world of commerce. The Mommybloggers are at the top of the mountain, an acknowledged force to be reckoned with in terms of business, and an advertiser's dream. So in selling BlogHer, it's probably easier to sell them. Except--we, the midlife women, are a big, big piece of the advertising pie as well. We're the ones with discretionary income; we're the bigger spenders. So says Marti Barletta, who's known as the "First Lady of marketing to women" in her book PrimeTime Women: How to Win the Hearts, Minds, and Business of Boomer Big Spenders. This was the pitch that I made last summer after BlogHer, and this was the pitch that I guess was a dead ball. But I'm at it again.

As is Gena, from Out On The Stoop, issued a challenge to someone to "whip up a sample post and show folks what's needed." Karen from MidLife's A Trip, took her up on it. You can read her post as part of the comments here. She said something in one of her comments that really resonated with me. "I'm usually one of the oldest on the sites I visit--not a mommy blogger yet not an elderblogger either. It's kind of like being the middle child in a family--sometimes you feel like you don't quite fit in."

That's how I've felt. I'm not done being and becoming. I'm not finished have adventures, going places, trying and failing and trying again and, then, succeeding. In short, I'm not done living, and I want my site, my BlogHer to reflect that.

Here are some other midlife women who feel the same:
Carol at A Different Nest
Jill at Writes Like She Talks
Pundit Mom
Ladybeams
Anali at Analis First Amendment
JanMBSC
Rhonda at Recipe Carousel
Tara at The Princess and The Pea
Diary of a Midlife Crisis
Musing
Tiddlytwinks
Pamela Jeanne at Coming2Terms
Granny Sue

I can't tell you the exact age range of these women. Some are in their 40s, some 50s, some 60s. I can't tell you what all they write about either. There is no essential MidLife Woman, just as there is no essential Mommyblogger. What I can tell you is that they're looking for something they're not getting right now, a voice, and if not at BlogHer, then where?

Flotsam and Jetsam...

Checking my Google In box, it's obvious that I have had a heavy Commenting day. Isn't today supposed to be Annual Comment Day, or some such thing? Be that as it may, I fear I have shot my wad (as They say) on other people's blogs and have nothing to say on my own.

Well, to be truthful, I may be at the start of a slippery slope. You know, the one that descends quite quickly into the Mean Greens or Blah Blues (I seem to be in an alliterative moment here). I'm feeling like the wheel is going 'round and 'round and I'm not quite hanging on. Or some such thing.

1. I'm not getting up in the morning when I should.
2. I'm not marching forward on my List of Intentions.
3. I still haven't finished the Great American Novel.
4. Come to think of it, I haven't started it either.
5. I am eating too much of quite the wrong food.
6. I am not drinking enough alcohol.
7. My exercise routine is not being exercised, and my Pilates Reformer is gathering dust.

On the positive side, I have finished one of the two balls of yarn that I'm making into a purse. That means I'm half finished with it.

On the probably shouldn't side, I went to Knitique and bought another skein of fingering yarn. This makes the umpteenth such skein I have purchased in the past year, all of which call for at most a size 2 needle. I love this kind of yarn. I will probably be buried with it. Because I will die before I finish a project on a size 2 needle. If you knit, you know what I mean. If you don't, ooops, I'm bbbboooooorrrriiinnnggg you again.

News of the Day...

...whatever. I just wanted a subject line that was remotely...I dunno, remote? I have started writing a/this/any blog post three or four times over the past couple of days. I get a couple of words, maybe a couple of lines in and then I totally lose interest. Or I start doing weird, obfuscating stuff like remotely/remote. Obfuscating, I say, because I think my mind is turning and twisting because it doesn't want to run in a linear manner. Which might--oh, horrors!--reveal a thing or two. I know this; you know this; and we're all just gonna have to wait it out.

In the meantime....I retired, as you realize, from NaBloPoMo the other day. The sheer and utter tedium of coming up with blog posts that weren't pathtetically tedious was too much for me. And besides, I never win anything. And besides, my stats were/are down and I can blame that on NaBloPoMo, which has moved from a cool, cute, sorta in-thing to do to a huge Ning event enlisting thousands of people.

