Posts from — April 2010

I read a review of The Runaways that said that everyone who sees it will leave the theater feeling like a lecherous old man regardless of age or gender.  And it’s really true.  Everyone left the theater blushing and giggling nervously.

Wait…what was I saying?

Joan Jett is my hero because she made it happen, and by “it,” I mean she kicked doors down for her music career.  She made her entire career happen whether it was not hearing the societal “no” at the idea of an all-girls’ rock band or not hearing 23 recording studios saying “no” to her solo career and releasing the album under her own, newly-formed label.  She is the equivalent of the self-publishing fairytale–a woman who believed in herself and believed that people would embrace her art if given a chance to meet up with it and was right.

But what she had the entire time was age on her side.  If Joan had been in her forties when she met up with Kim Fowley, would he have given her the time of day?

For example, if you saw that a newly-formed group of fifty-year-old women were going to be playing a rock concert in your town (in other words, it wasn’t an already established band who has aged), would you go?  Even if they were as hot and buff as Joan Jett is right now in her fifties, do you think people would give this new band the chance (without mocking) to slither around the stage sing “Cherry Bomb?”  Of course some will answer yes, but I think we can all agree that the vast majority, if the band hadn’t already gathered attention for themselves at a young age and was now performing it while standing on the foundation of that career, would probably not take a chance with a newly-formed band of fifty-year-olds.

Rock-n-roll isn’t only a young person’s scene, but it’s hard to establish yourself once you pass a certain age.

Though who knows who defines that age or what it is.

Which brings us to blogging and a thought I have from time to time.  When will I be too old for blogging?

Unlike rock-n-roll, which is a very visible medium, I can age behind my computer and you’ll never know how much grey is in my hair unless I post a picture.  Writing, in general, is a pretty forgiving art form.  And blogging itself is such a young piece of technology, under fifteen years old, that many (though not all) bloggers are still under fifty, having started in their teen, twenties, and thirties.

Will people read Dooce when she’s fifty or sixty (if she chooses to keep writing)?  Most likely–but will she still have as rabid a following?  It’s hard to say since unlike rock-n-roll, we don’t have a medium old enough to know what happens to aging bloggers.  Is part of her appeal her youth?  After all, take a look at your television line-up: how many Golden Girl-like shows do you see?  The vast majority of older Americans are watching younger Americans (even if by younger I mean in their twenties and thirties) perform.  Shows that contain older characters have them balanced with younger characters.  There just aren’t popular television shows of sixty-somethings-and-older right now.

The reality is that older readers can read younger and get something out of it that doesn’t flow the other way.  When Dooce starts talking about hip replacement, she’s going to lose that younger generation who has no desire to think about how one day, they’re going to need hip replacement too.  Whereas older readers can still connect with a younger writer who is talking about prom or marriage or wanting to build a family because we’ve mostly been there.  We remember prom (if we went) or marriage (if we’re in one) or building a family (cough).  And at some point, while it may not be what we talk about anymore with our peers, it’s something we can relate to in the form of entertainment or education.  And blogs are, by far, either entertaining or illuminating.

Will the Internet age to the point where we have The Society of Elderly Bloggers, an in-group of early adopters that people look up to as the grandparents of the blog with the respect and reverence the younger generation still gives the Beatles?  If I keep blogging, will longevity be what makes me appealing?

Will age not matter at all?  Will good writing and good content simply be good writing and good content and it won’t matter the age of the writer?  Especially if they’re not writing about their hip replacement but are writing on topics more accessible to the general world such as current events.  Will there be enormously popular, clamouring-to-talk-to-them-at-conferences, rock-star bloggers in a wide-range of ages?  Or will the most popular be the twenty-and-thirty-somethings as it is in Hollywood?

By which I mean, while Jon Stewart is well-loved, he certainly doesn’t have to dodge and weave like Robert Pattinson.  And Pattinson’s groupies are not all teenage girls.

And not only when/if-I-will-be-too-old, but is there a starting point that you need to be under in order to explode into a following if you’re starting at the point of obscurity (Arianna Huffington, for instance, already had a foundation to stand on when she started her popular blog, even if her popularity didn’t start with blogging)?

Of course Grandma can start a blog and have the family read it, but is there an age you need to be under to have your blog enter the world of universal appeal?  And forget blogs, think writing in general.  When people talk about hot, new authors, are they ever talking about seventy-year-olds publishing their first book?  Certainly, there are older, popular writers, but when did they start their career and are their later books being received in the same way as their younger works?  Overall?

