It’s 11:16 p.m. on Sunday and I FINALLY caught up on all of your posts!

It’s becoming clear to me that I have too many blogs in my reader, but I don’t feel like breaking up with any of you. What even worse is that I see the lists of other blogs people love or who are honored with one award or another and I think I really should get out to see those folks as well. Of course, all of these are blogs theoretically still in the same community. I’d love to also get out and check out some blogs of people who are living completely different lives than my own (not to suggest you all live the suburban bliss I call my life–but you know what I mean).

Problem is I run out of time most nights to post to my own blog, take part in any of my hobbies or read a book.

Guess I’m going to have to stop doing work at work so I can focus on more important things (just kidding boss).

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In the spirit of catching up, I also have just one meme left to complete.

For my pal Dorky Dad, I will complete the following.

List four sentences you’ve never said before:
1. I love the Boston Red Sox!
2. “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” (at least not yet)
3. I hate shoes.
4. Orgasms are just no fun.

List any number of song titles that describe how you felt this week.
“Ain’t It Funny How Time Slips Away”
“Family Tradition”
“Let Me Clear My Throat”
“Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” (I mean it’s only April)
“Pride and Joy”
“Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves”
“I Want Candy”
“Welcome to the Jungle”
“Sugarhigh”

Imagine you’re having the perfect day. What four things would you be doing.
Ummm, my mom is reading…
1. Laying on a beach in the warm tropical sun.
2. Having a fantastic time splashing in the water with the kiddos.
3. Going out on a date sporting a great tan and a sassy sundress.
4. Dancing!!!

Make up five creative names for a rock band.
Creativity is going to be a stretch here. I can barely focus on the screen.
1. Headless Peeps
2. Final Fringe Feeling
3. Egg Popping Chickens
4. Grey is Good
5. Red Snails (In the Sunset)

Congratulations! You get to go back in time and ensure that three songs were never written, thus sparing humanity from ever having to hear them. What three songs would get the axe?
1. Mony, Mony
2. What I Like About You
3. Broken Wings

Phew! I’m exhausted! Sorry you had to read all that.

I’m tagging Mr. Big Dubya because he’s been gone for a while and I’m thinking maybe he just needed something to get him back into the swing of things, and JJ because, well, it’s been far too quiet over there as well.

Happend so fast. Summer lovin’. Someone was having a blast.

Actually a number of someones.

Something about the pre-Fourth of July weekend must have been damn sexy in the late 60’s/early 70’s, because, as I’ve discovered cruising the blogosphere this week, there are a ton of last week of March babies running around.

For instance, there’s my British friend, a Pissed-Off Housewife and then Kristin’s husband. Speaking of husbands, Deb gets to celebrate hers with a husband who has culinary skills!

And there’s been some recent additions to this prestigious club as well. Check out the link. The sextuplets are ADORABLE!! And one of the kiddos over at the Circus is celebrating as well this week.

All fabulous people of course. You know how I know? Cause I’m one of them!

Thirty-six years ago tonight I was all warm and cozy, ignorant of the cold cruel world. Some time during the next 24 hours the kid–who I like to say was conceived in the back of a Trans-Am most likely to Led Zepplin–was brought into this world. Lucky for me there was an incredible women waiting for just such a baby to be born and ten short days later I was hers.
She’s been stuck with me ever since. Seriously, you should feel sorry for my mom.

Okay, enough pitiful attempts to garner some birthday wishes…we have some real love to talk about.

First, I still haven’t been asked to the prom, BUT I do have a date to BlogHer. I am going, and I’m happy to report that the southern darling Canape (pronounced in her language as can-I-pee?) has asked me and I have gladly accepted.

Are you so jealous or what?

I got the cutest girl at the event to invite ME. Can you believe it?! Yeah, me either. I’m so excited I can barely stand it, but more on BlogHer and my fabulous date later.

What I’m jazzed about at this particular moment is that we are just hours away from our first annual blog prom weekend!

Over the next three days the folks on the guest list to the right will be blogging about their prom experience, or lack of prom experience, or about proms in general (hey it’s the blogosphere–and I’m not that into rules). So join us if you’d like! And don’t worry about getting a date. You’d just dump them as soon as you got there so you could hang out with us anyway.

Tell me you’re coming and I’ll add you to the guest list. And Leah–there was no link to your blog in my comments. Email me the address and I’ll add you.

Oh, and there may be a prize, but don’t tell anyone.

Now dig out those pictures. Make new ones. Tell us about prom. And get around to meet all of the guests. Mingle dammit! That’s an order!

You wouldn’t want to disappoint a girl on her birthday. Would you?!

Just a few days to go before the first annual Blog Prom.

Dust off the old pictures and get them scanned or dress up in your finest and snap away. And I’m warning you now, my prom was in 1988. Get ready for some hair!

