lauriewrites's blog

Fallen Princesses: Art Imitates Real Life

2009-06-26T05:00:00-05:00

When Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash in a Paris tunnel,any remaining illusions I had of charmed lives for princesses did too. I was a teenaged Anglophile, one of the millions who woke up extra early to watch her wedding day on tv, and felt real sadness - whether I should have or not - in the years after as that initial
fairy tale story crumbled.

There it was. Princesses - at least one,anyway - marry people who don't love them all that much, or at least not enough to cut ties with his ex-girlfriend. She gets an eating disorder and never quite gets over her parents' divorce. She goes through a series of bad relationships and then ends up unthinkably dead in a traffic tunnel. And this when it seems, only just seems, that she might be beyond the worst part of the learning curve.

I'm tempted to sugar-coat this as some kind of life lesson but I fail miserably at that, which may be why Dina Goldstein's Fallen Princesses photo series remains very much on my mind, a week after I saw it for the first time on the JPG Magazine site.

Even Cinderella's coach breaks down in a sketchy neighborhood. All images brilliantly shot by and courtesy of Dina Goldstein.

Goldstein takes princesses - the Disney versions, this time - and depicts what may have happened after the closing credits. Cinderella's hitching because she got drunk in a dive bar. Snow White looks miserable with a house full of children. And in the ones that hurt me to look at the most, Rapunzel holds her wig of long braids during chemotherapy, and Belle lies on an operating table during a plastic surgery procedure.

As a strictly in-the-moment shooter who knows and chooses not to take on the work that goes into studio photography, I'm impressed with Goldstein's work on a technical level and also of any use of photography to intentionally comment on larger issues. It's one of its most important uses, I think.. In Goldstein's words on JPGMag.com:

As a young girl, growing up abroad, I was not exposed to Fairy tales.
These new discoveries lead to my fascination with the origins of Fairy tales. I explored the original brothers Grimm's stories and found that they have very dark and sometimes gruesome aspects, many of which were changed by Disney. I began to imagine Disney's perfect Princesses juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues.

Now, despite what any Facebook quiz would have me think, I am not any kind of Disney princess, unless upcoming releases include Princess Who Swears-a-lot, or @Laurie of Twitterlandia. I grew up in the generation after the classics were released - Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Cinderella, and they really didn't work for me. I was honestly freaked out even at an early age by the recurring theme of women needing to pass out for indeterminate periods of time in order for things to get better. No thank you. I was way into 101 Dalmations and Mary Poppins, stuff like that, and if anything really scarred me for life it was Bambi.

Real life has not been princessy either. Issues, I have issues. Externally, weight gain, a congenital facial scar, eyeglasses, unfortunate spiral perms. Internally, a crazy penchant for overanalysis and an occasional attitude problem. You name it, I got it. For more appropriate pop culture references, I was Winona Ryder in Heathers, minus the Christian Slater killer boyfriend, or Janeane Garofalo to my best friend's Uma Thurman in the Truth About Cats and Dogs. I maybe passed out sometimes, but there was no guy standing over me at the end crying. (And if there was, he needed money for the tab.)

Now that's just a cheap parenthetical joke. But the truth is, I've been jealous of women whose lives have appeared to be more charmed, more princessy than mine, at least aesthetically. I've thought that real-life girls who were popular, and pretty, and consistently boyfriended, were better off than me.

That's the truth. Sometimes I thought it because they strongly insinuated it, or because social interactions made me feel that way. Or maybe I thought it because of music videos, or movies with impossibly happy endings that looked nothing like my life (or to be honest, anyone's I knew, but we all kind of live in our own head until jarred out of it.) Even last night, watching a rerun of The Office at the gym, I was all, "Look how cute Jim is. Where's MY Jim? Pam's life is AWESOME. I'll just keep doing this here elliptical exercise for thousands more hours and some day, my Jim will come up to me in the parking lot with Dwight who will hand me things to photocopy!"

I said there were issues, right, just so we're clear? Now, I know and you know that Pam is not real, and in most cases I would not indeed like to be a paper company receptionist in Scranton, Pa., (unless Jon Krasinski really did work there, oh my word) but this is what happens to my brain while watching closed-captioned sitcoms while exercising. I have no real desire to fly around with a guy on a magic carpet Jasmine-style, or dance with talking tea cups and butter dishes waiting for a beast to transform in some creepy castle. I would not have argued, however, if Lloyd Dobler showed up in the Malibu. Alas, the person I mistook for him showed up in a trashed Jetta for which he paid $1 and moved into an undergraduate dorm five years later at an advanced age, leaving me behind with a stack of books about letting go Buddhist style and an assortment of irrational behaviors.

Would a princess have better luck? I don't know, because I haven't met any. But life proves to me frequently that real life is not charmed really, for anyone. Happiness is fleeting and weird. Princessy people are happy or sad depending, just like average people, whatever that may mean. I know people who I believe to be very attractive who pick themselves apart worse than I ever have, who are not happy with their internal or external selves. Beauty pageant winners are dethroned, while it is considered remarkable that Susan Boyle can sing at all given her physical appearance, and when she opens her mouth the world pats itself on the back for its enlightenment until she gets second place and ends up hospitalized (there's a Disney theme for you.) And you know, while I'm on the uplifting tip: nobody gets out alive.

Like my co-contributing editor and brilliant blogger Rita Arens wrote about the Fallen Princesses, happiness is relative, and hard-won:

In real life, happiness is the time spent being thankful you aren't
going through hell anymore. In real life, we don't know happy unless
we've been sad, really sad, or really angry, or really sick. Once we've
been all of those things, we learn to appreciate moments when nothing
is wrong --- and see them as happiness instead of the status quo.

If Rita's right, I should be accompanied by bluebirds 24/7, and even though I'm not currently bursting with joy, what I'm learning to identify as happiness in her terms is simple contentment, best experienced by not comparing other peoples' experiences and circumstances with mine. This may be why I choose not to watch the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

A larger aim of Goldstein's set might be to realize the very obvious and basic truth that is nonetheless easy to miss when you're caught up in bibbity-bobbity-boo and whatnot: I don't decide happy for princesses and their ilk any more than they ought to decide it for me, no matter what the zeitgeist says. And if I think for a minute that anyone is immune to common suffering like disease, addiction, lost love, or body image issues - no matter what slice of princess life we've seen in movies or through the media lens - that misconception is mostly on me.

As another well-known BlogHer, co-founder Lisa Stone wrote on Surfette in response to Rita's post:

Amen. We live, we learn, we grow up, we are thankful, we learn to find our happiness.

Unless, for some reason, we don't.

Other reactions:

A Cup of Jo finds the series "genius and heartbreaking."

Kelly at DesignCrush liked "seeing the flip side of the typical fairytale."

The Queen of the Quarterlife Crisis was "enthralled" by the images.

My friends and I have been saying for years that it's really the
fairytales we heard as children that actually fucked us up. These grand
illusions of men climbing up a girl's braid to "rescue her" can really
give a girl a COMPLEX. Anyhow, the artist here replaces the "happily
ever after" with reality that addresses current issues such as war in
the middle east, addiction and self-image.

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites, with many photos to be found on Flickr.

Have Books, Will Travel - Reading Road Trip Across America

2009-06-09T02:47:44-05:00

One of the greatest things about reading is that it can take you virtually anywhere without ever having to leave your house (or library or park bench or wherever you happen to find yourself.) An equally great thing is to be inspired to go and see the places described in books - to use them as inspiration for seeking out these places beyond their pages.

Long ago, before reading anything in a moving vehicle made me sick, I tore through books in the car just like I did everywhere else. I read constantly, and being on the move didn't stop me. The last book I remember reading completely on a road trip was Anne Rice's The Queen of the Damned on a trip to Disney World with my family in 1990. Parts of it do take place in Florida, oddly enough, and having no interest in visiting the underworld unless and until I absolutely have to, I was probably more taken with the descriptions of London than I was anywhere else in the book.

Last week, Twitter friend Janine tweeted about Sandra Foyt of On Living by Learning and her plan for a Read Across America road trip with her kids. it sounded great to me, so I clicked over.

I’m planning a road trip across the USA. Just me, two kids, an old Chevy Suburban, backpacking gear, and a stack of books.

Usually, I pick a location, pack a few guide books, and go. I can’t
do that this time as there are time constraints to consider: setting
aside time for visiting friends in California; and arriving in time to
meet my husband at the airport when he flies in. Nevertheless, I’m
determined to immerse my family in a variety of American adventures,
despite having to limit the length of our stops.

Their stops will include Hannibal, Missouri - home of Tom Sawyer; Channel Islands National Park in California, inspired by The Island of the Blue Dolphins, and one of my personal childhood dream spots, DeSmet, South Dakota, home of the Ingalls family and their legendary daughter, author Laura Ingalls Wilder. They'll be listening to audio versions of the books, and discussing them as they go.

(Not DeSmet, but Mansfield, Missouri, where Laura eventually moved and lived the rest of her life. Photo from Ingalls-Wilder archives.)

Foyt says her inspiration for this and other travel-related reading is Storybook Travels: from Eloise's New York to Harry Potter's London, Visits to 30 of the Best-Loved Landmarks in Children's Literature by Colleen Dunn Bates and Susan LaTempa. (This Parenthood.com review highlights several of the destinations in the book and the books that inspired them.) She also includes links to several online resources she's using to plan her trip, as well as other books about road trips. Her son, a budding paleontologist, just wants to look for fossils. For him she'll bring Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway:An Epoch Tale of a Scientist and an Artist on the Ultimate 5,000 Mile Paleo Road Trip. For her daughter, "a connoiseur of the weird and unusual," she'll have 101 Places You Gotta See Before You're 12.

I travel without children, but as a book lover and avid traveler I find this idea just as appealing. And it doesn't matter who you've got in the car with you - or certainly if you're on your own. Since I discovered this idea I've been thinking of cities and regions I love that have amazing literary history, that have inspired me to seek out the voices writing about them - New Orleans, San Francisco, New York, London (I'm an Austen fan - I could go for a country tour, no problem.) Hemingway made me see and taste Europe almost like I was there, and when I go back, I should probably bring A Moveable Feast for a re-read. KantoGirl probably would too.

There are many others. I loved Linda Ellerbees memoir of food and travel, Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the Table. I've even listened to the ultimate head and road trip book, Jack Kerouac's On the Road, while I was driving back to Ohio. I know it's love or hate thing for the most part, but if you're in Denver and have a thing for the beats, check out the Beat Poetry Driving Tour. (Of course.)

What books could inspire you to road trip? What would a road trip inspire you to read?

For now, I'm stuck on Foyt's DeSmet idea, and completely openly jealous of Wendy McClure's recent trips to visit Laura's final home in Mansfield, Missouri, while researching her upcoming book The Wilder Life. I'd be totally fine with starting in Wisconsin this summer and working my way west, because that's just the kind of geek I am. I already feel like I've been there, knowing these books as well as I do - this would just bring it all nicely full circle.

What would you bring? Where would you go?

(Image from Ingalls-Wilder archives.)

Related road reading:

Catherine Pond of the Cupcake Chronicles connected with Wendy in Missouri, and Wendy's shots of the real "little house on the prairie" in Independence, Kansas.

Violet Crush's reflections on Island of the Blue Dolphins, with pictures.

Road Trip Book Reviews from RoadtripAmerica.com.

A road trip through literary New England, from Sheri at Roadtripsforfamilies.com.

Jessica Coleman of Both Eyes Book Blog writes about reading The Willoughbys with her family as part of their "new tradition" of reading during road trips.