Do I honestly worry about this?  Not exactly.  Worry is the wrong term.  Muse is more appropriate.  Honestly, what I’m more freaked out about is when the ChickieNob and Wolvog grow up and start their own sites bitching about me.  But it is interesting to make predictions on how the Internet will unfold over the next twenty or thirty years.

On Tuesday night, I had a dream that I came home and Josh told me (in the most matter-of-fact voice in the world), that Lindsay had made copies of our house key and sent it out to numerous bloggers.  I walked into the dining room and N from Two Hot Mamas was crouching by the art drawers, rifling through the reams of tissue paper (she promised me that J had a copy of the key too and would be around in a bit).  And then, with disbelief that Josh was munching on a sandwich while people took apart our house, I looked in the kitchen and saw Calliope RUBBING OUR DISHES WITH PORK WHILE SMILING MANIACALLY.  As if I would be thrilled to have the kitchen treyfed.

I woke up and turned on the computer and I shit you not, Julie had written to me about the dream she had that night:

I had a super-sweet dream last night with you in it!

I don’t remember a lot about it except that we were at some sort of seaside location.  You were walking ahead with ChickieWol and VogNob, and you were holding their hands.  Your mother (!) was walking with me far behind, and she took my hand and arranged it in a very particular position.  And then she said, “Look at Melissa.”  And I looked, and you were holding each child’s hand in exactly the same funky way.  Your mother said, “That’s just how I used to hold her hand when she was a girl.”

Aw!

I don’t know, it was just nice.  Nice to see you being the mom, nice to see your imaginary-entirely-in-my-head mom being touched by that, and nice to reflect, upon waking, on everything we bring to the table of parenting.

Anyone else?  Anyone?  Bloggers in your dreams?

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By now you know the second part of Project IF and the posts that have come in have been incredibly moving.  It runs through May 1st, the end of National Infertility Awareness Week, and I’d really love to hit at least 250 stories.

As I said over in my BlogHer post on NIAW:

The winner for this year’s Hope Award will be chosen out of this list. It gives Resolve a chance to narrow the playing field (there are over 2300 blogs in the adoption/loss/infertility community) while also giving people an easy way to participate in NIAW. Too many times, people want to be involved, but are unsure how to do something active during the week.

The blog posts contained on the list will also be presented to the media and lawmakers through Resolve’s advocacy work. Consider the list a doorway that those outside the experience can step through in order to have insight into the world of infertility. While individual stories may not be newsworthy, a critical mass of bloggers using social media for a cause is of note; there is strength certainly in numbers. This gives bloggers a chance to explain to the general public that there’s more to the news story than IVF as a panacea or whatever extreme case is being held up as the norm. That while there is a physical side of the diagnosis, there is a clear emotional side too.

The best part of this project is that it is open to everyone in the blogosphere–infertile or not. It is clear that those experiencing infertility have something to say about it, but with 7.3 million Americans diagnosed, chances are that your sister, your friend, your cousin, or your coworker is experiencing infertility. And you have a voice you can lend to the cause in order to help that sister, friend, cousin, or coworker. For everyone who wants to participate, Project IF is open until May 1st.

Damn there are a lot of indentations in this post.  But I thought those were thoughts worth repeating in case you missed them.

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The Weekly What If: If you suddenly had the money (and it was earmarked for this purpose) to purchase a vacation home, where would you buy it?  You would still need to keep your current residence and couldn’t live in this vacation home for more than a few weeks a year, so it would be a place to visit rather than a place to inhabit.

I’d pick a house in Chincoteague–close enough to not stress about how to get there, far enough away that it feels like a real vacation, beach, biking, great Vietnamese food…

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And now, the blogs…

Flotsam has a post about the draw of being anonymous on the Internet.  Starting with a story from the world’s creepiest ex-boyfriend (seriously, was he sitting online since the break-up waiting for her to come?), she points out that while there are benefits to being out online, there are also drawbacks to losing that anonymity, but in both cases, “The problem with these restrictions is that sometimes something comes along that falls outside them, but is so big that not writing about it feels like lying.”  What she tells is for the sake of filling in the gaps of the online record, and even without going into the specifics, she creates a little sigh of words, a pause for all to sit in for a moment and consider the fragility of marriage.

Our Incredible Journey has a powerful, raw post calling out those who judge without standing in her shoes.  About how community peels away when you have a special needs child.  She writes, “And you know what (it’s not a big secret!): Jack doesn’t know that he’s disabled. It’s the rest of the world that does. It’s their stigma that he faces.  And it’s wrong.”  I had chills reading the post.

Weebles Wobblog has a post about a session she did with a therapist.  Whether or not she actually got a glimpse of a past life in unimportant in the sense that this experience cleared the way for her current life to unfold.  A really powerful experience that will make you wish you could have a session with Ethel too.