This Saturday we’re dancing! The guest list is coming soon. If you’d like to be included, let me know and I’ll add you.

Here are the details:

On Friday, March 30th write a post about getting ready for the big night. Post any pre-prom pictures. Did you go to the tanning bed the day before? Did you have your hair done or did you do it yourself? How did you ask your date? How did your date ask you?

On Saturday, March 31 tell us about the night. And we want pictures!!! We want to see your terrific taffeta or lovely lace. Did you sport the powder blue tux or was it tails? Did you hoof to the dance or was their a fancy limo? What was the theme? Were you the queen/king?

On Sunday, April 1 we want to hear all about the after-party. Did you stay up all night? Where did you go? Again, pictures.

I wanna put on my, my, my, my, my boogie shoes and boogie with you.

So I’ve been thinking…um…well…you see there’s this dance…and…um…well…

Wanna go with me?

I’m proposing we have a blog prom. I have no idea if someone else is already hosting one, but why not go to two? I mean you’ll have the dress/tuxedo and all.

So here’s what I’m thinking. Let’s do it the last weekend in March. I know it’s a little early for the “traditional” prom season, but hey that’s what’s great about not being in high school anymore. We can have prom whenever we want to.

So start digging through your photo albums and pull out those dusty old pictures, get them scanned. We’re having ourselves a prom!

And this isn’t going to be a one night affair. We want to see you getting ready, we want to see your ride, the flowers, your date, the after-party…the whole shebang. Didn’t go to prom? Tell us about what you did instead or get dressed up and take some pictures of yourself to share.

On Friday, March 30th write a post about getting ready for the big night. Post any pre-prom pictures. Did you go to the tanning bed the day before? Did you have your hair done or did you do it yourself? How did you ask your date? How did your date ask you?

On Saturday, March 31 tell us about the night. And we want pictures!!! We want to see your terrific taffeta or lovely lace. Did you sport the powder blue tux or was it tails? Did you hoof to the dance or was their a fancy limo? What was the theme? Were you the queen/king?

On Sunday, April 1 we want to hear all about the after-party. Did you stay up all night? Where did you go? Again, pictures.

Let me know if you want to go and I’ll start a guest list. If anyone knows how to make a button so you can tell people about it and post it on your blog, I’d be happy to include it. I’m just not that talented–yet.

I’ll also start thinking about categories for a prize or two. I went to the prom in the late 80’s, so I can promise LOTS of hair. Any other ideas to make the prom better? Let me know. You can be on the prom committee too.

So that’s it. That’s my idea. I hope you wanna go with me. I think we’ll have fun…my dad’s going to let me borrow his car.

A giant THANK YOU to all of the terrific folks who reached out to me today with the supportive comments. I will come back and properly thank you in a moment, but now? Now I must go yell at MySpace.

I’m sure you’ve heard, they’re removing breastfeeding pictures–but the soft-core porn shots of all the teenage girls can stay. I’m off to go set up an account and post a breastfeeding image.

I’ll be back.

Up until today I loved the blogosphere. I mean I hearted it in a major way. In a very short time I have become addicted to the entertainment, community and insight I derive from reading others and writing on my own.

But that all ended today.

I plopped myself in front of my computer first thing this morning as I do each day and what was waiting for me but some comments. Well I love comments–the affirmation, sweet affirmation–so I dove right in. But the first one…oh the first one…it changed everything.

Anonymous left me a comment today telling me that I had made an awful comment about a homeless mother on another blog and that they came over to tell me just how mean I am.

My first reaction was sheer hurt. What had I said? Where did I say it? I scanned my list of regular reads, I picked through a few possible posts to see what I wrote. But nothing. Now I’m no saint despite the fact that I may hang out with some, but I don’t make a habit of leaving rude or thoughtless comments on others blog. The fact that I might have hurt someone’s feelings upset me. The idea that someone thought I was being mean really upset me. The fact that it involved another mother was even worse.

After a while the hurt gave way to anger. You know if this person really had an issue with me, they didn’t HAVE to read my blog. They COULD have sent me an email to tell me they thought my comment was inappropriate, they COULD have had the guts to leave their name so I could find out where this incident had taken place and either apologize or explain.

I have to say that all the blogs I read today I read with a jaded eye. For the first time, I couldn’t just enjoy the writing or become intrigued by an idea without wondering if the author was Anonymous. And that made me very, very sad.

The problem with writing is that meaning is often left to interpretation. And I’m well aware of the number of “mommas” there are out there, so there is room for confusion. But this whole thing has got me wondering if I want to continue to participate in the blogosphere.

1. I can skate on my backyard…and I live in Virginia. WTF? It is pretty fun to slide around though. I’m just worried about landing on my dupa.