Beyond this continent, Michelle at Fluttering Butterflies gives a literary tour of her home county of Berkshire, United Kingdom. (Here's your Jane Austen fix if you'd like one.) E-How posted How to Take a Literary Tour of Britain.

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites.

10 Summer Vacation Photo Commandments

2009-05-31T18:32:10-05:00

The summer solstice puts the actual season a few weeks away, but the May and June proliferation of graduations, weddings, beach trips and barbecues mean summertime even if the calendar hasn't yet caught up. Since so many events often mean much capturing of memories on memory cards (and film? Yes, please?), it seems like a good time to make a little list of Ten Entirely Subjective Commandments for Successful Summer Photography.

Let's shoot, shall we? (Sorry.)

1. Get your gear in gear. Find your battery chargers. Um, actually, find your camera. Then make sure it works. Then make sure it's charged. It's sad to head out the door to a highly photographable, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime event and find out last minute that the pictures aren't happening due to preventable technical difficulties - like I did, at my sister's graduation last week, when I walked out the apartment door with the battery still in the charger, on the wall. DUH. Besides, even if you're not that spaced out, summer is a great time to scan photo sales if you find you're in need of an upgrade, and hopefully you'll have until next year when all the new models come out and your sweet camera is obsolete. The new crop of ever-cheaper, powerful point and shoot and entry level DSLR options is seemingly endless, if a little overwhelming. The digital camera space on Cnet.com is my go-to for comparisons and reviews.

2. Make friends with your camera, if you haven't. Read - at least skim - the instruction manual, preferably the part about what the different controls mean on the main dial. Yes, this might hurt a little, and I don't want to underestimate anyone's skill level, but at the nature photography classes I teach, almost to a woman the students are terrified of their cameras beyond "auto" mode, and this gets worse as the manufacturers pack more power and picture quality into basic point-and-shoots. You don't have to be a techie to learn a thing or two about what you can make this little machine do, but if you pick up a few pointers it will show in your photos. Does your camera have a "fireworks" option? Maybe. Do you need to understand how it works? Not necessarily, but if you even just know to click over to it your 4th of July pictures will rock. And the best thing is you never have to tell.

3. Work out your shooting rhythm when traveling and/or attending events in groups. My family is used to the fact by now that I'll always be lagging behind because I'm taking pictures, and I am very skilled at spotting the backs of their heads in the distance. Good thing I'm a fast walker who likewise knows when to step up my game if we're behind schedule. It means a lot to me that they don't nag me to hurry up - much - and I think they enjoy the results of my work enough now that they leave it alone.

4. If you're always the photographer, get in the picture, even if it's one, even if it's just to say you were there. If you have "I hate photos of myself" issues (which I clearly understand) maybe this is the season to work with them a little. If you don't, and it's just because you're always the one with the camera, that's even more of a reason to work your way in the frame at some point. On our recent trip to California for my sister's graduation, a picture-taking friend was along who shot one of the nicest pictures ever of us with our parents. My Facebook friends were shocked to see me in a picture that wasn't self-snapped in a ladies room (hey, whatever works), and I'm glad to have a memento of the occasion to frame for my parents and for us. Win.

Here we are, courtesy of Holly, aka blogblossoms, parent of one of my sister's classmates. Thanks again, Holly. We really appreciate it (especially me, because one Christmas present in a better-than-average frame? Done! And no, the wine glasses will not be cropped out. Tastees, they were tastes! Thank you, Temecula, California.)

5. Only two of you, siblings, spouse, bffs?? Ask someone close by to snap your photo. I know, I know it's tempting to stick with the arms-length couple self-portrait, and I'm all in favor because they can be fun, but sometimes you want to both be in the frame without your arms freakishly outstretched. Also, return the favor. I offered to take the photos of two different families in California
last week so they'd all be in the picture, and it was almost
embarrassing how grateful they were. Scoping out passersby for a
potential photographer can be awkward, so offering puts people out of
their minor social misery and also restores a little bit of faith in
humanity. Again, win.

6. If you're traveling, dump memory cards every day if you can. If you can't, either because you lack a laptop or another storage source, alternate cards and leave one in the room. If the card goes wonky or worse yet, the camera is stolen, better to lose only part of your vacation shots than all of them. I typically split trips up on a few 4GB cards, with one 8GB in my bag for video.

7. Use your mobile phone to shoot in addition to or in the absence of a camera. Some parts of my trip to San Diego last week were not conducive to lugging the big camera around, and sometimes shots happened when I wasn't prepared with anything other than the iPhone. I'm here to tell you - some of these shots are some of my favorite of the trip. Add in my obsession with the ShakeIt app that allows iPhone photos to "develop" on the screen like tiny Polaroids, and yes - I'm sold, for the 1.99 cent cost of this little gem. (Thanks to Aimee at Greeblemonkey for that tip.)

The plumeria, they're everywhere in Ocean Beach! I'd pay money to take the gorgeous smell home with me, but the photo is the next best thing.

8. Edit and upload (or even print, remember that?) as the summer rolls along - and selectively, especially if you're short on time. It's tempting to wait until you've got a chunk of time to deal with the hundreds of Grand Canyon shots, but the deal is that if you do wait, you'll end up with a family wedding, kindergarten graduation and the first crab feast to deal with too, and that will all feel even more daunting. On Flickr, less can be way more, and better to document the best of what you've got than wait for the whole shebang. And the best will stand out when you skim, trust me. You know this.

9. Speaking of mobile phones, upload to your Flickr, Facebook, Twitpic, etc. on the go. Pick your online social networking and/or photo storage spot, plug the contact information into your cell phone, and rock it out. It's the easiest way I've found to practice my moblogging skills, which is a good thing considering my current lack of frequency in even updating my Flickr stream, much less my poor little blog. I am not (unfortunately) paid to shill for Apple, but my iPhone is my favorite and my favorite thing about it is that I can slap stuff up on Flickr and, increasingly, Facebook when I feel like it. Want to make your friends and family jealous that you're sitting on a beach and they're sitting at a desk in the suburbs? Go ahead. I do. I don't care who thinks I ought be reading my book instead of geeking out on the beach. I'm making my own visual, digital archive and I love it. I can even post to Typepad - my blog platform - by putting the contact information in my phone or using my phone's Web browser if I'm feeling particularly ambitious.

10. Finally, just take - and print! - the picture. Have fun. Walk the beach. Skip posed and go candid at family events and vacations. "Good pictures" are relative, and what works for someone else may not for you. Growing into photography has literally made me see the world differently, and it's gotten to the point where I don't have to buy a bunch of souvenirs when I travel or worry I'll forget special events as time passes. My digital photo record is one of my most prized possessions and it's even better when I can share it with my family and friends. Making sure some of these shots make it to print is a bonus, especiaily for gift-giving and surrounding yourself with meaningful, hopefully beautiful, images on a daily basis.

This is the shot that I'm going to hang on my wall and put on my desktop at work, so when things are getting rough I can remember walking the glorious Sunset Cliffs National Park, feeling better than I had in months. Happy summer!

All about Facebook Mobile, from Facebook.com.

Keep your summer photo mojo going with Photojojo's (that was completely unintentional) very fun time capsule. Hook up your Flickr account with their Web site and twice a month you'll receive photos from that time, a year before. I love it.

Sheri J's photoblog entry from last year: A Few Reasons I Miss Summer.

Shutter Sisters has news about an awesome National Geographic contest. The prize is a trip to the Galapagos Islands.

Check out the Flickr blog for constant inspiration, including 5 question interviews with the likes of Barbara Fischer.

20 Photography Twitters Worth Following - and the Five Best Waterproof Compact Cameras - from Popular Photography magazine.

Laurie White, Contributing Editor for photography and family, writes at LaurieWrites and has way too many photos (as Rubyshoes) on Flickr.

Jon & Kate Plus 8: What I (Really Don't, Probably) Want to Know About Your Family

2009-05-27T16:06:18-05:00

Before last night, I had watched Jon & Kate Plus 8 once, and vowed to never watch it again. And except for following the most basic of information in Tweet exchanges with my friend Jodi, I did not. Until last night. Right.

I mean, why not? As a voracious consumer of both trash and treasure online, I have been bombarded by images of these people since news broke of Jon's alleged affair and then Kate's maybe-affair with the bodyguard and the rounds of the trash entertainment shows as I have been by the pre-emptive strike death coverage of both Patrick Swayze and Farrah Fawcett (who have not passed away, either of them, but when they do it will feel to me a little bit like they already did, thanks to Access Hollywood, closed captioned at the gym.)

There are allegedly 20 unforgettable Jon & Kate moments, Entertainment Weekly says, but I can't name more than a few and those happened last night in one miserable episode, which has left me thinking, I'll admit it. It drew 9.8 million viewers, more than any other TLC episode ever, so clearly I'm not alone. I'm thinking mostly, why do I care about this family? And do I really care, or is it just the power of utter media bombardment and blog chatter? And perhaps more to the point, why do they want me to care about them (except for Jon, who after five years appears to have woken from his slumber and realized he doesn't want me to, apparently?) Is it all about the money? Were the birthday party kids real or were those paid extras?

Most importantly, what about the Plus 8? What about the children, Jon and Kate? They're so cute. They're so young. They seem very bright. They still seem to like you. Is this the point where you're filming their birthday parties while pointedly not speaking to each other when you decide that maybe that kind of interpersonal drama - that intimately involves them - ought not to be shared on national television? Because even though I'm not a parent, I'm 99.9 percent certain that's what I'd decide (although I'm also that much certain that I'd never allow my family's life to be broadcast for public consumption. Just not my thing.)

There is absolutely no reason for me to care, other than the horrible human draw to drama and real time train wrecks that makes some of us talk about people like this like we know them, like we're entitled to have an opinion about them and the choices they make as parents and family units. I have enought to do, what with my own family with its various issues and my ton of friends whose families I care about and it's just family family everywhere up in this joint. I didn't and still absolutely don't want to care about Kate Gosselin's (horrible, omg) hair or Jon's slack-jawed expression or the girl in the car (you've heard about the girl in the car, right? And the bodyguard? Sordid little story, the lot of it, really.) I don't want to have my head invaded by images of and stories about a reality tv family from Berks County, Pa. (Right up the road, a couple hundred miles, not even, maybe! I wonder where they live? See?) who had sextuplets and twins and put those six littlest babies on television lickety-split right out of the womb.

Even in this age of pre-fab reality, of people racing around the world for prizes and working out with trainers in insane fitness challenges, most of the shows are still about people living in houses and watching the drama unfold, let's face it, with a variety of strange twists thrown in. Jon and Kate aren't much different. Except now they're not doing well in the aftermath of her schlepping around the country to speaking engagements while he stays home and minds the farm. Now there is a huge big season premiere that interspersed awkward "KATE RULES THE WORLD" party footage (sample dialogue from Kate, pre-photograph: "Take your sunglasses off, Jon.") with very serious off-camera interviewer counselors.

But who really knows? The stories conflict. Tonight didn't answer a whole lot, especially for someone like me who's seen the show once, and never wanted to see it again until I, like probably thousands of unwitting souls, just wanted to see what the fuss was about.

With all I know about the cult of television reality and its mega-production and editing and basic untruths, one thing can't be denied - these are real, related people. These are parents. And although I want very badly not to have an opinion, it turns out in the light of day I do. I can't imagine a time in my life, assuming that my life magically had children in it that it currently lacks, where I would broadcast them to the world in the shadow of my disintegrating marriage to their father, where I would drag them into my ugly van in an awkward trip to Target while I bitched to the cameras that I was planning and executing the party all by myself. Or, for that matter, where I would sit on a couch that the tv network i had contracted with paid for and sullenly state (hi Jon) that this was "no one's business" when I signed on the dotted line and made it the business of the tv-watching public.