Infertility Musings talks about a terrible evening she had this week.  I was drawn to her deep honesty, to placing her life bare on the figurative table and taking a deep breath in the process.  It is mostly about how men and women (or, actually, any two people) process their grief and stress differently.  It is about his reaction to her reaction.  And I hope they came to a place of peace.

Lastly, the Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow (I Hope) has a post about the repeating phrase, “I just don’t understand.”  It is an incredibly moving post; the internal scream that comes from deep grief.  And I don’t think you’ll be able to read it without crying, even knowing the other events that unfold over the rest of the week for her.

The roundup to the Roundup: weird dreams abound.  Please participate in Project IF and change the way the general public understands infertility.  Answer the Weekly What If.  And lots of great blogs to read.

342 participants.

Over 500 “what ifs” taken out of people’s hearts and placed on the screen.

It’s a toss-up: it’s incredibly powerful to read the list (and it is still a live and growing list) in one sitting, soaking in all of those huge emotions.  It will change you.  And at the same time, it is so hard to see all of those fears–some of which feel very familiar; some of which are outside my realm of experience–laid bare on the screen.

If someone wants to understand the emotional side of infertility, we just created a very easy door for them to walk through.

Resolve and I started to notice trends (you know…common threads), and we used these trends to determine the What If  lists for this part of the project.  We needed to pick a wide-range of experiences and make sure the “what ifs” were broad enough for a multitude of people to be able to participate.  Even still, we decided to leave an open “what if” question at the end of each category.  If you cannot find a what if below that speaks to your experience, or you are tied to exploring the “what if” you submitted, please take this opportunity to fit your “what if” onto the list (or tweak an existing one).

The second part of this project is simple, and it gives you an easy way to participate in National Infertility Awareness Week (April 24th–May 1st):

1. Choose one “what if” from the categories below (you may tweak one to fit you better or use the open option at the bottom of each category to state a what if that falls within the boundaries of the category).
2. Go back to your blog and explore that “what if” in a post.  Expand on the idea, tell a story, write poetry, say it with photographs–any way you want to explore that “what if.”  Posts can go up any time between now and May 1st.  Please start your post by placing your chosen “what if” at the top of the post.
3. Add a link at the bottom of your post to this url giving a basic understanding of infertility: www.resolve.org/infertility101 and this url giving the background of National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW): www.resolve.org/takecharge.* You may also want to point people towards the original “what if” list: https://www.stirrup-queens.com/2010/04/bloggers-unite-project-if/.
4. End your post with a new, positive “what if“–a best-case-scenario for you personally.  What you hope to see happen–either for yourself or for someone else.
5. Return here and add a permalink to your post to the Mr. Linky widget at the bottom of this post.  It will then appear as part of this project and all blogs on the list will be considered for Resolve’s Hope Award for Best Blog, presented at the 2010 Night of Hope.  Resolve will also be featuring a link to the blog on Resolve.org.

*This is important because while the first part of this project was fairly insular, read by those within the community, the second part of this project–your blog posts–will be read by a wide range of people including possibly those in law-making positions or the media.  Because they may be reading your post without a basic understanding of infertility or National Infertility Awareness Week, we want to give everyone a quick way to read more.

Even if you didn’t participate in the first part of this project, you are welcome (and encouraged!) to participate now.  Our goal is to get at least 250 participants by the time NIAW ends next week on May 1st.

You do not need to be infertile to participate.  If you want to support a friend or family member and explain how you process one of these “what ifs,” we’d love to have you join the project.

If you don’t have a blog, get creative with your Twitter account, use your Facebook page, or…start a blog (and then send me your blog url so I can add you to the blogroll)!  Blogger and WordPress are both sites that allow people (quite easily) to set up a free blog.  Only blogs written by individuals (not organizations or professionals) will be considered for Resolve’s Hope Award for Best Blog, though any linkable writing (such as a Tweet) can be added to Mr. Linky.

Please help spread word about this project via Twitter, Facebook, or your blog.  Our hashtag is #Project IF.

And make sure you come back and read the posts as they go up on Mr. Linky.  If the “what ifs” themselves were that powerful, I can hardly imagine what can be accomplished with even more words and stories.

Categories and Ideas:

How infertility impacts your relationships—spouse, partner, fertile friends, parents, work.

• What if despite my ultimate success I never let go of the resentment at and jealousy of the women who got to do this the “normal” way and who never experienced pregnancy loss (from Betty M).
• What if I can never be around a pregnant woman and feel comfortable because it reminds me of how much I have lost and how inadequate I now feel (from Jodi)?
• What if my husband leaves me for a fertile woman (from Mad Hatter)?
• Create Your Own.

