Soylent Blissdom: It's People! Peeeeeople!

Yes, it's been a couple of weeks since Blissdom. Yes, I've taken my sweet time assembling this post. Yes, I'm a little conflicted about what to write.

I love the enthusiastic, fired-wired-inspired posts from people who have discovered their Inner Writer, or Inner Entrepreneur, or Inner Brand Spokesperson. I love hearing about people who had their creative potential unlocked by a panel or a microsession. I love Lesley, who is now practically the Blissdom Poster Child, or should be, and I love seeing what Blissdom started for her.

Lesley, rocking the Jack Skellington look

But I'm not young, or fired-up, or especially unlocked. I've looked into my Neighbourhood of Inners, and let me tell you, it's full of assholes. And I'd like to say that Blissdom stuffed a gag in the gob of my Inner Name-Caller, or obliterated my Inner Confidence-Sucker, or shouted down my Inner You-Can't-Do-Anything Reaffirmer. But I'd be lying.

I still haven't figured out how to move my blog to Wordpress. I still haven't found a way to make money writing that doesn't make me feel like I'm losing or corrupting or selling out my voice - the voice I finally felt like I'd found with blogging. I've seen other people do it, and I'm happy for them, but I'm not there yet; I might not ever be there.

And that's okay. Blissdom is a sprawling, wide-ranging animal, and not everyone will get the same thing from it.

What I get from Blissdom, is free, unfettered, week-end-long access to some wholly kick-ass people.

Like Nicole, who texts me telling me I'm wonderful and sends me chocolate-covered fruit when I'm sad and introduced me to Erica Ehm as if I was the famous person. She is the most delightful combination of sweet and salty (rarely has an unkind word for everyone, worked tirelessly for the Yummy Mummy Club and still had time for me and Hannah, and every once in a while comes out with a well-timed "Tell him to eat your dick!" just to keep things interesting) and I love her. 

And Hannah, who has the same stupid no-one-is-going-to-be-happy-to-see-me anxiety I do and is smart and witty and funny and lovely and pretends it's not weird that I can't let people eat on my bed and when she got there we were so excited that she screamed and I think I hit her in the face with my phone trying to hug her and when they played My Humps at the P.J. Party she yelled"Oh, fuck off - if I don't wear a two hundred and fifty dollar bra, my humps are ON THE FLOOR!" And I love her. 

If there had been nothing good about Blissdom except Hannah and Nicole, it still would have been well worth the trip and the admission price. But I also got to see Courtney, a fellow book-blogger I met at Blissdom last year and became blog friends with - she ran a microsession on blogging for mobile technology. She also wore a poodle skirt to the Throwback Thursday party, which, hello, insanely cool.

She was afraid no one would show up for her session, so Hannah and I said "We will! We will show up! Even if we are slightly hung over from a fabulously strange lentil carnival." Okay, we didn't really say that, but we were, and we did, and the session was was full of stuff that I didn't know and really should know, and Courtney is a great teacher, and we had fun.

And Schmutzie. Schmutzie is wise and kind and a national treasure and I love to read her writing but it's nice to hear her voice now and then, and plead for my yearly pity hug, which she claims is not a pity hug, so I should probably stop calling them pity hugs, because honesty is kind of Schmutzie's thing. 

Then there was my extra-special sparkly prize at the bottom of the Blissdom box this year.....

Kate! My Kate! She's a well-established blogger and Ambassador of Chill and she spoke at the Power Hour, so she's kind of a big deal, but I still persist in thinking of her as My Kate, and she's generally pretty gracious about it. . She came up to me and Alex and Jolene when we were having dinner (after I had already crashed Alex and Jolene's dinner) and said mind if I join you, and who could mind being joined by the quintessence of grace and charm with an effervescent sprinkling of goofiness? 

This was Kate's first Blissdom, so she didn't know about the dance-til-you-sweat-your-ass-off part of the Pajama Party. "I thought we'd be laying around on pillows" she said plaintively. It's okay, My Kate. Lots of people wear flannel their first year.

I spend so much time in the world feeling like a round peg in a square hole. There's something magical about walking around in a crowd of people who get that a computer screen can actually be a portal to a deep, wide, comforting and supportive and uplifting community (I just made the blogosphere sound like a really expensive bra, and I'm okay with that - presumably Hannah is too). 

So no, I probably won't turn up next year all fired up about SEO optimization (I like to stick quirky, cryptic titles on my blog post and rely on fate to lead people to them), or pitching brands for sponsored posts, or if I'll start writing in shorter paragraphs with the important information near the beginning. Some people would say I'm doing it all wrong. And maybe I am, but at least I'm doing it. Before I started blogging, I was hardly writing at all. I couldn't find a voice, I couldn't see a path. In a million years I wouldn't have shown up at a conference for people who write and called myself one of those people. 

Do I call myself one of those people now?

You bet your ass I do. (Yes, I wish this was my ass. It's Nicole's. It's kind of a tradition for Nicole's fabulous ass to show up in my Blissdom post). 