2. My a**…it still hurts like a mo’ fo’ (see yesterday’s post.) Oh and the purple? It’s darker–much darker.

3. Speaking of a**es. You want to be a pain in the a**? Karen over at Troll Baby has been slapped with a meme. As part of it, she’s going to answer any question you ask her in the comments on this post. Go ahead. You have to read the comment string if nothing else. Lots of farts and M&Ms.

Hope you had a good Thursday!

I haven’t posted in a few days and I’m actually suffering from blog guilt.

Now Shakey might define “blog guilt” as the guilt a blogger SHOULD experience as they ignore their in-person family to spend time posting and reading other blogs, but I am experiencing something a little different.

I’m feeling guilty because I’ve been lying in bed trying to get better (yes I have strep for the third time in six weeks–and I’m not a sickly person), and meanwhile I can’t come up with any coherent thoughts that seem worthy of sharing. Now I certainly have a few things I’ve been batting around…but nothing that seems to entertain even me.

So once again, I present you with the detritus bouncing around in my noggin.

How many TV personalities made their “breakthrough” via a natural disaster? Certainly, Anderson Cooper let himself be blown around a few hurricanes before he started “keeping them honest” after Katrina. After watching way too much CNN, I’m predicting that Rob Marciano will be next. Not to belittle the awful tornadoes that hit FL this week, but I think people are going to start noticing how cute he really is…though Soledad is down there too, so he may not get all the camera time Anderson commanded by his willingness to be blown away.

Don’t hold this against me…I was in a sorority. Now I’ve heard all the criticisms…you had to buy your friends, etc. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn’t really know anyone when I arrived at school. It was a good way to meet some folks. I don’t think I would have survived the process at a big state school…I just can’t maintain a smile (or withhold snarky comments) that long, but in New Orleans it was a whole different thing. There was no living in the sorority house because that would have been a violation of the brothel laws–you HAVE to love New Orleans–so you didn’t spend all your time with just “sisters.” Besides, we had the opportunity for a social life outside of the “greek” world because well it’s hard not to have a social life in NOLA.

I definitely didn’t “love” (say with high-pitched BFF voice) all the women in my sorority. There was a division of members between the cool women and the “muffins.” You see the “muffins” followed all the rules. They didn’t talk during meetings, they always attended all mandatory events and for the most part they didn’t get sloppy at parties. However, I met the woman who is my best friend in the whole world through my sorority, so I consider any of the crap that belonging to a sorority met totally worth it.

Said best friend, PFunky, was a “muffin” during college…or so I thought. Turns out that was just the image she chose to project to most–well that and she still feels the need to follow most rules.
It was living in DC after college that I learned that she had more of a “past.” It all became very clear when during a camping trip at the beach (ugh the mosquitos!) under the influence of a number of substances–not the least of which was probably all the DEET–she leaned over to me and declared, “you know I might be a muffin on the outside…but I’m a jalapeno pepper on the inside.”

I spit beer everywhere at that statement.

And why am I talking about all of this? Because for some random reason I pulled out an old sorority sweatshirt to keep me warm today. And I just cracked myself up going out in the world at 36 with greek letters on. I don’t know if anyone else thought it was as funny as I did. Maybe it’s the illness…but hell if I can’t crack myself up, who can?

So like I said, and I think I’ve proven through this drivel, I just don’t have anything worthy to offer up right now. But I’ll keep trying. I hope you’ll hang with me.

I read many blogs, and the list grows every day, but I have a recent new favorite that is woefully under-read and deserving of massive traffic.

Please if you will meet the incredible JJ Dufresne over at I’m Just Drunk in Someone’s Garage.

Every day, the posts just get better. That Brandi and Betty Sue…they’re some funny girls with a very interesting friend.

Go! Get out of here! Go check it out!!

Hey you! Yeah you, the one working at Delta Airlines. The minute I mention you you disappear. Did I scare you off? All I wanted was a measly little comment. I just wanted know who the devoted reader was. I promise I won’t stalk you–well unless you’re cute and start leaving me extremely complimentary comments. Well then…in the immortal words of Jessica, I might have to lick your brain–and I’m gooood.

As for the rest of ya, I still want to know your idea of a terrific kiss or the first band you ever saw in concert.

Since I’m not much of a lurker–rather I can’t keep my comments to myself–I’ve used National De-Lurking Week as an excuse to delve into the blog universe a little more and find some new reads. Let me tell you…I’ve doubled the size of my Google Reader subscription list in just a few days. Here are some of the folks I plan to check back with regularly.

Dancing Through

The Underpaid Kept Woman

Queen of the Bad Mommies

Basement Epiphanies

Don’t Take the Repeats

And last but not least, the wonderful Momma that’s getting my ass into gear to drop the pounds it like it’s hot…Mom-O-Matic. With her inspiration the whole mommy blogging world is going to take over the cover of Sports Illustrated next year!!