Joelle said in the late morning on August 7, 2008
For the last six to eight weeks I’ve been making mental notes to keep an eye out for the August issue of Wired Magazine on newsstands at the end of July. I kept forgetting until last week, when I stumbled onto their site and saw the “How To” issue advertised. This was it! This was the issue I was interviewed for as a contributor to the Spruce Up Your Blog segment of their annual How To Guide. Hooray!
I was called by their offices in San Francisco not once, not twice, but four times. Voicemails were left, calls were returned and I had a couple fairly lengthy chats with a lovely woman whose name escapes me. She asked me all kinds of questions about tips for improving your blog’s look, traffic, what’s hot, what’s not, etc. Some of her questions were kind of complicated and open-ended. Most of this stuff doesn’t have a simple one-liner “pat” answer and I really had never read the How To Guide before, so I wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for. I just offered my best professional insight and hoped that I didn’t come off like a tool.
Today I ran out in between meetings to pick up a copy, as I had to run to Fry’s for a USB hub anyway. On the way to the checkout, I eagerly snatched a copy of Wired, saw the ‘spruce up your blog’ subheadline on the cover and flipped like a crazy woman to page 106 where I was greeted with a big article on Julia Allison and how she’s a big “self-promoter” and “how to be cool” like her, basically. I actually stumbled on her site recently via a Google alert and one of her posse, Meghan, kindly posted a copy of our book, which is a good thing. So I, unlike the article, don’t want to make any judgments about her or her agenda – I don’t know her. She’s pretty, though – great legs.
But, after flipping through page after page of ”How to Win at a Carnival” and ”How to Twitter” (which, by the way, the finger to you Twitter Nazis! I agree with Taughnee!), imagine my dismay at finding absolutely, positively no mention of how to do anything with your blog, let alone spruce it up. Nothing. Entire segment completely missing. It’s not even in the How To Wiki on their website.
Ouch.
I scanned the contributors credit at the end for my name. Nope, not there. Maybe I missed it. Maybe they called it something else, but no… check and recheck tells me they mentioned it on the cover, but totally cut it from the feature.
I could get all up in arms about it, but really, it was pretty cool to be asked in the first place. Lots of things get edited out or end up on the proverbial cutting room floor, so that wasn’t that big of a deal. I remind myself that it wasn’t necessarily my info or interview that lacked. Perhaps there just wasn’t enough room in the piece. Maybe the actual article wasn’t worth posting. Whatever the reasoning…
It could have been worse. They could have cut all my quotes and tips and published content from someone else. That would have stung. I’m just disappointed because Wired is such a widely-read magazine and it would have been great to have had a mention in it. Though, it’s changed quite a bit from what I remember. It seems a bit “Maxim for Geeks” these days. How to Win at Rock Paper Scissors? How to Dress Like a Hipster? These are things that are technology-related… how?
But I digress. It’s still cool to have been asked. I just wish they’d remembered to remove it from the cover… *sigh*
Joelle said in the early morning on August 4, 2008
I had a conversation with my friend mikey this weekend about men wearing women’s clothing. A game show recently had the men dress up in a wedding gown for a competition and for some reason, the guys on the show were going bananas over having to wear it. The week before they were asked to wear a diaper and a bonnet, but somehow that was fine. I asked mike about this, not understanding what the big deal is and he told me that a guy dressing up like a woman is fine for Halloween, like a hooker or a cheerleader or something, but a wedding dress is crossing the line.
I totally don’t get that. Why? He insists it’s just weird and implied that a wedding dress is somehow more emasculating than any other dress. So, a man in a wedding gown is somehow far more tragic and embarrassing than let’s say… a latex slut skirt or a fairy tutu?
I’ve never had a problem with men in drag… for Halloween or any other time. If you’re secure in your manhood (which I know my friend is, so I found wedding dresses a bizarre line in the sand), why does it matter if it’s a wedding dress or a studded patent leather tank-ini? My dad dressed up quite a few times, from what I can recall, for Halloween parties and the like… all in good fun. He wasn’t a cross-dresser, he just had a sense of humor! One year, he and my mom went as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell… and my mom was Peter Pan. (Dad looked smashing in pink tulle, though.)
Now, I’m not suggesting I’d like my boyfriend to dress up like Little Bo Peep or anything. Ruffles don’t really do it for me. I dated a guy once who wore a too-small green velvet thong, so I understand the need to draw the line somewhere, but I definitely don’t get where a wedding dress is more or worse or somehow mired in gonad-snipping embarrassment.