Hey, if he's ready to get out of this, stand up. Get out. One of my most deeply held beliefs is that you can work your stuff out however you want, as consenting, hopefully competent adults. But when it comes to the children you made together, you'd better have your stuff together for them, because they didn't ask for their lives in general or their lives on TLC. And when it comes down to it, Jon can sit on the couch and be morose all he wants. People can feel for him for being married to a woman who only bemoans crying on tv because it will "ruin her makeup" and who bitches about filling 30 gift bags for a party for six kids and yells at him to the point where he looks anesthetized and angry at the same time. He married her. She married him. They chose to reproduce and ended up with eight human beings under their care, and then they went on television. Deal with it, both of you. And put your (reality tv) money where your "my children are my life" mouth is, and take them off the air if it's that bad. Take yourselves off the air. Take your family off the air.

Unless you don't want to, and we'll all be left to deal with the question of why the lives of other families interest us, especially when they get messy and challenging, especially when they involve drama on this absurd level. (Please note that I'm speaking in the universal "we" and "us" here, of course, because I know this doesn't interest everyone.) And especially why are they interesting in cases when the redeeming value of "there but for the grace of God go I" or a reflection of a higher ideal that we could learn something from is missing, when it's just about watching how messed up peoples' lives can be when they go to unexpected, uncomfortable places. And in that case, I really just want the "8" left alone, as much as that's my business too. Jon and Kate will be just fine, I'm quite sure.

These questions are rhetorical - feel free to weigh in, because truly, I've almost always got enough to sweep on my own doorstep that I should be embarrassed about paying attention to anyone else, no matter how in my face they are. Don't you?

Liz at Mabel's House, as self-described fan from the beginning, says Goodbye, Jon & Kate Plus 8.

And I’m here to tell you… children are aware. They are intelligent and
they are constantly listening. And the Gosselin kids are aware that the
paparazzi stalk them. They are aware that their parents don’t like each
other. And they are aware that every moment of it is on camera.

I
love this show, so when I say that I’m boycotting it; it’s not an easy
decision. But I personally refuse to be part of the media hype leading
to this disaster. And I certainly hope Jon & Kate have put together
some healthy trust funds for the kids. Those poor little guys are going
to need it to pay for their future therapy sessions.

There is a Jon & Kate Plus 8 Without Pity site, yes there is.

Backseat Cuddler has opinions about this, oh yes.

Chicken Heart corrects Kate's grammar (my personal favorite was "I'm dying of freezing" but I'd probably say something similar so I'll be quiet.) but she still hates to see "their love fall apart."

Us Magazine quotes Kate's sister-in-law urging people to give the children privacy by not watching the show. In Us Magazine.

DadCentric has some harsh words for the whole shebang.

Simply, the show needs to shut down. Then, the two of them need to get into counseling ASAP to see if they can pull it together for the sake of their eight kids.

It is up to us, as fellow parents, to make it happen. We must stop being their enablers.

No more tuning into watch the train wreck. No buying (or even viewing for free online) the tabloids that are following their every move and whine. Avoid all books written by or about these people (Kate is currently pushing some cheesy photo album of the kids and seems to have a cookbook on tap for October.) And for God's sake, if you see Jon hanging in a bar at 2 a.m. with some hot young things, smack him upside the head and tell him to get back to the bed he's made at home and deal with it.

Just in via Twitter: BlogHer CE Sweetney wrote an excellent piece on the premiere over at MamaPop. I'd quote you some but it's all good. Check it out.

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites.

Awkward Family Photos

2009-05-18T11:19:05-05:00

Say "awkward family photos" and the first thing that comes to my mind is my grandmother's house, any Thanksgiving between the years of, say, 1978-2004. We were all forced to gather around one end of the table in a too-small dining room, while she tried to operate a camera that always - always - malfunctioned (Disc cameras, even, for a few of those years. Remember those? See Boing Boing's "Bad Old Days: Kodak Disc 4000 Camera" for a refresher and then give your PowerShot a big kiss. )

Anyway, pushing the correct button on a camera that was typically low on batteries just in time for a special occasion required intervention from people who had to leave the shot to "help," much bickering and forced-smile-holding, possibly standing next to someone you weren't incredibly fond of for minutes that seemed like hours, my grandfather yelling "ROBERTA THE FOOD IS GETTING TOO DAMNED COLD" and then a do-over with her in the shot. Then a do-over with just her and my mother and her brothers. Then the grandchildren. Then we all did shots straight out of the turkey.

One of those things didn't actually happen. Salmonella risk, you know - although I've been told the alcohol makes it entirely safe.

Ah, holidays. Ah, family. Ah, photos. What price memories, no matter how weird or painful or poorly dressed?

Two guys who will identify themselves only as Mike and Doug set up a blog called Awkward Family Photos in late April to maybe answer this question, but mostly to make you cringe and laugh and think, mostly "There but for the grace of God go I" or "There without it I went," depending. You really need to hit the link because it's impossible to explain it adequately. Just go.

Everyone else has, anyway, so no harm in being a bandwagon-jumper when the results are this awkwardly awesome. As of May 13, the site had 800,000 hits and dozens of photos submitted in categories like Awkward Sibling Photos, Awkward Engagement Photos (brutal. Just brutal), Awkward Family Holiday Cards (only two so far, when millions of these exist, you know it, people) and my favorite, the Awkward Pose of the Week. Last week's was "The Lean." Beautiful.

Like most good ideas whose time just comes, this one started with a conversation. Mike said in a Time article that he and Doug were trading family stories when they hit upon the universal awkwardness of relatives, and decided to collect photographic evidence. They went home, found this shot on Google, and it was on.

(Photo courtesy of Awkwardfamilyphotos.com. Their copyright notice lives here. See something that's yours, sounds like they'll probably take it down.)

See? I cannot embellish this stuff. Also can't make stuff like this up, truth is stranger, etc. And there's apparently nothing like some good old fashioned family awkwardness to get the blogosphere rolling. Here they went:

Alana Edmunds at the Pursuit of Techyness wants to spread the awkwardness.

There’s nothing like a little bit of awkwardness to keep me going through a tough week.

Whether it be through a super awkward pickup line from a guy (or your dentist trying to set you up with her son, in my personal case), or through a more favorable (and less awkward for me) version… family photos.

A few words on the site from Suburbia Steph at Scandalous Housewife:

Perhaps
after viewing this website, it will just give you a boost about your
own family portraits! Some of these should stay in a box way waaaaay at
the back of the closet to never be see the light of day ever again
though!

I love love LOVE the shot Tina Roth Eisenberg posted at her site, Swiss Miss. Take that, Olan Mills. (Oops. Is that ok to say? I mean that in a semi-ironic, long-suffering-child-of-the-70s way, just to clarify.) Joanna at A Cup of Jo liked it too.

Dear Alison featured the American flag/heart/pleather outfits - prom photo, perhaps? Dear. Heavens. Above. Anyway, thanks Alison, because I missed this one. And please click that link. You won't be sorry, except for the part where your eyes are.

Beautifully Flawed, Divinely Chosen submitted her own photo, Creepy Indian Dad. (Hey, she said it, I didn't.)

What makes this photo awkward, you may ask?

Two words: my father.

Become a Facebook fan and/or follow Awkward Family Photos on Twitter. Submit your very own awkward photos here. Please.

Not pictures, but solidly in the awkward family files all the same, is the beautiful Postcards From Yo Mamma, the creation of Slate.com editor Jessica Grose and New York Observer reporter Shafrir. Look for more on this next week.

Not a BlogHER, but I liked what Burstein had to say on Laughing Squid:

Still, there is something charming about the Awkwardian Era, Awklord of the Rings, and even that infamous godawful Christmas photo.
The appeal lies in the naked exposure of each of us in our dorky glory
when we are not trying to be anything beyond being happy with our
family.

And as Mike said in Time, "There is something kind of cathartic for people about sharing the
oddness of their families. And that's what we hope the site will be — a
communal celebration of awkwardness."

In that spirit, finally, these people belong to me. One of them is, in fact, me. I could tell you why we do this, but then, yeah, I'd have to kill you, blahblahblah. And also don't tell them about this post please because I like having people around to pose for my awkward photos. We've come a long way since the turkey shots, that's all I'll say about that - but probably not very far after all. Still, I have my limits, and I can rest easy knowing that while you may see me making like a lemur at Jazz Fest, you will never, ever, see me posed with 20 other people on the beach in contrasting pastel golf shirts. Child, please.

Laurie White is relatively awkward on a daily basis, sometimes at LaurieWrites, a lot of the time on Flickr (as indicated in the photo above), and pretty much everywhere else in real life.

The Accidental Non-Mom: One Year Later

2009-05-11T09:59:16-05:00

So, what did I do for Mother's Day, another year later, still a woman without a child, newly without a beloved grandmother, but surrounded by mothers, in particular my own who means so much to me?

Does it even matter? It does to me, I guess.

I almost wish I could link to my Mothers Day for the Accidental Non-Mom post again this year and be done with it, because it says what I'd iike to say now much more articulately than I think I'm capable of at the moment. And given the high number of hits on this post on my personal blog in the past couple of weeks, clearly people are seeking this information, for reasons personal and I'm sure as varied as their number.

Sample Google hits: Mothers Day single. Childfree Mother's Day. Mother's Day greeting, single person.

To the last I admittedly Tweeted:

Dear people finding my blog
by googling "Mother's Day greetings for women without children." Skip
it! Just say hi! Bring tacos & candy bars!

I mean this, and not in a nasty way at all. I don't get a greeting on Father's Day because I'm not a father. You are welcome to bring me a present on your birthday because you're nice and I'm such a good and helpful friend and you want to celebrate the day you were born, but this generally doesn't happen either. Yes, I know the issue can be a bit more loaded for people at various points in their lives, but for me, this year, it wasn't. Admittedly I still feel a little bit left out when I see my friends sending each other mom-centered gifts on Facebook, and sending "mom-to-mom" greetings, but they do not apply to me. Like you can't be a little pregnant, right? Can't be a mom halfway either.

Reality - as they say - can bite. Twitter was a minefield for anyone triggered by Mother's Day greetings, and I found myself really worrying about anyone going through infertility or baby loss struggles and hoping to God they were out at a park or on a beach somewhere far, far away from an Internet connection.

It's no one's fault, the way this shakes out. It's just another thing to process and walk through, which means walking the line, for some of us, between honoring mothers and their important role and dealing with whatever we've got personally tied up in that without feeling like jerks. You think I ask for candy and tacos lightly?

The hurdle for me this year had much less to do with what hasn't happened for me yet in terms of partnering and parenting and whatever combo I can dream up there, but what I lost when my grandmother died in January, which will not fit in this space. Yesterday was hard as a result, unexpectedly so. I talked to my mother about it ahead of time. She knew - she lost her too. So what we did together was pretty low-key. I gave her a gift card so we can go pick out a camera. My father grilled. We drank some wine. It was fine.

On Saturday, I saw Danny Boyle's Millions, a fantastic movie re-released on a big screen near me. It involved small children losing their mother. I cried, alone, with my chocolate Skittles, which as it turned out I desperately needed to do. Yesterday, Mother's Day, I dragged myself, an ABC Elmo and a Target gift card to a large regional hospital to visit the child of one of my oldest friends and his wife, who is in an in-patient treatment program for a physical issue he has. Their second child is due next month. They are working like dogs to take care of their son, keep up a home and maintain their sanity.

