Archive for the ‘Things that are made of awesome’ Category

• The Scariest Thing I Did At BlogHer’10

  Date: 2010.08.11 | Category: Things I Don't Understand, Things that are made of awesome | Response: 13

  I did the scariest thing I’ve done in years at BlogHer’10. I signed up to run (yes, emphasis on the run) in Ottawa’s 5km Run for the Cure. It’s Laurie Kingston’s fault. She posted on Twitter and Facebook and then posted an open letter on her blog asking if anyone would be up for running on a team called “No Pink For Profit.” Laurie would have to put it in a way that leaves me no choice but to say yes.

  Some of you may think that this is not a BlogHer post, but it is. Without BlogHer I would not know Laurie. We would not be friends.

  A few years ago (2006 I think) I started noticing someone commenting on my posts at BlogHer. Usually the Canadian posts but sometimes book posts as well. I commented back and eventually started following their blog. It was Laurie and her blog Not Just About Cancer. Thanks to BlogHer and our blogs, and eventually Twitter and Facebook, Laurie and I became online friends. I remember the day that she posted that her cancer had returned. I cursed and threw something at the wall. I was pissed. I was mad. I was scared. And at that point I hadn’t even met her.

  A few years later I ended up moving to the same city she lives in and we became friends live and in person. We meet up as often as our schedules allow and sit in a pub, drink pints, knit and get caught up on our lives. You know, the parts that don’t make it onto the Internet.

  As I got to know Laurie better I became increasingly aware of how much pink for profit campaigning there is every year. I was aware of it before I knew her. I remember being particularly disgusted by a promotion where if you spent $$$ on a new mattress you’d get a special! limited edition! pink sheep! Of course, a portion of the profits made go to breast cancer research. I was cynical and avoided them, preferring to give my money to actual charities.

  I became increasing aware of how wide-spread it was thanks to posts like Suzanne Reisman’s, “Pink Ribbon Madness: Say No To Breast Cancer Exploitation for Corporate Profit.” Yes, buy a can of soup that we’ve slapped a pink ribbon on and we’ll all be saved. (Oh and yes we’ll make money if you buy a lot of them but shhhh let’s not talk about that.) I knew that these campaigns often hurt breast cancer survivors but it became more than that — they were hurting my friend. Now I wouldn’t just avoid these pink for profit, I’d swear when I saw them. I’ve been known to rant occasionally. (Shocking, I realize.)

  So yes, when Laurie asked if anyone would sign up for her No Pink for Profit team I couldn’t say no. Money does need to be raised for more research, and I’ll run to do that. I’m thrilled with the subversiveness of the No Pink for Profit message that will be splayed across my t-shirt as I run to raise money for it.

  And that is no small statement. I don’t exercise. I like to describe my coordination as that of a dead drunk sloth caught in a wind machine. (Description stolen and always cited to Joshilyn Jackson who said in a blog post once.) I trip over my own feet on the sidewalk. I am, quite simply, not an athlete.

  But I am doing this. I am doing this because a friend asked me for help with something that is important to her. I am doing this because I am capable of it. I’m doing this because I’d like to live in a time when breast cancer is not something that can be used as a fear tactic to sell products for a profit.

  I’m doing it because I can.

  If you feel so inclined you can find out more about the No Pink for Profit team and make a donation on our team page. If you are in Ottawa I hope that you will come out and cheer for us on October 3.

• More

  Date: 2010.08.10 | Category: Things that are made of awesome | Response: 17

  Everyone who goes to BlogHer has a different experience.  As someone said in a tweet that I can’t find at the moment, “BlogHer is what you make of it”. To some people it’s a very social experience, for others professional. I keep a toe in both. I had wonderful personal moments (like meeting my Chatter friends) but I spent a lot of time with my head in the professional. I didn’t walk away from BlogHer ’10 with a revelation. I walked away with confirmation of something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

  I can do more.

  I need to do more.

  I am one of those people who went to university and got a degree I love dearly but it really didn’t shuttle me into an instant job market. There just isn’t a large need for anthropologist historians, especially ones that focused on archaeology and underground resistance movements in WWII. (Yes, I realize those topics are not related but they were fascinating and fun to study.)

  So I bumbled around. I turned a job at the university bookstore into a job creating course materials. I turned that job (with the help of a course or two) into a technical writing career. The technical writing turned into project management. Project management was an excellent experience to have but the company I was at stopped being the right fit for me and I simply burned out and quit. I didn’t know what to do. I needed some time to lick my wounds and figure out what I wanted to do, not just what would make me money. So I continued to blog and I found a few part-time jobs. I pick up the odd contract here and there.

  But lately I’ve felt that I can do more. It is an odd combination of restlessness (I can do more) and being settled (buying a house makes me feel like I have a permanent base).

  It’s a feeling that has been creeping up for months but it cemented at BlogHer ’10. Being around women — accomplished, funny, smart, wonderful women – who are doing more put it in perspective. (Even if they all do like to say that I’m twelve. People, I look younger than I am. I can’t help it.) Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d been able to start attending BlogHer before 2009. Would my drive have come back earlier? Because you, all of you, make me want to do more.

  As I commented to someone, being there helped me realize that I know more than I often think I do. It made me remember that I’ve been doing some stuff  for a long time. I have a lot of thoughts stuffed into this head of mine and some of them are darned good thoughts. They need an outlet and I need to get them an outlet.

  I also need to leave some baggage behind. I need to stop thinking that every opportunity is going to morph from something wonderful to being something twisted. That a few weeks of hard work isn’t going to turn into the kind of grind that literally had me sobbing in the shower (what can I say, I am occasionally a cliche). And I need to remember that even if it gets to that point I still picked myself up, dusted myself off and stepped back into the grind and did a darned good job. I need to present myself in a way that better reflects all that I’ve done in addition to all that I can do. My resume currently does not do that.

