Oh. My. Goodness! Where did this week’s post go? Where???
It went…AWAY. Poof! Just. Like. That. To the interwebs away place, wherever that may be.
I didn’t discover it was missing until this morning. I thought maybe it was just a crappy post and you, my best beloveds, were insulted that I put it out there. Insulted enough not to comment here or like on FaceBook.
Just one of those things, y’know. I’m a big girl, I can take rejection.
But after two days of cyber silence this little worm of an idea began squirming around inside my head (under my hair, the place where magic happens). The little worm said, ummm…did you hit publish?
What a silly question! I’ve been blogging almost two years now. I know ALL about the Publish button. The Save Draft button. The Move to Trash button.
Uh-oh…
And now I know all about the Publish in a Parallel Universe button.
Yes, Parallel Universe. You have to trust me on this. It would also help if you were a theoretical mathematician and/or physicist. But mind-altering drugs, drinking too much and listening to this episode of Science Friday will get you there too. ‘There’ being parallel-land where parallel-you is reading the original post and snorting your coffee out your nose because it’s so damn good. The post, not your coffee. Although I hope the parallel-you indulges in decent coffee too.
And of course parallel-you leaves pithy comments and shares Arty-Life around the parallel-interwebs.
Just like you do here, right?
Okay, are you sufficiently confused yet? Good. Then I guess it’s time to climb off the dog ate my homework wagon and share a little ART with you now.
Bottom of the Bowl # 1 Susan Lobb Porter
This, my best beloveds, is the beginning of a new photo/digital series I’m calling The Bottom of the Bowl. I realized one morning that the marks left on the bottom of the bowl of yoghurt were akin to the marks I leave on canvas. Imagine that! The original photo was all white and boring but then again, so’s a blank canvas. Right? But thanks to cyber-fairies and technology ART can happen even from dirty dishes.
Stay tuned for more. And please, tell me what the parallel-you would think of this. I’d really like to know.
Disclaimer: Yeah, I KNOW this is an art blog. That means there should be pictures, right? Well, I didn’t have any appropriate photos for this post. You’ll have to use your imagination.
I’m all about self-improvement. Really. I would love to live in a clean house, wear a crisp white apron (with little lacy hearts) while baking golden cookies and downing copious amounts of good-for-me greens. Smiling the whole damn time like the Beav’s mom.
I would sincerely…no, make that dearly, like to maintain a daily yoga/qi gong/meditation practice while listening to spiritual masters and communing with the universe beyond my current level of understanding. Way beyond. Like to the point of the ever-knowing imperturbable smile even when the voices in my head are being stupiddicks unkind.
And when I get to that point, words like damn and dicks would NEVER enter into my head, much less exit out of my mouth.
In a perfect world I would write (fill in your favorite adjective here) blog posts DAILY. You would tell your friends and they would tell theirs. On and on and on until I was more famous than Oprah.
Although I would settle for being half as rich as her. Just half. Really, is that too much to ask?
Yo, Universe, I’m talkin’ to YOU.
There would be a book deal. Oh, many of them. And Oprah, when she interviews me, because she would have to interview me, wouldn’t she… Oprah would notice I’m a size 2. Just a plain 2. No numbers or letters before or after it. USA Macy’s size 2.
And Oprah would be envious and offer me half of her wealth to be her life coach. If my math is right, that would make me twice as rich as her. Of course I would give most of it away to charity. Because I only have two feet and a girl can only have so many shoes. Unless they’re red. In that case maybe I’d keep the money.
But I’d think about giving it away.
I’m baring my soul to you (and what a lovely size 2 soul it is) because I’m doing this personal branding thing. Taking a class with Michele Bergh. I’ve taken classes with Michele before. She knows her stuff so I was reasonably sure her definition of personal branding would not involve hot metal and the smell of burning flesh.
Oh noooo, it’s MUCH more painful than that. Try standing out on the freeway naked (that’s nekked in cowboy speak) waving as the trucks whizz by. Yoo-hoo, fellas, what’dya think of this? Well, that’s what I had to do today.
Or at least it felt like that. Holy crap, did it ever. Crap, another word I won’t say once I’ve evolved. Maybe. Or maybe not. Depends on how pissed off I am. Oh crap, I suppose I’ll have to ditch piss as well. This being evolved shit isn’t all it’s cut out to be.
But back to personal branding sans cowboys. The first assignment Michele had us do, the one that made me feel naked, but not in a good way naked, was to ask friends, family and coworkers for feedback about me. Like, yo, hey, would you please fill out this questionnaire, this ANONYMOUS questionnaire. Say what you think about me. Let ‘er rip. I’ll never know who said what because it’s anonymous.
And then I’ll take those answers, size ’em up against my answers…what I think people think about me (because I had to answer the damn questionnaire too). After dismissing anything I don’t like as being nothing more than passive agressive retaliation because I forgot to pay back that 20 bucks I must owe someone, well then I’m gonna take that 20, put it as a downpayment on a pizza and beer. And find me a cowboy. With chaps. And just enough of a five o’clock shadow to make me forget about the pain.