It was a wonderful two hours. It was my small way of honoring a mother who means something to me, who is doing her very best to take care of her child, who very badly needs a break with none in sight. It was fantastic to meet the child of someone I've known since I was a teenager, to see that we all - no matter what our parenting status - have roles to play in each other's lives if we make the time and prioritize people over other, often less important things. It was the best place I could have been. My heart was so full when I left, reconnected to something important, to what I can do and what I can share even though the children who matter to me aren't my own.

This is where I am. Next year I'll be somewhere else. If I'm marking time in Mothers Days, this year showed some progress. There is a moving away from the chaos of the past few years, a deepening of spirit and of the ability to reach out, to make tentative plans to change my situation even though I have no idea how I'll get there or who will be there as a result. There is also the growing capacity to enjoy my own mother and to spend time with another and her child, all underscored with the knowledge of not just what I lost when my grandmother died, but of all I gained from her that has left me able to navigate this life in what I hope is a meaningful, useful way.

I had a sense while I stood over her casket and engraved the memory of her face on my brain this winter, that one of my last ties to childhood was gone, that I had no choice now (if I'd had one before, of course) but to stand up and fully embrace everything she taught me, everything she called me to be with a lifetime of unconditional love and gentle guidance. I stumble a lot - who doesn't, I guess? But yesterday I felt able to keep moving in a better way, felt that after a long season of grief and loss from various and sundry things that I was settling in to this person I am at this age that I am with this configuration of family and friends, with the attendant give and take, treasure and loss, that I have. And it is because of the people in my life - mothers, fathers, people without a child in sight and so often, yes, babies and children - that I have anything at all. It's so much better when we find the places where our lives intersect, and let each other in, even a little bit, even for an afternoon. It's so much better when we don't apologize - or feel like we have to -for what we've got, or don't.

Ilina at Deep South Moms apologizes for being a bitch before she had kids. (Disclosure: I speak up from the Target toy aisle.)

The Cassandra Chronicles poem Childless Mothers punched me in the gut but I share it in the spirit of how deep this can get for some of us.

Deesha Philyaw writes at the Bitch Magazine blog about Exhale, a literary magazine for women who have experienced miscarriage or stillbirth, or "extraordinary obstacles to getting/staying knocked up."

Kimberly at LadyGypsy remembers those "childless by circumstance."

Azyalg worries on Flickr about the "little hearts" who have lost their moms and may be sad on Mother's Day.

Blue Country Magic writes wistfully of never having children, losing her mother and celebrating her mother-in-law.

A little later today I will visit my mother-in-law and then I will
venture to the cemetery to have a chat with my mother. I wonder what
she thinks of me now?

To all my friends who are mothers, I hope
that your children honor, love and respect you as good children should.
I wish for you much joy in your sacrifice, and many wilted dandelions,
brought to you with love.

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites.

Picturing Hope - Shutter Sisters Win Microsoft Dream Assignment

2009-04-27T10:00:03-05:00

The day I saw Shutter Sisters Jen Lemen and Stephanie Roberts' entry to the Microsoft Name Your Dream Assignment contest, I was pretty sure they'd win it.

If this sounds smug now, I can't help it. Jen and Stephanie would be among the first people I know to tell me that sometimes intuition works. Sometimes you just - feeling your way, following your heart - know, even when you don't for sure and have no idea how what you know will come to pass. And I feel a little better resting in intuition on behalf of two women who I - admittedly - have hugged warmly and eaten dinner with, women whose eyes I've looked into and seen the belief in everything amazing, with the work to back it up.

But it's not just pretty pictures. Beyond those, and more relative to this contest, I know both of them to have a deep belief in the power of each person's story, and the necessity of images to share what needs to be shared of those stories with the world. Their words and images are beautiful, for sure. They speak of hope and dreams, things sometimes hard to see in a complicated world. But their work is underscored by the most solid things - it is the opposite of ethereal, really. They each, in her own way, exist to help the more cynical who walk among us (i.e., me) simultaneously feel the struggle along with a capacity for joy, however tiny.

Microsoft got it too. They chose Stephanie and Jen's Picture Hope project from among ten finalists for a $50,000 prize, that they will use to travel to five continents to capture pictures of hope. Here's what they said in their application:

The inspiration for our travel destinations will be women who are
dear friends to us here in the United States--former modern day slaves,
genocide survivors, young activists, old visionaries and new
immigrants. We'll begin in northeastern Rwanda in a quiet village where
two young girls wait to be reunited with a mother they've been missing
for over three years. Our journey ends in the hills of Nepal where an
American teenager became the mother of twenty orphans when she decided
to follow her heart.

At each new destination, we will introduce you to a person who has
become for us a living icon of hope. We'll then invite you to respond
with geo-tagged finds from your own lens as together we excavate hope
wherever we live, wherever we go. This body of images and video will
become a visual catalog for our hopeful world. This online gallery will
be our collective resource for the creation of literacy tools and print
resources to make a real world difference in the lives of the hopeful
people we've met on our dream assignment.

Those of us who love photography seem to share a sense of its worth beyond the frame and the paper or the screen it's printed on. If you've been following Jen's story at all the past couple of years, you know that her images of the people she's met and come to care so deeply for in Rwanda and here at home are infused with that sense. Just start at the top of her site, right here, and scroll down. You'll see it.

These women won for me and for lots of other people a long time ago. The quality of their work and their commitment to what they're trying to accomplish is remarkable. This win is their next step. It's an opportunity to take an absolute commitment to the betterment of the world and other people to a very cool level with the use of artistic ability and will. It's one of the best things I've heard about in a while, and it (really) couldn't have happened to two better people.

When I met Stephanie a few years ago, she was working on audio
projects. Last year, she left her job and began her own photography and
digital documentary company, Little Purple Cow Photography. She produced this photo essay about Picturing Hope called "Crossing the Threshold" that uses Jen's photos and words, including these.

For the last 20 years I've been learning what it means to be a friend and also what it means to have a friend. Photography for me is a way of crossing that threshold and revealing the things that sometimes our culture or our language make it impossible for us to see at first glance...

Crossing the Threshold from LittlePurpleCow Productions on Vimeo.

Jen goes on to say that she hopes her photographs in some way offer a window into the deeper stories. They already have, if the outpouring of support from the Shutter Sisters and wider Web community is any indication. And I really can't wait to see how deep they can go, with some extra cash and a bunch of passport stamps. Really deep, it's safe to say.

Amy Sorokas wrote about the win at Microsoft's Professional Photography Blog.

I am looking forward to seeing the Shutter Sisters’ project come to
life and following their journey meeting and sharing the experiences of
their inspirational subjects.

In the meantime, check out the Shutter Sisters’ ‘One Word Project’ for the month - April is Hope - for the images that are already inspiring hope on their site.

Lisa at Nerdy Renegade is hope-full.

Jen Lee recently finished her own Portfolio Project and is a strong supporter of Picturing Hope. So are Margie and Kath of Soeurs du Jour.

Sometimes it seems the only news is the bad news, the sad news and the scary news. To hear this happy news of a prize well deserved and hard earned should give us all a little more hope in our hearts and minds. What an amazing bunch we all are.

Stephanie's most recent Shutter Sisters post about her son's reaction to the win. Because you have to trust and let go. And the original Sisters' post about the win, from Jen, Stephanie and founder Tracey Clark. Because hope is more than wishful thinking.

You have a few days left to submit your images to the Picture Hope pool for the One Word Project. A new featured image is chosen every day.

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites, with photos on Flickr - some of them hopeful, even.

Purple for Maddie and Love for Thalon: the Blogging Community Comes Together

2009-04-14T09:12:51-05:00

"So shines a good deed in a weary world," Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice. Gene Wilder repeated it in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The line jumped out at me when I watched it for the millionth time on Sunday, reminding me of the community of parent bloggers, friends and allies who reached out this week to support two families who suffered the unthinkable loss of their babies.

The funeral of Maddie Spohr, 17-month old daughter of Heather and Mike Spohr of The Spohrs Are Multiplying and The Newborn Identity, is today in California. Thalon, the nearly 4 month old son of Shana of Gorillabuns, died this weekend.

I honestly do not know where to begin to sum up the online and in some cases very much in-person reaction from thousands of bloggers, because I know I can't, but I feel it bears mentioning. There is so much - SO MUCH - out there, a tremendous outpouring from people all over the Internet who care about these children and the people who have lost them that it's struck me silent. And while my heart and brain are full, I've been doing basically everything I can all of yesterday and today to avoid writing about the deaths of two small children, even though it was the only thing that seemed important enough to write about this week. I've watched post after post flow from the fingers of people all over this continent (and likely the world, if you've seen posts from beyond North American borders please link them in the comments.) And I've been reading them obsessively, amazed at people who can so readily find the words, at people who are responding to these losses with so much generosity and kindness, who are donating to the March of Dimes in Maddie's memory, who are traveling to California for her funeral to stand with and support her parents, who are turning their avatars and blogs purple in her memory. (Thanks much to Velma for helping me out with mine.)

Last night I ended up stuck on Bejeweled, a horribly addictive game that kills one lobe of your brain with stupidity while it frees the other one up to think about more important things, because I haven't been able to slow my brain down enough to knit this all together in a clean white text box. And after I couldn't do that anymore, I was ready to try to write about it, because even though I know for sure I can't do two baby lives and the immeasurable pain of two families justice, I need to talk about what happens when people all over the world come to care, consider themselves community, and have the technological means combined with the oh-so-human heart and spirit to do something about it.

I'm going to mostly let these people speak, but first of all, the facts, in case anyone reading missed them: Maddie died on April 8, 2009. Born 11 weeks premature two years ago, she had health issues throughout her life but had been doing well until the infection set in that took her life. Mom Heather and dad Mike wrote about their experiences parenting her, from the difficulties of prematurity and NICU to the everyday joys of watching her grow. Mike was a stay-at-home dad for much of Maddie's life. They are both on Twitter, Heather at @mamaspohr and Mike, @newbornidentity.

Shana's son, Thalon Bruce, died suddenly on Saturday.She shared the news yesterday.

There are countless communities on the Internet, with amorphous boundaries, knit loosely together in a global sense but with some of the tightest human relationships I've ever seen. The parent blogging community has been deconstructed in detail, but when it comes to losses like this, the rate and speed of organizing is remarkable. There's the ability of a stranger like myself, not a parent but certainly with the compassion for the inexplicable loss of a baby, to send a comment or an e-mail, to get sucked into the most beautiful pair of seventeen month-old eyes, and to cry for people I've never met because reading the accounts of their daughter's life are almost too much to bear. And if I feel this way? Who could imagine their grief.

In comments and on their own blogs, people reach out. And as usual anymore, Twitter is a communications hub, so intrinsic to online community building that I fail to engage when someone questions the value. You get it or you don't.

Still - human beings have to hit these keys and make the plans, and that is what has happened in both of these instances. Meghan at a Mom Two Boys is the kind of friend I hope I'd have on my side in a situation like this. She originally announced her loss on behalf of the family, has been instrumental in fundraising efforts, and has a For Maddie hub on her blog with links to (currently) 410 posts submitted by bloggers in her honor. March for Maddie has more, including videos and photos.

Lotus Carroll at Sarcastic Mom also has a page with every conceivable Maddie link, including the 50 teams who will be walking in her honor in the March of Dimes March for Babies in a couple of weeks. Donations to Maddie's March of Dimes page are over $25,000 so far (it's often down due to volume, so a trip to Sarcastic Mom's links are the best bet, I've found.)

