Decided to scroll through my blog reader before hitting the hay last night.  Stumbled upon this post from the lovely Magpie Girl.  She likes to make lists of *8Things.

When do I feel powerful?

I think I’m a pretty powerful person.  When I read the post title I was sure I’d have nothing to learn from the list.

Ummmm…

Thinking I might only be a bitch have a powerful personality.

I mulled over Rachelle’s list for a while.  I thought about when I feel powerful.  I stared a little more and decided it was time to lay down.

Once in the horizontal position settled in under my comfy, soft blanket, I took up the list again.

When do I feel powerful?

Next thing I knew it was morning.

Clearly it was easier to fall asleep than determine my power positions.  Seriously?!  I’ve always been the “stand-on-your-own-two feet-girls-can-do-anything-boys-can-do-I’m-fine” kinda girl.

So here I am determined to come up with 8 ways in which I feel powerful.  Dammit!

Here’s what my list would have been twenty years ago.

1. With a microphone in my hand.

2. Smashing a tennis ball.

3.  Driving a stick shift.

4.  Wearing my cowboy boots.

5. Navigating train schedules in Europe.

6. Sitting on the top of the cigarette machine surveying the crowd at my favorite college haunt.

7. Hailing a cab in any city.

8. Kissing

Today I feel powerful when:

(cue montage of Amie sitting at her desk contemplating her life for an hour)

1. Giving birth.  Nothing more powerful than creating a life using nothing but your own body.

2. Beautiful blooms and tasty vegetables appear in my yard. (see a pattern here?)

(cue next montage of Amie cracking open a diet coke, getting a snack and thinking some more)

3. Wearing my cowboy boots–oh and they do rock.

4. Finishing a workout (why don’t I do this more often?)

5. Introducing myself to someone new.  Shaking hands using good eye contact.

(another musical interlude:  Amie sits with chin propped on left hand staring into space)

6. Explaining the infield fly rule.

7.  Creating something out of parts (knitting a blanket, baking a delicious pie).

8.  Kissing (I’m a very good kisser).

What makes you feel powerful?  If you write about it on your blog, let me know, let Rachelle know, or leave a comment below.

The target of my current obsession?

CRAFT BLOGS! (seriously this link will blow your mind–unless you’re not at all tempted by office supplies or crafts and then it’ll probably bore you to death and I should probably send you here instead.  And if that doesn’t make you laugh, well then you clearly have no sense of humor.)

I want to be mad for Modge Podge.

Color creeps into my cranium.

I yearn to wrangle yarn.

Pretty paper pleads to perform in my hands.

And yet?

I have not the original idea to make a dent in my stash.  I’m so in awe of these incredible crafters, and imitation seems less a form of flattery and more well…like stalking.  Hope they don’t mind.

I appreciate anyone who is here taking time out of their day to see what has dribbled from my brain.  I appreciate it even more after listening to a story on NPR yesterday about Digital Overload.

According to the story, we are taking in three times the information our grandparents were when they were my age in the 60′s.

That’s a lot of information and really, how much of it is necessary?  Ironically, the more information we take in, the more difficult it is for us to filter out the irrelevant drivel.

I hit a wall with TV a few years back–probably around the time I had kids–where I just couldn’t sit down for long periods of time surfing channels they way I could in my teens and 20′s.  And I was a champion channel surfer!  Maybe it was all the time these little people demanded.  Maybe it was the advent of the web and the surfing I could do there.  Whatever it was, I became more selective in what I watched.  I couldn’t tolerate the sitcoms that all of the sudden seemed inane.  I COULD NOT tolerate the “reality” TV shows that gave fame to people who did nothing to deserve my attention except to act like assholes in front of the nation.  (I know. I know.  Everyone loves Dancing with the Stars and the Real Housewives.  Trust me it stinks to have no way to take part in a conversation when it turns to these.)

Was my brain doing me a favor?  Was it crying enough?

