Worth a Shot, Anyway
Ugh. Spent days working on an application for a position as a professional mommy blogger and finally sent it in yesterday. I’m certain they won’t hire me because, jeepers, I’m just not your typical mommy blogger. Although they state they want unique voices and perspectives, I'm pretty sure they mean unique perspectives on cookie recipes, toilet training, and how to speak at PTA meetings without looking the fool. Topical stuff, tips, helpful hints….I dunno. I write about weird things involving Banjo Boys, isolation, and anthropomorphic beasts. I use the F-word. I think it’s a grand idea to drink many beers and produce bad poetry. I don’t attend church. My left nostril is pierced, for Pete’s sake, which makes me equivalent to the Anti-Christ in some eyes. I don’t do helpful hints, and my four-year-old still refuses to poop in the toilet. Gossip nauseates me; if you confide in me, it remains with me. I will not pretend to like you if I don’t. Unfortunately, I dislike many of my “peers.” Not surprisingly, I’m not someone who gets invited to many neighborhood coffee klatches.I may be a very cool mommy, a patient, attentive mommy who has a lot of common sense despite a lot of foibles, a mommy who monitors what the kids watch, knows their friends, a mommy who believes that treating children with respect is of the utmost importance, that allowing and honoring their individuality is key to high self-esteem, but…I also call my vacuum cleaner vile names -- within ear shot of the kids. There are times (ahem -- PMS) when I bitch loudly about crumbs on the couch, cry over my fading youth and beauty, hate the world and want to be alone, alone, ALONE! I crank Disturbed and System of a Down CDs, and I wear tank tops and flannel shirts with my denim, not nifty little sweater sets and crisp, white button-downs. I have an active interest in my children’s school-life, and keep abreast of the curriculum, contribute to classroom party treats, keep in regular contact with their teachers, but I’ve never attended a PTA meeting, nor do I plan to. Too busy doing the ten hours of “parental” homework the kids’ teachers send home every week or making a robot costume out of PVC and silver spray paint. Plus, I’m just not a joiner. Here’s your box of twenty-five cupcakes for the bake sale, Mrs. Dinklebaum, now go away.
I’m more along the lines of Rosanne, not June Cleaver.
I’m not a typical mommy blogger, and I was honest about that, within my bio and the sample posts I wrote for them. And that will be my downfall, my honesty. But I can‘t bring myself to misrepresent who I am and what I stand for. Even if it would mean an extra few hundred clams a month -- clams I badly need, by the way, but I guess not that badly. I’m a writer who also happens to be a mom, and just as I won’t compromise when it comes to my beliefs regarding good parenting, I won’t compromise when it comes to my writing. No way in hell.
Damn, though. I really could use the money…And I do love to cook…Have a ton of great recipes I could share…And my home is spotless, despite four kids…My kids are, for the most part, healthy and happy, and they behave themselves in public…Suppose it wouldn’t hurt to throw out a tip here and there…
Aw, screw it.
posted by Ms. Lori @ 12:33 PM
19 Comments:
***love*** Thanks for that, Victor.
How's the house coming along?
Our kids attend a private "Christian" school, and they disapprove mightily of us. I'm sure they think I'm the antichrist, and if they could remember a name or face from day to day they would know Trish and I aren't married, and that Billy and Stephanie are hers by a previous marriage, and only mine by the grace of some higher entity I disavow belief in.
Your column would at LEAST generate comments (heh). Who knows, a new strain of intelligent, supermommy's might be born...
There once was a blogger named mom
Whose kids told all the world, "She's the bomb!"
She dressed as she pleased,
And would curse when she sneezed,
But she carried herself with aplomb
(heh)
A mommy blogger
She writes to her own heartbeat
Of her dream children
Okay...okay I'LL STOP (lol)
D
Well, good luck.. I hope you get accepted, at least you'd shake up the mommy blog world. ;)
If they didn't take you they're a bunch of pansy-assed mommy-ninnies and don't deserve you.
WE deserve you, and we want you, and you are our queen, especially ones like me who have no children yet and are taking notes on how to be a mommy who doesn't lose all identity.
David, and ***love*** to you, my Satanic, obsessive-compulsive brother. LOL! LOVE the way your poetic mind works. Great stuff -- again! I also dig the comment you made about your kids.
Billy and Stephanie must think the world of you.
Alena, thank you! It'd be great, but the chances are slim, I think. Never know until you try, right?
Jordan, I'm smiling so big right now, I look hideous! THANK YOU! xxx ooo
"If they didn't take you they're a bunch of pansy-assed mommy-ninnies " (LMAO) I love this. Pansy-assed mommy-ninnies are BAD..