The women of Room 704 (or, more recently, Seven-Oh-Spohr) are selling bracelets with the bulk of the proceeds going to the Spohr family. Yvonne of Joy Unexpected went out and bought a Nikon Coolpix camera instead of directly donating. Every ten dollars donated to the family gains donors one chance at the camera. Instamom is doing the same with a Nintendo DSi.

Bloggers including Mrs. Schmitty will be posting a photo of Madeline from this post at 2:30 p.m., PST today to coincide with her service. The For Maddie Flickr pool includes purple balloon launches and people wearing purple.

Shana's friend Sarah at Whoorl set up a Love for Thalon PayPal link, alongside her post about his loss.

Thalon passed away yesterday afternoon surrounded by his adoring family.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention wanting to punch the universe in the mouth right now. Really hard.

Heather B. met Thalon in January.

After the last two weeks I keep shaking my head because babies should never die. It’s not right and it’s the most fucked up thing I have ever heard. And yet it keeps happening and all I want to do is sit here in my pajama pants and wonder why?

None of the above makes any sense. And I don’t even care. I’m just torn up on the inside and questioning how parents do it. How do you spend the rest of your life constantly worrying that in any minute your heart might break into a million pieces?

None of the above makes sense because it shouldn’t. It - the death of a child - shouldn’t happen but it does.

Twitter searches for Maddie and Thalon are updated in real time.

The LA Times ran a story about the online response to Maddie's death. Heather Spohr will speak at her daughter's funeral.

The comments for both of these babies are countless, but this one from Flicka sums up what many feel:

Saying that I am so sorry seems woefully inadequate right now. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family, now and in the days ahead. This internet stranger is hugging you from afar.

Kate from SweetSalty left one on this beautiful photo of Maddie:

Everyone's twittering and blogging and remembering and I'm just completely and totally stunned. Had to come here and see her. My god, she was some kind of imp or sprite or otherworldly girl.

I've spent almost two years reconciling the mysteries of what else is out there, having a 6-week-old premature son who is on that other side, and has all those answers. And yet I look at Maddie's gorgeous face and all over again, I can't make sense of it.

Maggie's post at Okay. Fine. Dammit is beautiful. Genius apparently causes blog crashes, because I can't get there now, but it says everything I wanted to but can't find the words.

Eight hours in the car today and I kept checking Twitter on my phone, and I swear for the first time ever I’m not annoyed by hashtags, I’m seeking them out, the #maddie’s, the #thalon’s, like beacons, and it’s so strange, isn’t it? In times of great confusion and profound tragedy we just want to be among others who are equally impacted, like after Columbine or September 11, and so this is what we do, we head to the chapels and the temples and the public parks and the malls and we shuffle together slowly, as one, taking comfort in the lull of the sound of our communal footsteps and that’s really what the blogosphere has become to me, you know? And everyone was there today, following the hashtags, each tweet and post a gonging of the bell, the Church of Twitter.

Forget about weary. The world ought to really lie down exhausted every time a baby dies, but then if it did it would never get up. It happens all the time, every day, all over the world. But every time, it seems like time ought to stop and remember.In the loss of these children, there is compassion for all children, for all families who lose them. There is not much more to say than that, except for whatever it's worth - which I'm not sure how to quantify but what do you do in situations like this other than things that seem like they might help, like they might have meaning? - I will wear purple today. And if there were a color for Thalon, if one pops up soon, I'll do that too. It's the least I can do for these kids and for their families.

Please feel free to share remembrances, updates and links to posts in the comments.

I write at LaurieWrites. I will walk in the suburban Maryland March for Babies on April 25, in honor of Maddie, who joins the kids with cleft lips and palates who I will always walk for. Please visit my page if you feel so moved, and pitch in for all of these kids. Thanks. This is a particularly meaningful year.

Better Blogging in 31 Days? Start Now.

2009-04-06T08:43:00-05:00

Maybe you want to write better, more often or with more focus. Maybe you take photographs but have no idea how to edit them or where they'll work on your blog. Maybe your blog is bumming you out.

What great things could you do for your blog in a month? And can you do them by having the courage to suck at them?

Yes, these are related questions, at least for me.

Call it a writing slump, Twitter overload, or the fallout from going back to a full-time demanding job as a college teacher while grieving the loss of my grandmother, but in recent months my personal blog, and in some ways my creative output in general, has suffered. (And no, the creative drought isn't all Twitter's fault. I know.)

My ideas sound stupid in my head, and I don't want to let them out of their cages of stupid so they stay safely locked up. My photos that have brought me so much joy for the past four years seem uninspired. I have flashes of said inspiration and they're gone. I sit down to write or to upload, even about things that previously would have come easily, and it's nothing but the blank white Typepad box blinking up at me. I feel weird about my space in Blogland, as a life and photo blogger with nary a child or even a pet now in a virtual zip code that seems increasingly niche-oriented, mom-centered (sorry, I feel bad even uttering that, some of my best friends are mommybloggers, etc.) and marketing crazy.

The blog that I've loved, I kind of hate it. Our fourth anniversary is in ten days, and I'm thinking we either have to take a mini-break and reconnect or break up. I have existential, and in my opinion kinda elitist blogging angst. Because really, worrying intensely about the direction of my blog is not up there on the list of things that will solve the world's problems.

It matters to me, though, so it's a thing. It's been suggested that I should quit it, but I don't want to. I love writing online. My site is the best of what came out of a crappy personal era. It's an archive and an ongoing record, and of all the things I've ever hoped to write, one of those "please beg me to stay-I'm so quitting my blog-you can't stop me-please stop me" posts is at the bottom of the negative list. So we soldier on, me and my archives and outdated sidebar buttons and template I can't figure out how to change because I've never really taken the time, because one of us doesn't want to break up, and the other one? It can't, because it's a software application and I tell it what to do, duh.

Enter Darren Rowse at Problogger, the man who Tweets what the morning is like in Australia just as I'm shutting down for the night, pretty much every day. His 31 Days to Build a Better Blog series starts today, April 6 (wherever you are, and whatever time it is.)

The idea behind this is simply to have a group of bloggers setting
aside a month of their time to work at improving their blogs. While we
all want to have better blogs sometimes it becomes one of those things
that we’re going to do…. one day.

I personally find that I improve (in all areas of my life) when I’m
more intentional and set aside a specific time to make the
improvements. That’s what this project is about.

Every day, he says, he'll offer some background instruction and a takeaway task, which is what I'm looking forward to the most. The link to Day One's topic hit my inbox bright and early this morning - crafting an elevator pitch for your blog, a 30-second or 150 word synopsis of what your blog is about, what it offers, and what you have to say (Or show. Or do. Or whatever.)

On of the most important reasons to do this exercise is that to develop
an elevator pitch YOU as a blogger to have thought through and
crystallised in your mind what your blog is about.

If you’re fuzzy on what your blog is about it’s unlikely than anyone else will have much of an idea either.

Some of these ideas will likely sound very business and marketing-heavy right off the top because, well, the challenge is hosted on Problogger. And if, like me, you do not like to talk to strangers on elevators and the thought of trapping them there for 30 seconds telling them about your BLOG horrifies you, well, see, that's why we never get anywhere, being all narrow-minded like that. Use the concept, and the next time you're in the BlogHer buffet line and someone's all "So, what do YOU write about?" you'll only have a 30-second spiel hanging between you and that brownie.

And rest easy in the knowledge that you'll never be that person who badgers people on elevators.

And whether your site is a creative labor of love or you're hoping to make some money from it, that's ok. I'm a life blogger who'd like to get better, who'd in fact actually like to get back to the business of writing something, anything. I'm also a photo blogger who thinks heavily on the way to the refrigerator sometimes about setting up a site where people may actually pay for my prints, at the very least a guilt-inducing link to send to family members in return for all the Girl Scout cookies and gift wrap I've shelled out for over the years. (Kidding. Kinda.) So I'm using this as an exercise in business, creativity, and general ass-kickery, and don't much care what comes out on top.

It's the structure, even if it's artificial, that I'm looking forward to. Darren's right about the intentions part. I went to SxSW Interactive last month and came home with some cool new ideas. I've already changed a few things up on my site, like updating ancient buttons and sidebar links, adding a Twitter widget, but they're minor. It was movement, though, which was a good thing. And as my friend and Movable Type guru Skye Kilaen pointed out, go me for finishing NABLOPOMO 2007. Um, let's move on.

I mentioned courageous sucking in the beginning, a concept Merlin Mann wrote about in one of my new favorite pieces on 43 Folders in December. It's the tolerance for the potential of sucking that allows him to find satisfaction in a fairly new photography habit, in spite of the discomfort that can go along with an unpracticed skill.

I’m not doing anything special here, and I don’t claim to have a
magic formula for creativity, let alone for getting a half-decent photo
of a rubber shoe. All I know is that sticking with things that don’t
arrive with instant mastery does have its own reward, even if
you’re the only one who ever collects it. Because the more you push
through the barriers for these little avocations, the easier it becomes
to remember you always have everything you need to just keep banging
until you’re satisfied with any work that’s thrown at you.

Next time I need inspiration to get through a bad patch, or to get
past that persistent feeling that I’ll always be stuck in the lowest
creative gear, I hope I’ll remember to stop and ask myself what exactly
is keeping me from just laying on the sidewalk until I get my shot.
Even if it’s cold, even if I look like an idiot, and even if I risk
missing the first crucial minutes of Judge Judy.

I'm a procrastinating perfectionist with a hatred of learning curves and this makes sense to me. I have some new domain ideas and some design inspiration that is in danger of never happening because I'm afraid it'll be terrible. I have blog posts in my head that I'm not sure will work. I might look like an idiot.

He's right. So what? That's what I need to ask myself, anyway.

Here. Here's a rainbow. A "so what" rainbow.

If you choose to accept the 31 Day Challenge, and if like me
you could use some structure while you shake things up, here are a few
kindred spirits and places you can maybe reclaim or expand your blog mojo.

This is a good time to try a great project. Part of my 31 Day Challenge is to be a better blog citizen. There are
great things happening online every day and it's not hard to get
involved, it just takes focus and a choice to spend the time. Aimee at
Greeblemonkey (and yes, @Greeblemonkey) returned from SxSW with an inspired St. Patrick's Day resolution: Do Epic Shit. If you're looking for a cool project, the Kids Art Auction inspired by her son Declan last year is up and running again. This year she's working on it with her friend Amy (aka @fruitlady)
and proceeds will go to the Nature Conservancy. If a young artist in
your life would like to contribute a piece or you'd like to bid, stop by the Flickr pool and see what you can contribute.

If it's writing inspiration you seek, I'm having a good time on Plinky. Their tagline "sometimes you need a push" comes in the form of daily writing prompts, a guided multimedia submission method and a community (of course) of other writers.

The Monthly Scavenger Hunt is my new Flickr photo inspiration. Look out for April's challenge.

NABLOPOMO's April challenge is "Growing (Up.)" Human Girl is giving it a try this month.

Alease Michelle signed up for the challenge, simply because "it's time to get serious with this blogging stuff."

Melissa at MoxVox Design in Australia was one of the first challenge commenters this morning, and the first identifiable female. Check out this list of activities on her blog (I'm curious to see what she's going to do to improve):

I design, paint, sew, craft, dj, click, pixelate, build, cut, collect,
reuse, hoard, create, rip, destroy, draw, sample, hang, style,
decorate, remix, fold, mould, bake, cook and probably don't clean
enough.