And you, my best beloved sweetums, you can cheer me up by leaving sincere, happy face comments in one of those boxes down below. I will share the pizza with you. And the beer.
But not the cowboy. WOOT! I’m keeping him for myself.
Oh my sweetums, my best beloveds… Arty Life is back!
Which means SO AM I.
Did you think I abandoned you? Ran off to Aha! Baha! with some other blog? Oh noooo… that was all a misunderstanding. But I can see where you made that assumption. She had a great body but trust me…that was someone else in those pictures.
This is what really happened…
Once upon a time, a couple weeks ago, I had this blog. Seriously, THIS blog, Arty Life. Imagine that! As blogs go, I suppose it was fine but like mothers everywhere I wanted MORE for my child.
I wanted her to have some direction.
Does that sound familiar? Do you remember your mother yelling saying something like that to you? Saying, “Honey do you have ANY idea what you’re going to do with your life because your father and I are not going to be supporting you when you’re 45?”
Do you remember those conversations? Someday I’ll tell you about the one I had with FirstBorn, which is a post in and of itself. What do you expect from a boy whose only career ambition was to blow shit up? Really, we’ll talk about it. Later. But not now. Now is the time to tell you the conversation I had with Arty Life.
Me: I love you Arty Life but what the hell are you doing? All those posts I’ve sweated blood over just disappear from the front page poof…just likethat and are LOST FOREVER in the great dark void of the interwebs. No one knows the genius I put into them. No one knows they could be touched by greatness just by reading what I have to say. I could be influencing lives! Saving the world! Getting a book deal!!!
Arty Life: Sucks for you, doesn’t it?
Clearly she had reached the adolescent stage of her blog life.
And like adolescents everywhere she needed understanding. And a firm hand on the backend of her WordPress.
So I sat down and got to work. This is me two weeks ago when I first began tinkering around the back parts of the blog, getting way more familiar with the inner workings of WordPress than I can discuss in polite company. Well, this is what I looked like then.
Note the calm demeanor as I sat at the computer sipping on a cuppa joe. Calm and steady. Ready to face all challenges. Focused on the task at hand.
And this is me two weeks later, after the task at hand had it’s way with me. After the coffee worked it’s magic. After I lost all focus and my butt became one with the chair and I needed, with all my heart and soul, to get up and move it move it shake it out … DANCE BREAK!!!
Ahhhh… much better. Nothing relaxes me more than dancing and jumping out of airplanes. If you look hard enough you might find me in the video. Then again, you might not.
So after drinking too much coffee, jumping out of airplanes and rebuilding the blog, what WHAT do I have to show for my absence?
A blog you can find your way around. Or lose yourself in. A blog that has a semi-rational inner compass. So if you’re interested in, ummm…, let’s say ART, just go to the art link at the top of the page. That will take you to a menu of all kinds of art posts…imagine that!
And do check out the new home page.
But Arty Life is not just about art. It’s about life. About food and family and friends. And photography. And everything else that makes a life full. This is an ongoing process. I’m still finding my way through the maze myself, finding the right slots for back and future posts. One thing for sure, I’ll be adding MORE sections, categories and features.
There will be recipes! Like Wendy’s Power Breakfast. Which is better than Wonder Woman’s magic lasso.
And new, regular features. Like a semi-weekly look at What Leland Wore. And an expanded edition of my ever popular FaceBook digital series Ponies in the Morning. And interviews! Book reviews! How tos! Guest bloggers!
Something new every day. Oh God, I said EVERY DAY…I must be out of my freakin’ mind but until I come to my senses yes, you can count on some new Arty Life tidbit every. day.
Because Arty Life is growing up. And I’m blogging with my big girl panties now.
So wander around. Explore. Enjoy. If you have an idea for a post, a recipe or an interview shoot me an e-mail, got to fill those posts with something, y’know.
And, as always, I love to hear from you in the comments below.
Congratulations Mrs. P–you have a big fat bouncing baby BLOG!!!
Last night, when the rest of the world was sleeping, I took the plunge. I changed the privacy settings of this blog from don’t-look-at-me-I’m-hiding-out-here-in-cyberland to Gentlemen, start your search engines!
How did it feel? Well, it felt pretty much like it did when they put FirstBorn in my arms and wheeled me out the door. Me, a new mom with no experience, I mean, a level of no experience one step beyond clueless, and they sent me out into the world with a kid who didn’t stop screaming for his first twenty two years three months.
He was a challenge. But we figured each other out and we survived. We did just fine, actually. Well, I gave up half my brain cells during his teen years and the other half during his military service, but, other than that, we did just fine.
Really.
Sigh… I’m kinda sorta feeling the same way about this blog. Overwhelmed. All consumed by this new baby that I made and am responsible for, except this time I can’t look at it and blame the parts I don’t like on Mr. Spouse. This time it’s all on me.
There’ll be some growing pains, no doubt. But there’ll also be the joy that comes from developing my passion into something tangible and sharing it with the world.
FirstBorn survived the learning curve. I’m betting ArtyLife will too.