Too, all the time I was spending on fripperies for my blog to entertain all three of you who are out there (and thank you so much for your comments, you three) is time that I am not spending on my own writing. My own writing: is the blog not my own writing? Well, yes, but to what end? It has lately seemed the equivalent of tossing down yogurt-covered peanuts: yeah, there's protein there; yeah, it's yogurt and not chocolate; but when all is said and done, has it really been worth the peristaltic action entailed? Nah....

F is for the F-bomb...

Did you think I was going to put That Word in my title? The Word I consider such an integral part of my vocabulary. Although I'm beginning to wonder if I'm too old to use it. As in, too old to have long hair. Too old to wear today's fashions. Too old to have a life.

But fuck, no. I'm not too old to use it. It is a wonderfully eloquent word, sometimes the only one that will actually do the job. But one must use it wisely and well. Some people overuse it. One fellow I used to know used it as an all-purpose adjective, adverb, and gerund. He talked something like this: "Hey, whassup, motherfucker? How the fuck are you? And what the fuck's with those fucking 49-ers. Can they not fucking throw a fucking ball, or what. Hey, how about another fucking cocktail to wash down those fucking peanuts you've been fucking eating...." etc etc etc

His use of the word was too, too much. It lost it's meaning. People with small children avoided him. I've lost touch with him, told him, basically, to fuck off.

The judicious use of the word fuck, on the other hand, can rouse a crowd. Or convince someone that you really, really mean something. Or be exactly the right turn-on-one's-heel mutter.

Some people are very much against the use of fuck and other such words in blogs and other public places. I think I read the other day a post and many comments on just such a topic. I think I read it because I can't really remember because I was skimming posts and--what the fuck!--if one is writing that using the f-bomb is not good, right, or just then obviously one is not writing to me. Fuck no.

E is for--hope I know by the time this post is finished

Every day when I face the letter of the day, I draw a blank. A--can't think of anything, and we know what a problem I had with B, and then C, what a lame post that was, and D, does anyone need to know the state and fate of my floors? And everyday when I face the letter of the day, all I can think of are wonderful topics for the day before. But then, of course, it's too late.

All I can think of today that begins with an E is--Ego. As in, mine is wanting lots of readers with lots of comments. But that means Effort. So E is for effort. I can toss these puppies off in a very short time (oh, you can tell?), but the really good posts, they take a while to write. At least for me. Of course I'm sure that everyone else whose writing I admire just tosses their puppies off, which is why I try to do it too, because--hey, hey, hey, we're back to E for Ego.

I just leaned over my desk and saw this written on a piece of paper: Eco Arts and Crafts. Oh, yeah, that. How did I not think of that as an E? This topic that has been of such great interest to me in the past month? I could answer that question, but E for Ego won't allow me to.

It's amazing what a stern fellow E for Ego is. He runs a tight ship, he does, allowing only certain minuscule pieces of himself to slip out and by and into the public domain. At least he thinks that only minuscule pieces slip out, but maybe whole chunks of him are obvious from even five miles away. You might wonder why, considering that I'm female, he's not. I dunno. Interesting, that. Is this a gender issue, I wonder? Was I too much my father's son, and not enough Daddy's little girl? Maybe.

It is true that I have what is considered a masculine approach to a lot of things in life. That is, I hone right in on the problem, analyze it, and come up with viable solutions. This is not exactly what you want in a touchyfeely therapist, is it? Here's your problem, here's how to solve it, go home and don't come back until you've done it.

So E is for Ego, and Effort, and Eco-Art. And for the last, look at this:




This is a real working radio. You can find it and buy it here. That's the site for African Wire Arts; check it out.

Sage Advice on Publishing

This post is for Les Becker of Where the Walls Are Soft.
She just got her first copy of the 2007 Guild to Literary Agents, and she's all eager and sassy to send her stuff off. When she ordered it, her excitement was palpable, and provoked me, veteran of the publishing wars, to promise sage advice. In today's post, I said

Okay, here's my sage advice:  What your writing is to you has nothing
to do with what it is to the people in that reference guide.  To them, it
is A Business.   Nothing more; nothing less.  They may like to read; they
may appreciate Great Literature; but at the day's end what they want is
sales.

And her response was: "Ouch. Almost sounds as if the advice is to trash the reference guide."