As time went on, my free time became focused on the internet where I noticed the cycle repeating itself.  First, the stupid chain emails made my eyeballs itch.  Then the social media “experts” that we all had to read because they were so brilliant?  I stopped noticing anything new.  The viral videos that spread like wildfire?  Those are minutes (only a few at a time I realize) that I will never get back.

I hunger for substance.  I hunger for connection.  I hunger for community.  I have gotten that at times online, but I wonder if all the noise isn’t a bit too much to make it worthwhile.

What will happen to us if we subsist on nothing but the sugary carbs that parts of the Internet and social media worlds have become?

Has this happened to you?  What have you done to combat your own digital overload?

I have had nothing and so much to say over the past month.  The ideas come as I’m falling asleep.  The post titles are brilliant–and gone when I wake up in the morning.

There’s been travel.  There’s been death.  There’s been family fun and obligations.

I realized I’m holding my breath today waiting for a particular shoe to drop.  It could be I’m waiting for nothing.  I didn’t even know I was anticipating something.  I said my fear out loud to a few people.  Doesn’t it flit away once you utter it out loud?  No?  Well crap.

The coming start of school and change of season has me wanting to rid my life of clutter–to make room for more thoughts, more creativity.  Okay, just a clean house for more than five minutes.

It’s hard to be in touch with your creativity and motherhood and your professional career and a ridiculous sense of snark.  I make comments about things I’m very serious about and then immediately harsh on myself for the “deep” thoughts I just had.

But today–today I wrote.   It might not mean anything, but I got the words out there.

I present to you my dad’s most recent letter to the editors of the New York Times.

Dear Sir:

I have been reading the NY Times since age 16 (1952) and since Mr. Obama has been president have felt a sense of disquiet in your often negative response in reporting things he does, and decisions he makes–negative responses you seem to make without compelling or even convincing reasons. I note two editorials in today’s paper, the first on the Home Page under News Analysis by Peter Baker, the second as the lead Editorial, and both convey moderately flip judgements about Mr. Obama and his efforts to address; (1) the catastrophic Gulf oil spill; (2) our country’s compelling need for an long term plan for change from an energy dependence on fossil fuels.

This negativity (which has appeared over the last year and a half in other “news” or editorials) is consistent enough to imply it may spring from two major factors. First, you generally support the conservative stance that whatever President Obama proposes or does must be met with stiff resistance–i.e., unadmitted but clearly manifest racism; second, you are making many of your major judgements about matters that concern the President with the gay abandon of a non-combatant.

Finally, before you write again in judgement of Mr. Obama, I would suggest you re-review years 2000-2008, which you seem to have too easily forgotten, and imagine if you will how Mr Cheney would have handled the Gulf Oil spill when he was in charge of our country…..

Signed,

my dad

PS–Haliburton anyone?

Mom where are all the cardinal birds?

You mean the red birds?

Yeah, the ones with the sharp heads.

And as if the mere suggestion was all it took, I’ve seen three of them in my yard today for the first time this year.

What do you do after school when the mercury rises like it’s August and not June?

Wish I was doing that too.  How about you??

Just when I thought I wouldn’t survive another gray sky, a series of gorgeous spring days have settled in on my little corner of the world.

I sat outside soaking up the sun this morning and noticed a pitcher I had left outside all winter.  This was the wrong winter to leave it outside I thought.  The weather was rough.  As I looked at it more closely, I noticed the patterns of wear and the flakes of paint.  It was more interesting.

And in the pitcher, I saw me.

A friend had arrived on my birthday last year carrying it in filled with hydrangeas.  It was painted to look vintage, but now it truly was.   I loved it so much more.

Forty is feeling less and less intimidating every day.

My kids are tired of hearing it.  I try to change up the line every once in a while, but the message is still the same.

Even if you are born with a gift, you will never excel unless you practice, practice, practice.

My favorite current saying is “You play like you practice.”  The boys are already rolling their eyes at that one, but it’s true.

Anderson Cooper didn’t get on air right away.  He bought a camera and forged a press pass and took himself to Myanmar and filmed stories of the students fighting the Burmese government until his stories were good enough to be picked up.