Around BlogHer, fellow contributing editors Liz Rizzo and AV Flox are also on board with the challenge. Prompts will be on the Problogger site every day, even if you don't sign up. We'd love to know about it if you give it a try.

Laurie White currently writes at LaurieWrites, with assorted accompanying photos on Flickr.

SXSW Smiles and Photo Dreams: What's Yours?

2009-03-22T01:35:42-05:00

As a photographer and an adult with a cleft lip and palate who had a transformative
experience shooting an Operation Smile dental mission in Vietnam a year
ago this week, I was thrilled to see the SXSW Smiles project at the huge SXSW Interactive conference in the oh-so-awesome Austin.

Well, I didn't actually see it. I almost missed it entirely. I walked out of my last panel on the last day smack into a table that had piles of Operation Smile stickers and buttons on it (I was tired, and it turns out when you buy an iPhone you can spend a lot of stupid time looking at the ground.) It kind of hurt my knee, but it got my attention. And after a little bit of research into the project that brought a nonprofit organization like this one to a huge tech conference, I kicked myself harder than usual for not paying attention before.

There's a lot to pay attention to at this conference, but this is one more thing that given my love for this organization's mission of providing surgical repair for facial differences - primarily cleft lips and/or palates - around the world, I feel like the universe should have put in my scattered, hurried path. (And the universe is like, "Hi, pay attention to the important stuff, thanks.") So I am now, and I hope you will too.

Renee Alexander Hamilton, Operation Smile's Social Media Strategist who represented the project at SXSW Interactive, tells the story on her blog, SXSW Smiles Journal.

-I told her about my new role and how now I am trying to do the same
thing we do in Donor Relations online and in person at events. I
explained that while in the past social networking tools like chat
rooms were thought to divide people and keep them at home in a dark
corner having "virtual relationships'. Now with Facebook and Twitter,
these interactions are actually driving in-person meet-ups and beyond
that they are inspiring ACTION.

So I guess you could say I'm in Austin for a little Smile Action!

SXSW Smiles set up shop outside the very cool Beacon Lounge for nonprofits and social change organizations in the Austin Convention Center, with the goal of enough donations for 10 new "smiles" - repair surgeries for kids with cleft lips and/or palates- each estimated at $240.

Directions were simple. First, pick up or download a "Make Me Smile" sign, and write whatever makes you smile on it. Upload a photo of yourself with the sign to Flickr with the "sxswsmiles" tag. Donate by texting "smile" to 90999, or dropping it off in the Beacon Lounge.

Check out the Operation Smile SXSW Flickr set here, hosted on Alexander aka Entropy Art's photostream. The answers are fun to read - "Bhangra," "our absurdly clingy dog", "hot salsa"- and you'll also get a peek at some of the folks roaming the halls of SXSW, if that's a draw. I would include them for you here, but "all rights reserved" is what it is.

The SXSWSmiles project is part of a larger $240 Smile Challenge March (aka Smile Month.) The cause's Facebook page says that $4203 has been donated so far and $3710 is still needed to reach their goal of providing 20 repair surgeries to children. Check it out.

While this is so much on my mind, Lenovo Microsoft is asking people to "Name Your Dream Assignment," asking "Where will your lens take you?" on a photo project for which they will give a prize of $50,000, a video camera, a blog and a computer to record it all. I haven't entered, but mine? To go on a mission - a surgical one this time, and to shoot it. I don't know when or how this will happen, but I believe that it will, and just as I felt in Vietnam, I think it'll be one of the most important things I ever witness.

And why? I'm as idealistic as I am hardcore about photography, and that's a lot. Photos can change lives, I will boldly, idealistically, perhaps overdramatically say - whether they're photos of people talking about what makes them smile or, maybe more importantly, photos taken before and after cleft lip and/or palate repair. They can inform and change perceptions and raise awareness just like, and sometimes even more than, words can. It can be difficult to see if you're unaccustomed, but just like with many things that present challenges that can't be easily solved, or aren't so pretty, or disturb on some level, they don't go away just because we don't pay attention.

When its in a picture in front of your face, it's hard to ignore, so may there always be pictures of important things in front of our faces.

Me with the very important kids at Hanoi Medical University, March, 2008. Many had just received their first dental exam. Photo kindly taken by their teacher.

And I can easily say that Operation Smile is my favorite new Twitter contact from SXSW Interactive.

Other photo dreamers for this and other causes:

Joanne Bamberger/PunditMom's dream assignment is to tell the stories of moms keeping their families afloat in tough economic times.

Katie Ring's Photography and Life blog with footage of Operation Smile patients in India and her photos of a mission there.

Audra, an American expat writing at Nicaragua: The Obandos accompanied her students from the American Nicaraguan School on an Operation Smile mission

Beth Kanter was a fixture in the Beacon Lounge and wrote prolifically about the nonprofit presence at SXSW and in social media communities. Her post on the Social Media Nonprofit ROI Poetry Slam is a good place to start, but scroll around for lots more.

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites.

Could You - Should You - Break the Wine (or Sugar, or Caffeine) Habit?

2009-03-08T11:40:48-05:00

It's not a habit, it's cool, I feel alive
If you don't have it you're on the other side
I'm not an addict (maybe that's a lie) - K's Choice

A true creature of habit, for good and for ill, I begin each day that isn't a catastrophe from the beginning with at least one cup of coffee. It is generally vanilla or hazelnut, with real, full-fat half and half. I may have another cup in the afternoon, especially now that we have Dunkin Donuts coffee in our campus cafeteria. I am online for several hours most days of the week for work and for play and for all things in between, and I get super-twitchy when I can't check my e-mail. I eat too much sugar, probably, although this is something I do try to control. And oh, I have at least one glass of wine most nights during the week and um, many times I have more than that. And I'm single, for the purposes of this discussion.

A distracting, intentionally artsy wine photo.

ad⋅dic⋅tion [uh-dik-shuhn] –noun the
state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is
psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an
extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

Enslavement is a heavy concept and even the concept of trauma can be pretty traumatic. It's terrible to need anything to the point that you're traumatized if you can't have it, but I have to admit: I am really, really bothered if I can't get coffee in the morning, mostly due to logistics (i.e., I will be just stupid late for work if I either a. stop to get coffee or b. take ten minutes I don't have to quickie French-press it into a go cup at home, including a few minutes to clean up the mess so my roommates don't have to deal with it.)

Coffee in the East Village, where caffeination feels exceptionally necessary.

The caffeine matters, I'm sure, but just like when I had trouble quitting smoking several times before I finally kicked it several years back, I'm tied to the psychological ritual of getting my cup of coffee, smelling it and (finally) drinking it. I liked smoking cigarettes until it got to be too much for me to physically endure. I liked smoking while I drove, or over coffee with a friend while we pretended to solve the world's problems. Sugar crawled into my life as a young person and once invited appears to be unwilling to hit the road. Wine entered the picture in grad school, when my ~~wine~~ writing group got together for weekly navel-gazing that could probably only be tolerated with at least a minor buzz.

Catherine Morgan wrote earlier this week that "If you're alive, you're probably addicted to something," and based on totally anecdotal observations over four decades, I agree. There are the tangibles, like soda or cigarettes, and the not-so-clear, or at least not as physically harmful, like praise or control. (I know a few extreme attention-addicts and observing the stress of that plus the reactions of other people, I'll take wine for the moment, please.)

Should I - and let's generalize to my single sisters here, because why not? - give up these things? When does it become clear that I am not really in training for a job as a sommelier and in fact just like the old red wine just a little too much? And if I give up wine (shudder) do I have to give up caffeine too? Sugar? More carbs? Do I get to keep ANYTHING in my allegedly depressed single life?

A picture of cake batter to distract you from my ramblings.

I don't know, and don't believe that anyone else does either, really. It's not a question I can answer for you or you for me, until that horrible point where it's clear that there is a serious problem. I've watched two people close to me die very ugly alcoholic deaths and intervention did not work in either case. This is no joke. Addiction is not just a convenient label, but a long, shifting scale full of gray areas, and it is stressful for all involved.

The daily dance of food (and in some cases alcohol) consumption and self-medication with substances, activities or thought processes is reality for millions of people in our culture, at a variety of ages, incomes and backgrounds. It seems to me that people make changes when a behavior becomes a physical or emotional threat to them and often to their family and friends, and more critically, when they feel like they actually can. This is the hard part. I mean, I know sugar is bad for me, but when faced with a Sonic cherry limeade or a piece of tiramisu, it's really easy for my brain that loves food and immediate gratification to scarf it down and worry about diabetes (which I do, given my family history) later.

Health is precarious business, and addictions are not just the occasional elephant in the living room, but in our brains and bodies too. Or is it just me? Can you talk about it, the stuff you can't quit? And if you did, how? Or if you want to, why? Because I feel like I just wrote myself into a corner here and I'd love some help.

Rachelann at Life of a Single Girl included her addictions on her 25 Things list, crossposted to her blog.(I liked #25 best - "I feel that I am destined for great things.")

#19. I love wine, but I'm not a big drinker.
#20. I'm perfectly fine being by myself-in fact most of the time I prefer it.
#21. I'm addicted to shoes and purses.
#22. I'm addicted to love ; )

Blogoholic lists 101 signs you're addicted to the Internet. (I only needed like three or four, but warning, many of these are tongue-in-cheek.)

Sass recently wrote The Addictions of Sass (saving what I'd call the big guns for the postscript, but maybe cereal and John Legend are a more pressing issue than beer and wine. Issues, I have issues!)

Shannon of Single Mom xs Four had a shoe addiction for herself and her kids. The purging recently began.

The hardest part was 4 little pairs of Converse that belonged to Little
Bird when he was 1 & 2 years old. I lined them all up on the floor
and about cried. Mini-Me tried told me to keep them cause they were so
cute. I told her no and put them in a seperate bag from all the other
shoes. I had a fight with myself about what to do with them. UGH
Letting go is so hard but really I have no use for the shoes. So I put
the bag on top of the rest of the items that will go to Goodwill on
Sat. I am hoping I have the strength to let them go with out to many
tears shed or. Really they are just shoes ...

Psychology Today's Addiction Center is a helpful online resource, and Dr. Elisha Goldstein's Mindfulness and Addiction posts are useful too.

NIH/Medline's take on caffeine.

Tips for overcoming sugar addiction, and Escape From Candyland, Holly's blog about "seeking freedom from sugar addiction, insulin resistance, and polycystic ovarian syndrome."

Coffee and sugar tag team.

Finally, as I wrote this, @thelordyourgod Tweeted:

IF THE LORD YOUR GOD CAN'T QUIT COFFEE, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR WAYS, MONKEYS? 8 minutes ago from web

And yes, I do believe in signs.

My name is Laurie White, and I write about family and photography at BlogHer. I also write at LaurieWrites.

I'm Just Not That Into Me: What to do When You Don't Like Pictures...of You

2009-03-02T02:09:29-06:00

Last night at a gathering of high school friends, there were pictures. Many, many pictures. Like paparazzi, the ladies from my graduating class gathered us in groups, flashes going off, demanding we look in the same direction to face their horrifying point-and-shoot digital cameras with the crazy flashes.

I participate, because I'm by my most inherent nature a participator. But the truth is I hate it, hate everything about the whole process, I admit it, because I'm not a huge fan of pictures of myself. I don't think I'm photogenic. I need to lose 40 pounds. I am not photo-worthy, I tell myself, resoundingly, in the one-minute span of time it takes to take a few too many snapshots.

It's kind of like hell, a hell filled with my neuroses and four extra chins.