After the pajama party on the last night, when Hannah and Nicole had gone to bed, Courtney knocked on my hotel room door and invited me down the hall to hang out with some friends. I wandered in and, within a few minutes, realized I was in a room with two people I knew and four I didn't, and that I had gotten ready for bed before leaving my room, so instead of party pajamas I was now wearing non-party pajamas, and a smear of zit cream on my chin, and no underwear. 

Yeah, I might have been a little TOO comfortable at that point. I will endeavour to restore some standards for next year. 

Thank-you, Blissdom people. If I never make a cent from blogging, I feel like meeting all of you is an embarrassment of riches. 

Surly *cough wheeze* Thursday

Things that are making me surly this week:

1) This goddamned never-ending plague of never-endingness. I'm grateful that I got through Matt's school reunion and the wedding and Blissdom before I got sick, but I would VERY MUCH like to be DONE BEING SICK NOW, please. I just talked to my recovering-from-abdominal-surgery-sister who I didn't visit after Blissdom because I felt the plague coming on and didn't want to introduce it into her open wound, and I had to hang up because I eventually couldn't get any words out in between the hacking. My voice sounds like I've been swallowing sandpaper due to sucking on my inhaler every half hour (it sounds something like this). And the snot, god, the snot - is there an actual god of snot? Oh look, here's a Japanese storm god born from the snot of his creator's dripping nostril. Maybe that's why it's been rainy and dark all damned week. 

2) It's been rainy and dark all damned week. I was at physio today and the chirpy sugar-averse physio tech was rhapsodizing about we need the rain to wash everything clean. Stow it, sister, my hair looks like I've been combing it with the same sandpaper that wrecked my voice, and the fall leaves are all wet and sad lying on the street. 

3) I think the rain and snot have sludged up my memory beyond repair. I either forget to put on deodorant or forget that I HAVE put on deodorant and put it on five times - so I'm spending four times as much money on deodorant and I STILL smell less-than-fresh half the time. Also, yesterday I made tea for me and Pam and I put milk in hers and then I put milk in mine, to keep her company or maintain a nice symmetry or something, not because I WANTED milk in my tea. Then I kept forgetting there was milk in it and drinking it and wondering why it tasted weird. 

4) I think I'm adversely affecting the books I'm reading. I've been trying to read this, by an author whose previous two books were really good. The fourth night I picked it up, I realized I wanted to do anything else in the world but read this book - like, things involving garbage, or rats, or algebra. So I put it down. And then I read this, which seemed like it should be right up my alley, and all I could think was that I was SO SICK of books about family members keeping secrets from other family members and only giving hints enough to make damned sure that the person will do whatever they have to to find out what the secret is and then horror, panic, tragedy, the end. Of course, I also get really annoyed by books when someone keeps a secret and whoever finds out the secret is enraged that the secret was kept and swears that they'll never forgive the secret-keeper, because usually there's a perfectly good reason for the secret being kept and chances are you have secrets of your own so take a freaking breath and stop being so judgey.

5) I can't decide how I feel about secrets.

6) My PVR recorded Castle instead of Forever on Monday. Okay, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel now. There are probably more things that are clearly and justifiably surly-making, but I've forgotten them. I'm pretty sure I'm wearing deodorant, though. 

Mondays on the Margins: Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins (Newbery Medal Series)

I flat-out adored this book - I wanted to kiss its whole face. It's also the first one I've read where I really think the committee totally shit the bed on the whole "children are the audience" part of the criteria. As one Goodreads reviewer aptly put it, "the story is subtle as heck". It is so subtle - it is woven together out of hints and echoes and allusions. There were things I didn't catch until my second reading, and I am generally no slouch in the catching-things department (okay, I very often am a slouch in the catching-things department, but things like irony, and when something is a flashback in a tv show, which a lot of people have issues with, they really shouldn't be allowed to show flashbacks without the "5 years ago" tag, it's too confusing).

The criss cross reference is to the paths of the many pre-adolescent characters converging, diverging, glancing off of each other and sometimes failing entirely to meet. It is also the name of a radio program a few of the characters listen to while sitting in someone's father's truck on Sunday evenings - the radio program is clearly referencing the movie Strangers on a Train, but none of the characters know this; the program is about juxtaposition - unusual music, humorous skits and "what do you get when you cross a (something) with a (something else)? jokes", which is a beautiful little microcosm of the whole book, but has nothing to do with any of them murdering anyone.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is also a strong undercurrent - Dan, a football-playing character who sometimes acts like a decent human being and often is a mean or rude ass, who Perkins likens to Nick Bottom, the weaver who is turned into a donkey in the play. She says he is "under a spell, conferred by a magic jersey and a powerful potion of lucky genes and emerging hormones", and speculates whether he will "learn certain lessons, involving humility, compassion, respect, and independent thinking", or "remain a large, furry, willfully stupid animal". At Seldem Days, a sort of town fair, Dan shows up with Meadow, crushing the dreams of Hector, a sweet and thoughtful character who takes guitar lessons in a church basement with Dan and Meadow and had been hoping to connect with her himself. Dan is casually cruel to Hector, and then looks at another character with disdain. The next passage reads "There was a barely perceptible subdermal movement near his tailbone. There was a slight bray in his voice.     It was all still reversible." I don't want to underestimate ten-to-twelve-year-olds, but am I wrong in thinking this is pitched just a little too esoterically? If the play had been performed somewhere, or discussed, even, it would be different. But it isn't. 