How infertility impacts your self-esteem.

• What if I always feel like less of a person because I wasn’t able to reproduce (from Brandy)?
• What if I can never get over the feeling that my body has failed me (from Staciet)?
• What if I lose myself along the way? I’ve lost so much during this roller coaster journey — what if I lose the true me somewhere along the road? What if I turn into someone I never wanted to be? What happens then (from JL)?
• What if my infertility has robbed me of my sexiness and I never am “in the mood” again (from Nolagirl)?
• Create Your Own.

How infertility impacts your emotional health.

• What if I am never able to counter the thought “I had to buy a baby?” What if that doesn’t make me a real mother, in my eyes, or in anyone else’s (from Cherry)?
• What if I can never just be happy with what I have and stop being angry, bitter, and sad about what I do not (from Cathy)?
• What if I have to learn to live childfree with a smile….forever (from Mrs. A)?
• Create Your Own.

How infertility impacts your finances.

• What if every state passed a law that would require insurance companies to cover fertility treatments and A.R.T. so that people like me and my husband wouldn’t have to choose between their mortgage or having a family (from Melissa G)?
• What if I leave this job, with its amazing health insurance that covers everything IF-related, and my new job doesn’t have insurance with good IF coverage (from Queenie)?
• What if we finally save the money we need, blow it on IVF, and fail (from Wifey)?
• Create Your Own.

How infertility impacted your “plans”/current choices/future decisions.

• What if I didn’t live in a time and place where ART was an option (from it is what it is)?
• What if I never get to do all the things I’ve put on hold in my life for “once I get pregnant…” (from CortneyTree)?
• What if I never see that plus sign? What if this is it, waiting and hoping for the rest of my life (from Hollytraveling)?
• What if my son ends up hating me because he was conceived through DI? What if all we’ve gone through to have him and to bring us so much happiness ends up bringing him enormous pain (from Annacylopedia)?
• Create Your Own.

Project IF Participants

Exploring Our What Ifs

Want to help choose the title of a book that will be in print in December 2010?  Then you could show the cover to everyone at your Christmas party and say, “hey, I helped name this!”  A difficult task, yes, to name a book you’ve never read, but your parents probably named you before they met you and they got your name decently right.

Right?

Like most books, the title of my book needs to be changed (Navigating the Land of If wasn’t the original title of my first book either.  A lot of publishers ask you to change your title after the sale) and I’ve been brainstorming with the publisher.  The following are some of the possible titles we’re batting around.  Meaning, I may do this a second time in the next few days as we narrow down the list and possibly even add new ones to it.

What I want to know from you is what the titles make you think if you saw them on a book with a chicklit-y cover (something like this, for example), what the title says to you–in other words, your general reaction to the list of titles (how many times can I use the word “titles”?).  Which ones grab you.  Which ones you’d never touch.  Which ones don’t give you a clue even with the cover that this is a good piece of women’s fiction (for instance, the title In Defense of Food sounds like a non-fiction title.  I would never hear that and think “I bet that’s a great vampire romance novel!”).

Feel free to tweak any of these or suggest something that’s not on the list (which…er…is probably difficult since you haven’t read the book yet, but still feel free once you see the words I’m keeping in mind as I dream up titles).

What you need to know–it’s about a blogger, rebuilding her life in the year after her divorce and can be summed up with one sentence: it’s the story of a woman who stops waiting for happiness to find her and starts cooking it herself.

Here are the key words: cooking…blogging…marriage…divorce…love…

1. Desserted
2. Pots and Plans
3. Love Bites
4. Sunny Side Down
5. Dinner for One
6. Eating Words
7. Stirred

After returning from a session of for-the-love-everyone-in-this-room-has-a-spanking-new-baby-attached-to-their-chest-in-a-baby-bjorn-but-me, Josh handed me a flyer that came in the mail that day addressed to me (not to “current resident” as our flyers usually come, but addressed to me as if someone at the Most Ironic Mailing List Corporation was chuckling as they plugged in my name).

you may have to click to enlarge and read

Thank you, Essure, for sending an openly infertile woman information on permanent birth control she definitely doesn’t need.

Um…this is precisely why organizations shouldn’t sell their mailing lists (er…a huge thank you to whomever gave my information to a sterilization business).

And a side admonishment: seriously, according to their website, insurance carriers cover Essure, which essentially is sterilization by causing scarring within the fallopian tubes (with the success tested three months after the sterilization with an HSG).  So insurance companies will pay for people to become permanently infertile, but they won’t pay for people to treat their infertility.