Knowing now that these pictures will go on the Internet, I admit that I freak out a little bit more. They'll be tagged with my name, and everyone from my current colleagues to the boys from my 8th grade class who have recently popped up in droves will find them. My Facebook newsfeed will be all, "So-and-so has tagged eight million unflattering pictures of you tucking into a glass of wine with spinach dip hanging from your second chin." It's the way of 2009. As so many will say, it is what it is.

I am the worst sort of hypocritical offender where this is concerned because I am that worst nightmare of the photographed - the candid, daily, indefatigable photographer. I do not want to see you standing there with your arms around each other, extraneous hands and feet in prescribed ballet positions. I want you natural. I want you chill. I want you looking at the person you're talking to like you really look when you talk. I want your eyes and your smile like Olan Mills and (especially, God forbid) Lifetouch never saw them, because that's what' s interesting, and also, although you usually don't think so, the most beautiful.

But I don't want you seeing me that way. I know, it's hypocritical. But like many visually-driven, photographer types, I see beauty in you way before I see it in me. I'm conditioned for this just like I am to often see something worth photographing in bad news and ugly things and screwed up signs that ought not to be posted on buildings, yeah. But when it comes to people I hang with, I like to see and capture the most natural, because I think it's usually the best.

It's just that in spite of all of my strides toward self-acceptance, I don't necessarily want you to try to see it in me. And no matter what you say, when photographic push comes to shove, chances are I have a bigger camera, and a faster hand on the shutter.

Rychelle at Better to Stalk You With My Dear finally loved pictures of herself through the eyes of Vanessa at Zinke's: New England Style. I know the feeling.

Little Ms. Notetaker at Notes to Self describes the "barracuda" shot which I've got to try just for the humor value.

Kate Hewitt, romance author, has avoided her publicity photo, even on her blog.

I also have to bring this website into 2009, and update my eharlequin
profile. I might even spring for a glossy, high-res photo of myself
(something I've avoided--you might have noticed there is no such photo
on my website!). I'm not photogenic and I hate photos of myself. I know
a lot of people suffer from this affliction, but they actually look
good in photos. I don't.

Jessica is a self-professed Aging Ingenue "terrified of cameras" and completely at ease on stage.

Kimberly at Narcissism is Necessary posted the fascinating (to me) "My real face," with her thoughts on the diferences between photographs and real life.

My skin is not really all that. It has a lot to do with using the
right foundation and pressed powder to achieve the right dewy
appearance. And some major camera flash to blow out all the
imperfections. Or simply, not posting the incriminating pictures. I
take a lot of effort to hide my bad pictures from public consumption,
which is why at times I get so pissed off when friend post really bad
pictures of me on Facebook. Please okay, bad pictures really get to me.
To add salt to injury, I’m not photogenic (which means I’m way hotter
in real life. Seriously).

But it’s okay, I’m feeling a little generous today. Maybe also
because it’s almost a decade after the millennium so I don’t care as
I’m now a confident old woman with glowing inner beauty.

Photography and family contributing editor Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites. Many, many carefully edited self-portraits are posted on Flickr, to restore that sense of control, don'tcha know.

Photo Blogging: in the Moment, on the Move

2009-02-16T10:12:59-06:00

I am that person who takes pictures of my dinner in restaurants, of my feet standing on a subway platform, of signs and strange things sitting by the side of the road. A side effect of my photography addiction and refusal to leave the house without a camera is a heightened appreciation for whatever quirky weirdness or random beauty I encounter in the day-to-day. And now, thanks to a cell phone, I can share these images online immediately if I feel like it.

It turns out that I feel like it quite often, and if my Twittter and Flickr streams are an indication, lots of others are getting the hang of it to. What's perfect to moblog? Want to capture a moment like an engagement or the birth of a child? It works for that. Current events? A recent historic election was documented in BlogHer's Show Us Your Vote call for photos. And sometimes you just want to show off a sweet dog on Valentine's Day. (Hi Suebob.)

Uploading, editing and posting the constant large number of pictures I take on my digital cameras is the time-consuming challenge of photography, and lately I've been so busy that posting to Flickr or, even worse, my personal blog just isn't happening as regularly as I'd like. Posting on the go from my cell phone is a fun way to keep me in the Flickr loop if I feel like it, and I have to admit I'm becoming a little obsessed with imagery in the moment.

Today, for instance, I stopped in a rest area on I-95 in Maryland on the way home from Philly. This scale sat at the entrance to the ladies restroom. I've seen it many times before but this time I decided to take a photo.

(Not the Same, Chesapeake House)

My answer to the scale's question was definitely "Not the same," so I decided to put a shot of it on Flickr (with title, caption and tags to be added later) and post it to Twitter via TwitPics.

The best picture ever? Not really, and if I want the weird looks one gets taking pictures of a scale in a Maryland rest stop, I guess it's on me - and like THAT's the weirdest thing that's ever happened there? Don't think so. It was just a view of where I was, when I was there. Some people blog for an audience. I primarily do it as an archive and a journal, still, and I really like looking back at where I'vebeen since I started keeping a digital record.

Twitter, Utterli, Facebook Mobile and other real-time posting options have really opened up mobile photoblogging to anyone with a cell phone, but it's been popular for years.

Jenifer Hanen, aka Ms. Jen, aka Black Phoebe was the first person I followed online who posted regularly from her mobile phone, and where I first learned of concept of moblogging. Currently a Nokia95 user, she wrote a master's thesis on the use of the mobile device in creative pursuits, and has since participated in the truly global Urbanista Diaries - a Nokia project using the N82 with three other bloggers - and the more recent Nokia ViNe project, that combined mobile blogging and geocaching, letting you "leave photos, videos and songs, rooted in the ground, for others to find."

What I like about Jen's work is not just her eye for a good picture and a few words, if necessary, to give it some context, but the way her daily mobile posts create a storyboard for her travels, from Around Ireland to this weekend's funeral for a friend in California. Real-time snapshots, immediately posted, create a cast of characters and scenes, and regular readers can follow along and feel a part of this version of her life (never, as any blogger knows, the whole picture.)

The technology doesn't have to be over-the-top, although an iPhone might be nice (That image courtesy of beccabecs, a UK student focusing on the use of user-generated content like moblogs in the arts.) My basic tool is a simple LG cell phone with a 2 megapixel camera (I don't link because honestly, I don't recommend it in general but the photo posting feature is ok.)

(Playing pool, poorly.)

From there it's just a choice of application, driven in my case by my choice of online communities - currently Flickr and Twitter. Flickr's upload-by-email feature assigns each user a unique address, easily added to my phone contacts. When I'm out and about and want to post a photo, I send a picture message to that address and when I return to a browser, it's there. A separate setting allows for the immediate posting to photos to whatever blog you designate, something I don't think I've ever done, but it syncs easily with TypePad, so if I wanted to I could.

Twitpic, also in my phone contacts with a specific email address, links directly to my Twitter stream and also keeps an album of my posted photos on its site. Twitter contacts can @ or DM about a photo on Twitter or on its Twitpic page.

The photos posted on the go are unfailingly rough, but their intent is different - more dynamic, and as I do it more frequently I enjoy it even more. If long-form blogs have shifted for the moment many to 140-character bursts of though, my

Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini moblogs her (amazing) meals (in Parisian restaurants) with a Sony Ericsson C902.

Vox is another mobile-posting-made easy application. Users like Lilia at the Lilia Extravaganza show you how. (Chihuahua cuteness alert.)

Zu, a Bermudan living and knitting in Edinburgh, posts photos of her projects (and snow, the most she'd seen in four years of Scotland life) to her Blogger blog using the ShoZu application, which claims to "connect your mobile phone with your online life." I'm checking that one out today.

I'm not familiar with Snapfoo but it is specific to photoblogs and seemingly syncs with just about any social media platform.

Mashable posted a March, 2008, roundup of 9 Ways to Moblog From Your Phone.

Chris and KT have been sailing the world since 2003 (via Sail Billabong.) They share lots of information about editing photos with Picasa, offline and/or remotely, at the BlurbBits blog.

Confused? Don't be. It really is as easy, in most cases, as a picture, a cell phone, a destination e-mail and a Web site. Throwing this combination into the mix has changed the way I look at the images I place online and the story they tell. It will never take the place of the work I do with memory cards and editing software, but the moment definitely has its place - even if I'm the only one who cares about it.

(Moon River in December, Savannah)

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites and posts an excessive amount of photos on Flickr.

Dear Heart, Wherever You Are

2009-02-08T10:27:15-06:00

Dear Heart –

You really are all over the place.

You had an innocent murmur at birth, which more or less means you made an extra sound, a breather between beats. And now you’re oddly palpitating such that I can feel you in my chest, which I really wish you’d stop.

Always a risk-taker with impossible depths, you took off running a long time ago, and it takes some backwards tracing to figure out all the places you’ve landed. You’re down the hall at my parents' house, for sure, and in the two wooden boxes of dogs' ashes downstairs. You split time and space between California, Delaware, Georgia and Virginia, because that's where my people have gone, and you’re in more places in Maryland - my home - than I can track.

You've stayed behind in places where I've lost things. There are shards of you frozen in mid-air in Boston, in the southwest corner of Ohio and hanging in an apartment hallway and a cemetery, both a few miles away in either direction from where I sit. You’re in Vietnam and New Orleans, places where I've seen love and pain, and I'll cop to feeling you big time in a Denver stadium last summer. You're in the songs that make me cry. I unfailingly keep records, so you’re between the covers of many journals and all over the place in the crazy attic of the Internet. You’re in thousands of photographs, in the stories of vacations, birthday parties, sunsets, and self-portraits.

A lot of times I don't like you. You're difficult and stubborn, and you're also, in case you were wondering, not funny at all. Sometimes I (really do) think I lost you along the way. Never lucky in love, nine years - an eternity - ago, you fell in it with an utterly compelling, fairly odd, equally defensive person who seemed like the counterpart you'd been looking for since you started looking. You trusted, planned and dreamed a life when you had no business doing so, and then you sold me out. Once you met him, you were done, in spite of my need to never lose you again for no good reason. You stayed in, way over your head, for way too long. You ignored alarms, stuck your fingers in your ears and went "lalalalalala," seriously. You refused to see the obvious.

And while that’s all thoroughly and completely over now, it cost me so much for far too long. You went with him when he left, you would have crawled into his pocket if I'd let you, in spite of my best efforts to keep my center, to be okay, to stay safe and happy. I can’t forgive you yet for this. It still doesn't make any sense and it still pisses me off.

Worst of all, as a result, even if I had a reason, I can't trust your judgment and I don't know when, or if, I want to again. I can use you for the no-brainers and the necessities, for the puppies who suck you in and the family and friends who give me so much that I need whatever you can dredge up to reciprocate it. I use you for my work, for my students, for my stories, for the sheer will it takes sometimes to get through the day alongside other human beings in all the places we find ourselves together.

I use up a lot of your reserves for the news, for what I see of the world that isn't kind, and is in too many cases unbearable. I feel you. Because I still produce tears on a regular basis even though I really don't want to, I know you're there. I rely on you for awareness of what others experience, for freedom from the self-centeredness that would, if it took me over, make my life a nightmare and my value questionable.

I admit, I've wondered over the past few years how much you
can take before you shut down entirely. Some big losses have piled up, the inevitable surrender of loved ones and the crushing exhaustion that I've learned goes with it. I've had to be stronger than I felt like being most of the time, because along with the loss there's been an absence of true joy, of anything solid to replace everyone and everything that checked out. I feel sorry for you, because a lot of times you're lonely, and often you feel like your chance is past. And the effort to think that's not true, that you just have to do this or that thing to get it back, to still believe in magic and the power of possibility, sometimes feels like a little too damned much.