No, that's not at all what I'm saying. Rather, I'm suggesting that she (and you, if you're in a similar position) try to keep your writing mind separate from your publishing mind. They are two different minds, after all. One is focused on sales; the other on self-expression.

What I'm saying is to keep the agent business in perspective. They're trying to do their job, earn a buck, pay the rent, whatever. They are not your best friend, your confidante, or, especially, your mother who loves everything that comes out of your mouth. When an agent gives an assessment, it is not the word of God handed down from the Great Font of Literary Publishing. It is, rather, one person's take on whether your manuscript has, in their humble (ha!) opinion that day, sales potential. That means different things to different people, and often is dependent on who had what for lunch or whether the kids acted up on the way to the train. In other words, it's a subjective opinion which is guided by knowledge and experience, but, bottom line, it carries with it all the vagaries of any human interchange. You should remember that when you are getting a host of different responses.

You should also remember why you write in the first place. I have a friend who is very successful, and he says he writes to entertain. Me, I write because I can't not write. My friend has to tailor his stuff to the marketplace; I don't. Different purposes; different goals; different strategies.

Why do you write, Les? And you, over there, who are also reading this with interest, why do you write? My sagest advice is this: work on that until you can answer the question clearly, cleanly, and--um--honestly.

Me, The Sex Expert

Did you know that I used to write about sex? Have I told you that already? That I was that person telling you how to have better orgasms or twiddle his diddle more efficiently in, oh name the woman's mag I didn't write for. Okay, Cosmo, I never wrote for them, but the rest? Yep, that was me (writing under my married name, Jane Patrick, or, when I got more liberated, Jane Gassner Patrick).

I thought of this today when I was reading one of my favorite daddy bloggers, Childs Play x2. He's got the most adorable fraternal twins (or dyzygotic, as we call them in the psych biz) who could be monozygotic for all that they look exactly alike. But (in my effort to show off), I digress. His post today was about being contacted by someone out there in the Great Wonderful World of Let's Make A Dollah Offa These Bloggas starting up a start-up and trolling for writers to create copy that would attract many reader hits to said start-up which would, in turn, make hay with the advertisers. [Another aside, this one worthy of brackets: I don't know why I've got my tongue so firmly in cheek about this practice when I recently bit on one such trolling myself (and may you, G-D willing, see the results some day)]. ChildsPlayx2 was marvelling in his post about being considered an expert on childrearing. And that, dear reader, reminded me of when I marvelled at being considered an expert on things sexual.

"Jane Gassner Patrick is an expert in psycho-sexual issues", read the bio blurb in one magazine. Ha! Better it should have read, Jane Gassner Patrick hasn't had sex in years. Because that was the funny, nay, the ironic part: during that period of time when I was doing my dance for the women's magazines, my shop was shuttered. Which just goes to prove that old adage: those of you who can, do and those of us who can't, teach.

I thought to write this in a comment to ChildsPlayx2, but why should he get all the love? It's my life, and I'm gonna own it. And if you want a copy of one of my articles, just ask....

Ever a Newbie? Never a Prof?

I wonder how long it will be before I get this Blogger thing right. The other day, after I posted my tantalizing breakfast menu, a comment appeared. It was from SomeGirl'sName (Taffy, Candy--take your pick)53241 and she was sending me the link about making extra money this summer. Obviously, some bot or other picked up the checking out underwear sentence and popped me into the porn lineup. I did not take the bait. I, mature and wise adult (who should know better than writing about her underwear), deleted the comment. I had never done that before. It was exciting. Then I saw the little Moderate Comments tab and thought--hmmm, wonder what that means. So I hit it and said yes and then--nothing.

No comments at all on that post. Had I really been that offensive? What was I doing writing a whole essay on my breakfast when I hate to read other people's posts about what they ate? Oh, Jane, you are swiftly slithering down the pole to b-o-r-i-n-g.

I tried not to take it personally, which is the way I take everything these days, and I tried to be mature, as befits one of my age. So I logged on this morning to try again, this time a post on yard sales (another fantastic topic, doncha think?). Suddenly a screen I'd never seen before popped up, and what to my wondering eyes did appearing but a Comment, waiting for my approval before posting. So that's what Moderating Comments means.

I've turn that option off, by the way, so please do feel free to comment. Please, please, puhleaze--it's awful quiet over here.