Men?
Joelle said at some point on August 1, 2008
One day last week, sitting at thwack! my desk in the late afternoon, I heard a loud, rhythmic thwack! that initially didn’t bother me, as I figured it would stop in a minute. thwack! But, after about 15 minutes of this, I started to get a thwack! headache. Annoying isn’t it? That was only a couple sentences.
The sound was kind of hollow, like bouncing those big red cherry balls on pavement. At first I thought it was just that, but after a few thwacks! I noticed the sound was much deeper and resonant. And it happened too steadily to be kids playing. I figured it had to be someone doing some kind of construction or hammering and hoped it would go away.
After 35 minutes, I couldn’t take it anymore and went outside to investigate. My apartment is built into a hillside, so the neighbors to my left sit higher up on the hill than my building does. There’s a walkway that runs alongside my building that has cars in their lot parked at my head-level, if that makes any sense. So, I walked around the side of the building to peer into their parking lot to see what the hell was going on over there.
I found a guy swinging a giant mallet at a tire lying on the ground. Over and over. And over. I assume this was for fitness, since he was sweating buckets and I couldn’t find any evidence of any other reason. I don’t mind that this guy was working out, but come on… like he couldn’t tell how loud that was?
I called over to him when he took a breath. “Excuse me! Hi! I was wondering how much longer you might be doing that?”
He said, “I’m done.” And I said, “Ok, thanks! That sound really bounces right off the side of my living room, like you were hammering at the Hollywood Bowl. Seems like a good workout, though!”
Then I did the “OK, bye, thanks, mumblemumble, blah blah...” as I walked away. Cool, I figured that he might have not realized that people were home during that time of day (though, it was 5 o’clock) or not understood that due to the structure of the buildings against the hillside, it’s like a makeshift amphitheater whenever people make noise outside. No biggie.
I kid you not, he started again yesterday. What the hell, buddy? Clearly, he didn’t get the hint. Look, do your workout. I am totally cool with that, but drag your raggedy ass tire out to a field somewhere and beat it, would you? Give a girl a break! Between him and the Weekend Warrior and the Humpfest Royale upstairs, it’s like Lollapalooza up in here. *raises the roof* Etcetera.
Where has common courtesy gone? I don’t crank up my music. I don’t rev my car. I don’t play the electric guitar during prime time. I shut off my car alarm if it goes off. I don’t slam the dumpster lid. I don’t leave my clothes in the washer indefinitely. I don’t have parrots that caw like it’s effin’ Costa Rica at 6am on a Saturday morning. And I certainly don’t bang a tire in the parking lot after my neighbor has sweetly indicated that it’s bothersome. Nay… nay, I say!
Seriously. People are thwack!
Joelle said in the early morning on July 30, 2008
Ok, that’s a dumb name, but it’s on par with “de-lurk” as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never been a big fan of “de-lurking days”, I guess because I always assumed if people wanted to comment, they would. I always felt like it was just too obvious a plea for comments. I don’t begrudge anyone that, I’ve seen the fun had by those involved, it just was never for me… before.
I’m about to boldy go where I’ve deigned to go in the past — I’m asking you to de-lurk. *gasp! dismay! shock abound!*
Ok, so it’s not that big of a deal, I’m just really curious to see who is reading. I love to meet new people and I don’t just write for me, even though that’s the cool thing to say. I’ll keep it real for you, kids: I write for the fun of it and you are part of the fun. Without you, I’m just talking to myself and I get enough of that as it is.
Lately there have been some new folks commenting and I’ve been following some links in my traffic to skulk about on blogs who have visited here… maybe even yours. I think it’s time we introduced ourselves, don’t you think?
So, uh… hi! *waves* Leave a comment, would you? It doesn’t have to be profound; I’m just curious who you are. Tell me a story. Tell me about your blog. Stroke my ego. Stroke somethin’!
Then maybe later we can brush each others hair and gab about American Idol. And if you get that reference, I’ll send you an IT Girl’s mouse.
Here, I’ll give you a topic to break the ice: speaking of “de-” things… why is “pantsing” someone the same as “de-pantsing”? I’ve never understood that. Pantsing implies the application of pants, not the removal, but de-pants just sounds dumb. To pants or de-pants… that is the question!
Joelle said around dinner time on July 29, 2008
Joelle: I want mexican food.
Kathy: I want a smoothie and a big rubber fist.
Joelle: I either hear someone’s vibrator… or an electric guitar.
Kathy: What if it’s both?
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