What I've learned is that while it may look messy in the moment, given the choice between feeling and the absence of it, I'll still try to take you, as messed up as you are. A lot of times it doesn't look very graceful. I have to ride out those hours where it feels like the black hole's opening up again, where I don't feel at all like being a team player or a good sport. Even when it doesn't look like I'm trying, I am - to reach out, to be grateful maybe, to shut up the panicky thoughts that what I've got's not enough, that what I lost was the best there was, that everything poured out through your senseless holes and nothing can and will ever patch them. And I guess even though sometimes things feel dire and old and over, together we try to foster something, anything, better than that.

I still hear the faint whoosh of an innocent murmur, pushing 40 now. An idealist and a romantic in spite of myself, I wish this were a
different letter, a love song or a poem or God help me a valentine
even, but that's just not how it's played out. I'm keeping an eye on you, and in spite of the lack of warm fuzziness lately there must be a reason I still sign my notes "xo" like my mother has since she left notes on napkins in our school lunch bags. I feel a little bit of hope, in spite of all evidence and every reason to dismiss it. Because like it or not, from what I understand of biology and other things not at all scientific, I really do need you, wild and random as you are, to survive.

xo, Laurie White, who writes at LaurieWrites.

Mashing the Internet Potato - Log Off and Get Moving, For Real

2009-02-07T17:40:26-06:00

I am an Internet potato. (Mashed. And also fried.)

Are you always online? Does work take longer because you see that your friend sent you a David Hasselhoff cd via the German gifts Facebook application and you look up 20 minutes later no closer to deadlines met but having sent sauerbraten to 227 friends? (Or maybe that's just me.)

Middle Aged in Biz says:

It’s amazing how easy it is to find time when we cut out all the
wasteful and pointless things we do with our time. Take surfing the net
for example. This has now become one of the biggest time consuming
activities in our society. The couch potato has been replaced by the
internet potato. How many hours are wasted drifting from one site to
another?

Cut out pointless surfing and you will suddenly discover that you
have hours of spare time to use in productive activity. Then there’s
that traditional time wasting activity, watching television for hour
after hour. One program after another; hypnotized by the screen in the
corner.

My inertia is overwhelming, I admit it, for reasons Internet-related and otherwise. I would love to write this post from the perspective of a rah-rah, raring to go, look at me, I'm an exercise superhero person who's back from the farmer's market before my loved ones are even awake.

But I'm not, and this isn't fiction, so I can't. Instead I write this post from my bed, drinking a bloody Mary and eating pistachio nuts, because I just had to put the remnants of fresh fruit that I once again failed to eat before it spoiled down the disposal. (I did eat yogurt though. Does that count?)

Yes, I am ridiculous, and yes, I believe it needs to stop. I can count the times I've been to the gym since I began graduate school in 2007 on less than one hand. Not a structure magician in the best of times, my schedule imploded, a few times over. I spent a lot of time running around but none of it felt terribly productive, and because I was studying multimedia journalism, the boundaries between online and real life grew incredibly blurry. And when I did get home? The laptop snapped open - again - and back to working ~~mindlessly surfing the Web until deadlines snapped at my heels~~ - I went.

Needless to say, I gained weight, which seemed incredibly unfair because I felt like I was running a daily marathon and a lot of times I felt melodramatically like I was STARVING, when really I was in denial about the amount of caffeine, salt and fake sugar a late 30-something body can consume before turning into carbon with a side of hydrogenated whatever oil. I didn't get enough sleep, ever, ever, ever. I talked a lot of nonsense. I have no idea what my blood pressure is, but I should probably find out.

Now, diploma in hand and back to my regular job, you'd think I'd be better. But given the choice between putting on my cross-trainers and walking for an hour on an unseasonably pretty day, or sitting on my ass edifying my Facebook friends with yet another 25 things about myself while procrastinating on the important work of telling you that I'm an Internet potato? Let's just say: #14: The song stuck in my head is - sorry, Denise - Beyonce's Single Ladies.

(Have you actually listened to the words besides "put a ring on it"? The part where she demands that you "put your hands up"? She's trying to kill me.)

I'm not sure this internet potato-ness has so much to do with me being single as it does with me being inherently fond of leisure while also singularly set in my routines once they form - especially the bad, lazy ones that mean no exercise and another dinner of Whole Foods olive bar, crackers and brie in front of the Biggest Loser and Twitter (which I'm sure has caused a ten-pound weight gain alone. Twitter, you...witch.)

Yes, if I had children I would need to get up with them and shuttle them around everywhere. But the thing is, I should get up anyway. And I can totally eat candy and pay attention to my e-mail while shuttling myself, so I'm sure I'd be stealing McNuggets from my children too. I know plenty of single people who run and eat right and are morning people even though there isn't a child involved. I even know that rarest of creature - the single, exercising morning person who gets up on purpose at 5 a.m. Shudder.

That said, I also know slacker parents, seriously - not that I'm talking about you, or you - or even you, so simmer down. My best friend has two kids and if there were an Internet/Couch Potato Olympics, she and her 5 million television channels would totally medal. Another is a DVR master who watches more tv in a week than I do in six months. As I said about my school experience, action does not mean health, or fitness, and motivation to take care of oneself - partnered, parenting or not - generally has to come from within.

This week, I hit a nexus of slack and finally disgusted myself. My already-perilous tendency to avoid exercise hit another wall, when I realized I'd been carrying around gym clothes and shoes in the car for a week, intending to go back to wellness classes at work, or to the gym on the way home, and spent the time and mental energy I could have used to actually DO THIS talking myself out of doing anything at all. I weighed myself for the first time in a very long time. I noticed I was out of breath for no reason besides walking. I dozed off at my desk and in my evening class (where thankfully I'm not the teacher.) I'm avoiding being in pictures. I. AM NOT. HAPPY. I. DO NOT. FEEL GOOD.

So what to do? Well. The number on the scale is in the red alert zone (which in my lifelong weight-battle equals a number I never wanted to see again and when, once I do, spurs me into action.) Wheezing while walking is frightening enough that I must do something about it, and honestly? I want to feel good about myself. I want to feel healthy.

There aren't any magic answers. I just have to do it. Monday, I go back to wellness. I've been trolling Kalyn's South Beach Diet Recipe Round-up for January, because while I don't want to commit to a full diet plan at this point, I know the lower-carb options tend to work with my metabolism and food preferences, and actually cooking things that taste and look good in the process makes me feel better about what I'm putting into my body.

Minimizing tv watching isn't a problem, aside from my Top Chef and CNN issues. As far as stepping away from the laptop, I'm not sure I have the answer for that yet. I'd be totally lying (and setting myself up for failure) if I said I was going to drastically reduce my online time, but there are steps I can take to check my extreme time-wasting habits and how they affect my life. Here are a few that might work, for you too:

*First of all, let online activities run their course. Like in real life, a lot of this ebbs and flows, I believe. I'm already less active on Twitter, for instance, than I was last year, and I can't really say why. I'm better at self-selecting with whom and what I actively engage, and the amount of time I spend doing it. Much of my increased Facebook time is due to old and in most cases mostly real-life-first friends getting on board, which has added a new dimension to those relationships that's been mostly fun, if time-consuming. I'm sure that'll slow down, too.

*If you're really in the face-in-the-screen-zone, set a timer. Anything in moderation is okay, right? Ration out feedreader time or whatever it is you do that takes you down the online rabbit hole.

*If there is anything you really can't stop once you start, there's not much to do but opt out. I can't play games online, because once I start I have trouble stopping and they just aren't worth it to me. That means no Tetris or Bejeweled for me anymore, after my early online years were sucked up with them.

*That said, relationship health can be a fabulous motivator to shut off the laptop or the television and actually TALK. As a former gaming (specifically EverQuest) widow, like this woman on GamerWidow.com (how I love Google), I am really sensitive to the impact of obsessive online gaming on relationships. I'm sure others have had different experiences but this was mine. I'm on my laptop a lot but if I need to be present for conversations, etc., and I'm not because I'm stuck on my screen or my phone or whatever, then I'm just a jerk, not a good friend or family member. I don't want to be a jerk. Log off. Look up. Look - and be - interested. (It's like reduce, reuse, recycle, but not.)

*Add it up. I did that today, and realized that a lot of this time that I'll never get back online I wasn't even aware of. Awareness is key to deciding if behaviors are a problem for you in the first place and what you can do about them if they are.

*Turn off the computer occasionally, just because. Again, log off. Off off. I've started using visual cues like shutting the laptop whereas I usually leave it up and running, and finding that the online world turns without me is a rude, but refreshing, awakening. Log out of e-mail, Twitter, Facebook (yeah, I know.) They will not die without you, nor you without them. And note that when you return in two hours (or however long) nothing really that monumental happened - unless of course something did, which in that case is totally a fluke I promise.

*Take an inventory of your offline activities. Do they suck? Are they in need of an overhaul so you actually want to leave the house or do things that will take you forcibly away from the tv or computer? I know that my exercise abandonment is a fixable situation, and once I get back in the habit of being in the classes again, there are no distractions there. I'm just there. Zen, I know.

*Use your online powers for good. Bookmark fitness sites (including many from the BlogHer blog lists, of course) and add a health and fitness category to your reader to make the topics part of your online life if they're not already. Join a Wii Fit or a Biggest Loser challenge, like these folks, if those are your thing, or find one for whatever is. (Hi, all of Upland, California. Go you. All of you.) Let the people there kick your butt in real time, too. I'm paying for the Jillian Michaels online program, so it would probably be a good idea to actually participate. Yes.

*Tell someone. Ask for help. As much as I love my friends online, in real life and any combination thereof, when I'm making the choice to change my habits or to waste another night online, I'm generally making it in isolation, and that does not work for me. I've reached out to a couple of colleagues and friends and let them know that I really could use exercise partners and people who know about my health concerns (and while this might seem like a single-person's problem, it goes for the coupled who are going it alone on this count as well.) I'm expected in class on Monday and it's a lot harder to bail when someone's waiting for me, jogging in place, by the door.

Seriously, this stuff is hard, and if any answers here sound easy, that's not the intention. But on some level, if I want to feel or look or live differently, I just have to do it.

Motivation around the Web:

Lots of motivation hints at FitSugar (Where Barack and Michelle Obama are exercise motivators? Alrighty then.)

Music is a huge exercise motivator for me. Courtney from the 17 Magazine fitness blog shares her playlist here, which I also just noticed contains Single Ladies. When will it end? Not at GoodyBlog, where it also made Diane's list. Check out the playlist suggestions on Melissa Anelli's Fitting It In Ning community. (I'm going back here, for sure.

If God is your motivator, Therese Borchard at BeliefNet's Beyond Blue wrote about a Catholic Approach to Internet Addiction. (Just interesting, that's all.)

Photos - especially those that I'm truly awakened by, and not just in the "oh I hate how my hair looks here" way - can be a motivator for me. I have an old "after" picture where I just look healthy that i've dug up and I'm going to keep on my desk to remind me of my goals. Ashley just told her story in photos at her Staying Healthy and Maintenance Blog.

Zan, who is way more motivated than I am in the fitness department, wrote a great piece on the subject a couple weeks ago. Bottom line: do it anyway. There are lots of great links here.

Did I miss anything? Do you have a great playlist or a tip for getting yourself moving when you're lost in the Internet time warp? I'd love to hear about it.

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites. There are a few old "after" photos - and several thousand more - on Flickr.