And I wondered, why is it Satanic to have a piercing on one side of your nose, but not the other? (:
D
I spent five years being the stay-at-home dad much to the chagrin of many of those around me. Calling me lazy and such. And when it was learned I wrote, well, fugghetabahtit! Never mind when they found out that along with Playhouse Disney, we watched Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns and Ray Harryhausen movies. Oh, and at two, she could identify Stephen King and Harlan Ellison.
In the end, I don't know that I'll win Dad of the Year, but I did my best. It really are people like us, who think outside the bend too far, that scare those "safer" people who want acknowledgement for the "changing social order."
I'll follow you anywhere. Good luck.
I love your blog. I read it regularly, even if i don't comment on it, and i do this cuz i love Ms. Lori. You are funny to read, sometimes disturbing (those must be beer poetry posts) so if you don't "fit" into the mold of "Mommy Blogger" those people can suck it. who wants the same exact thing from all the people? that is boring. Oh well, i hope you get the job and the clams. I will continue to enjoy your blog, and het send some recipes my direction... i love them.
David, you'd have to ask "them." Only God knows what lurks in the mind of "them." ;-)
Bill, you ARE a good papa, and good for you for being a stay-at-home-dad. Much respect. My cousin quit his job (an excellent position at Xerox) to stay at home with his first born. Took a lot of crap from some members of our family, which I completely didn't understand.
Thanks, Ann! (((HUG)))
Cassandra, Hugs to you too, mama! And I think I just might send you a few recipes -- quick, easy, yummy.
G-Man, yes, June certainly did have a nice badonkadonk. Too bad her face always wore that pained expression, though...
Ha ha - you are my kind of mommy. And if it's any consolation, compared to me you ARE June Cleaver (you know, I never realized her last name was the same as a sharp kitchen knife before. Makes a lot of sense when you think about it).
Anyway, most enjoyable read and what's this about websites paying you to blog? Where do I sign up?
Hey Lori, other than the usual pleasure of reading your blog, I'm also here to thank you for your comment on my hideous Authors Den interview. That made my day!
And wouldn't you know it, they wrote to me again and asked me to send them a poem. I don't write poetry. Can I send them your hairy vulva one? Ha!
Lori..meant to ask...you inerested in doing a "Five Questions you never expected to hear" interview and / or a short review "The Scariest Book I Ever Read" for The Deep Blue Journal?
Short aside...was I the only one getting a weird glitch ealrier trying to post here? I kept getting the same verification word no matter what I did, and it was Semniter or something (yeah, I know...) It almost seemed like a Hack...I cleared all history / etc. and got rid of it....grrrr
We're really hurt that you didn't ask us - your biggest West Coast fans - for a recommendation. We would have told 'em about the massive guilt we feel getting to read your blog for free. Your writing is better than most of the writing we pay for!
If the pansy-assed mommy-ninnies don't give you the job, you could add a PayPal "tip jar" to your site...
Dear, compared to me, everybody is June Cleaver. Minus her awesome ebonics. (I read you every day.)
Robin, OMG. I must give you humongous props for that interview. Seriously. You did wonderfully with those questions. I swear to God, reading most of those questions was like trying to decipher Sanskrit. Or Kerouac. ;-) Sweet folks, I'm sure, but lordy... And that woman-thing and her dried-up hoohaw. Gak on her.
Speaking of which, sure, take the vulva poem. It shames me.
Jas, hook me up, brutha!
David, little ol' nobody me? Well, hell yeah! Thanks!
Sorry about your comment troubles -- Blogger can be a little bitch sometimes.
Editor, if you could see my smile at this moment...Well, you wouldn't want to, I can assure you, but suffice it to say, it's really big and gruesome. Thank you.
Each one of you guys has had me looking ugly for two days now, thanks to your wonderful comments.
When I'm turned down for the position (being realistic here -- I know it's a loooongshot), I'll rush right back to these comments and bask in your warmth. And look ugly all over again.
Mamacita, I bow before your greatness.
Know what? I always liked Rosanne.
*Hugs* to you. Don't change, Lori. All those that matter love you just as you are.
:-)
...you are a gal I would love to attend PTA meetings and drink beer out of coffe cups with in the back row of the room.
How are you so witty ALL the time?!!! I always feel so lame after reading your blog - but I can't keep myself away - it's become something of an addiction for me - like my morning coffee and evening wine!
By the way - is that a real job? I'm wanting to find a job like that...something I can do on my own time from my own home...
You're my kind of mom! I hope they hire you...
:)
Judi
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