It's almost like Perkins was so determined to craft a whimsical, tender, poignant coming-of-age story that she throws every stirring, lovely weapon in her arsenal at it - there are Conversations in the Dark, there is a Japanese Chapter in which there are many haikus - Hector goes into a sponge state and has a satori in the first damned chapter! 

I loved it all. I love the scene where Debbie and Patty strip to their underwear in the secret space made by a rhododendron bush and use smuggled seam-rippers to lengthen their bell-bottoms while the rain is "softly piffing on the leaves all around", because their mothers are "stranded in the backwaters of a bygone era" and "You could argue and argue, but they weren’t going to get it. At some point you just had to go change your clothes in a bush.”

I love the missed moment between Debbie and her mother, where Debbie is trying to tell her mother how lost and empty she feels after her brief, sweet first love experience, and her mother might have told her about the boy who bought her all the dog figurines in the box in the closet, but instead "their secrets inadvertently sidestepped each other, unaware, like blindfolded elephants crossing the tiny room," and her mother went to see whether she had turned off the burner under the hard-boiled eggs.

I love the missed moment between Debbie and Hector, when Hector gives Debbie back her necklace, which has traveled through various ways and means throughout the town and through many pockets, and they both see the new person the other has become that summer, but not at the same moment - "their moments were separated by about a second. Maybe only half a second. Their paths crossed, but they missed each other. The hardworking necklace couldn't believe it. It let out an inaudible, exasperated gasp.”

Yep, you read that right - at the last, the necklace becomes suddenly sentient. It's a ridiculous, glorious mess. I loved it, but to me it reads like a kids' book written for adults. I am unutterably grateful that it did win the Newbery Medal, though, (in 2006, I forgot to check until just now - although it reads like it takes place in the 70s), otherwise I likely never would have come across it. 

Some Witty Banter With Your Curry?

So I should totally be throwing up a new Newbery Medal Post, or blogging about Blissdom, but my cold sort of suspended itself for the week-end and then came rushing back full force when I got home (not complaining, really it was the best I could hope for) and I've read more Newbery books but I don't feel equipped to post much more than "um, good" or "meh", or "my physiotherapist thinks it's taken me a month to read The Cricket in Times Square because I only read it at Physio because it's light enough to hold in one hand - I think she suspects that I'm simple". And tonight we had one of those great family dinners that made me remember why I force us to have family dinners so I'm going to take the easy way out.

Matt: "I registered you for Take Your Kid to Work Day on November 5th"
Angus: "Why did you have to register me?"

Photo by Didriks

Matt: "I don't know. Something about safety concerns."
Angus: "What - they're afraid I might die of boredom?"

Eve: "Was it a convention you were at?"
Me: "A conference."
Eve: "That makes it sound like you were sitting around at a table with people in suits saying (in stodgy half-British accent): 'We do blogs. It's going very well. We should keep doing blogs'"
Me: "It was nothing like that. Okay, it was a tiny bit like that."

Matt: "Have you heard of this new game called Bubble Soccer?"
Angus: "Yeah! We saw some people playing it on the way to lunch."
Me and Eve: "Huh?"
Angus: "You have this giant plastic ball around your legs and body so you can run into people and not get hurt."
Me: "OMG, I want to play Bubble Soccer!'
Eve: "Never mind soccer, you should only ever play Bubble Anything."
Me: "Hey!"
Eve: "Weren't you just at physio for a gardening injury?"
Me: "Okay, fair enough."

Angus: "Can we go do a baseball workout after supper?"
Matt: "Sure."
Me: "They seem to really be working, you've been playing really well."
Angus: "Yep."
Matt: "I'm going to get you a t-shirt that says My Dad's Not Actually a Moron."
Angus: "Then I'll dislocate my shoulders from having to whip it off so many times." (The catchphrase for whenever Matt says something dumb is now "Take off the shirt". That's right, we've evolved a new family catchphrase SINCE DINNER.)

Me: "So you saw Annabel while I was away? How was it?"
Angus "SCARY AS F....UDGE!"
Matt: "Did you hold David's hand?"
Angus: "He wouldn't let go of my arm! It was scary because you could relate to it! It wasn't about demons or ghosts - there are dolls IN THIS HOUSE! I slept with all my lights on!"

I shouldn't position a doll so it's staring at Angus when he wakes up tomorrow, right? That would be mean, right?