Eighty-eight year old Betty White is still practicing sixty years after she began her career–and it’s paying off.  She will soon be on SNL and appearing in a new TV series.

Tiger Woods even has to practice (and he still couldn’t outrun his wife).

I’ve been blogging for a long time in the scheme of things, but I’ve often allowed days or weeks lapse in between posts.  That has prevented me from getting into a groove with my writing and my voice and is a habit I’m trying to break.

And despite the fact that I know this is true, it’s great to hear a master storyteller say the same thing.

I wish I could remember where I first saw the link to this video.  I’d love to give that blogger credit.  It’s helped me more than I can say.

What is something you’ve been meaning to practice more?  How has practice paid off for you?

There has been an interesting conversation happening over on BlogHer in response to a post written by Loralee Choate.  She wonders in her post if “big bloggers” owe it to “small bloggers” to help them out and pull them up.

I left a comment suggesting that it’d be nice for bloggers to help each other and pointing out that some very famous bloggers often support each other for mutual gain, but that there should be no expectation of help.

And I believe this.  Really.  Sort of.  But some days it annoys me that I do.  Because if I believe this, I must also believe that bloggers who make something of themselves on their own deserve what they achieve and some days…I’m not convinced.

I’m breaking some big personal rules by even writing this, but I can’t stay quiet about Jennifer Mendelsohn’s piece last Friday in the New York Times.

Yet again, another woman is willing to sell out her sisters for the price of entry to the boy’s club.

When will it stop?  What are we standing to gain?  What are we standing to lose?

If you believe the article millions.  And we who are called “mommybloggers” are alternately “girly-bonding” and clawing each other out of the way to get at them.

Many smart women have written about the problems with the author’s article–and there are many–and I didn’t think I had anything to add, until I read Lindsay’s post today.  It was the way she addressed the author directly not the main stream media at large that got me thinking about what I would say if she were standing in front of me.

Assume that I inserted all the points made by Joanne,  Kelby and Liz and allow me to add these three:

Jennifer,

1.  “Girly-bonding”??!!!  Seriously?  I attend meetings and conferences for work all the time.  Never, not once have they ever been referred to as “girly-bonding” sessions.  You severely underestimate the intellect, power and professionalism of mom bloggers at your peril by using this term.  When I attend these events–and men are there–it IS called a networking event?  (Okay Joanne made this same point very well but I had to add my $.02 because I am THAT enraged by the term.)

2.  We’re not all blogging for SEO and pageviews (Sure I’d love rockstar pageviews.  Name one person writing online who wouldn’t like to have others appreciate their work.).  I am a full-time political consultant.  I don’t blog for the money or my kids would be in rags.  Is it okay if I “ignore”  my children while I’m at work?  Or should I give that up too?  Is it a problem that there are other women online who write well or that you don’t believe women should be doing anything but taking care of their children?  And if the latter is true, where is your child while you are writing and researching your stories?

3.  As a woman writing about other women writers, you did a disservice to many of the communities to which you belong (mother, writer, woman online, female professional).  Haven’t we trudged a long way enough baby?  I don’t think women should be given a bye by a female writer because they are women, and I maintain that no one blogger or writer owes it to anyone to pull others up (though Anna Quindlen would disagree.  You’ve heard of her, right?) but to tear them down?  You only make it harder on yourself in the long run.

edited to add:

4.  There’s a fourth point.  My children actually benefit from my blogging.  Just one example happened last week.  My 7 year old went to a premiere for The Discovery Channel’s forthcoming documentary Life.  Not only did he get to see it, he got to hear from the very people who made it.  He learned that there are real people whose job it is to film animals (a topic of great interest to him), that there are people whose job it is to make movies.   Oh and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra accompanied the premiere, so he got to experience a live orchestra and learn that there are people who make a living playing instruments other than a guitar.  The event made a big impression on my second grader.  And the only reason I had the opportunity to take him to this special event was because relationships I’ve made through blogging.

Sincerely,
Amie

All this has me so fired up I need to go out and “help” a small blogger now.

Oh wait.  I am a small blogger.