  I’m capable of doing more than I am, but I’ve been missing the drive to do it. I’ve not been presenting myself in a way that displays all that I’m capable of doing.

  The drive is back. I can do more. I will do more. I’ll need help and advice, but no one gets there alone. I need to ask for help. I need to work for that help. But I’m going to do it. I am.

  Next year, at BlogHer ’11 I want you to come up and ask me if I did more. Because the answer is going to be, “Yes. Yes I did.” And if you want to do more I’ll do everything I can to help you, too.

  So thank you BlogHer. Thank you for reminding me that not only do I want to do more but that I’m capable of it.

• Head out on the highway, lookin’ for adventure

  Date: 2010.06.24 | Category: Things that are made of awesome | Response: 5

  Tomorrow morning at 4am the alarm will go off. We’ll stumble around in the dark trying not to make too much noise. Don’t want to disturb the neighbours. We’ll pet the cat and give her extra love before feeding her breakfast and then adding a few extra scoops to get her to Saturday when my FIL comes to feed her. (She does not need the extra scoops – it’s called guilt.) We’ll run around the apartment grabbing last minute items and then rush out the house in a whirlwind of bags, coolers, and “Honey, did you remember to pack…”

  We’ll hit the road as the sun rises, stopping on our way out of town to grab coffee from Tim Hortons. You cannot have a road trip in Canada and not stop at a Timmy’s. We’ll drive toward the rising sun, squinting and wondering if we are nuts to start so early and then we’ll think of Montreal morning rush hour traffic and decide no, we’re not crazy. We’re darned smart.

  We’ll grab leftover homemade pizza out of the cooler and snack on that for breakfast. We’ll have lunch at a truck stop, probably someplace just past Quebec City.

  We’ll pee in dubious roadside bathrooms.

  Driving through New Brunswick we’ll reflect on how the scenery off the highway simply does. not. change for hours. I’ll lament how the old highway was scenic and then remember on the new highway you don’t get stuck behind someone driving 70km/hr in a car that looks like it would fall apart if a strong wind hit it.

  We’ll hit construction. We don’t know where yet but we’ll hit it.

  By dinner time we’ll have (hopefully) rolled into our hotel in Fredericton and say, “Yes, we really could have done the drive in one day.” “Yeah, but who wants to waste a day of cottage time in the car trying to get there.” “Good point.”

  We’ll go out in search of a hot meal and debate whether we want to have a sit down meal or if I should introduce Lee to East Coast donairs (real donairs, not these whacked out Ottawa ones).  We’ll go back to the hotel and take a dip in the pool, dry out in the sauna and then head back to the room.

  The next morning we’ll get up early, check out early and hit the road again. As we get closer and closer to the coast we’ll roll down the windows so we can smell the salt air. We’ll drive across the world’s longest bridge that spans ice-covered water only there won’t be any ice. We might see a boat or a seal if we’re lucky and that’s only because we have an SUV and not a car. If you are in a car you only see cement.

  At the end of the bridge we’ll see red dirt and green, green, green fields. We’ll drive east until we hit a familiar town. We’ll stop to pick up the lobsters that will have been cooked and cleaned just for us and then another 10 minutes and we’ll take left at the fork in a road and drive along the coast. Another left and around the bend and we’re there — the last cottage by the ocean and our home for the next week.

  Over the next week we’ll visit family. We’ll play by the ocean and get sand in places where no one wants sand. We’ll eat good, simple food. We’ll recover from this month of June that has kicked our asses. We’ll let the ocean take our troubles away.

• Happy Birthday To Me

  Date: 2010.05.14 | Category: Things that are made of awesome | Response: 2

  Today’s my birthday! Happy birthday to me!

  I do plan on having a fantastic birthday and you can help. It’s easy, I promise. It doesn’t cost you anything and you will be making a young reader’s day as well.

  All you have to do is go to this BlogHer post and leave a comment telling everyone what book has had the greatest impact on your life (or you know, what books since it’s hard to pick just one). You can even sign in with your Facebook account. For every comment left on that BlogHer post BookRenter will donate a book, via First Book, to Head Start.

  Your comment over there means a child gets a book. Can you think of a more perfect birthday gift to me? So what are you waiting for? Go comment!

• I love these women

  Date: 2008.02.04 | Category: Things that are made of awesome | Response: 3

  Dammit I love the women at BlogHer.com. Why? Because level-headed reasonable debates happen there and people actually freaking LISTEN to each other.

  It is made of awesome.

  So what is causing me to say this? This morning, Contributing Editor Shannon, aka rocksinmydryer, posted why she’s pro-life.  And then this evening Contributing Editor Maria Niles posted why she’s pro-choice. Maria didn’t post to counter-attack Shannon’s post, but because Blogher is a nonpartisan organization both sides of an argument are represented.

  “I offer my perspective not as an invitation for anyone to attempt to change my mind – you will not succeed – but in hope that, along with Shannon’s post explaining why she is pro-life, we can have a civil discussion that moves us to a point at which we can find some common ground.”   – from Maria’s pro-choice post

  Has there been disagreement? Of course there has. But it’s been in discussions, not attacks.

  Has there been common ground? You bet ya. We might not all be pro-life or pro-choice but there really is common ground. I’ll leave you to go find it for yourself though, because I’m like that.

  I love that discussions like this can happen. I love that this discussion can happen – a discussion on a topic that is so very polarizing.

  For the record – I’ve lived in a place where women CAN’T get abortions. No, it’s not illegal to get them there’s just no place TO get them. I’ve seen a lot of lives changed due to unplanned pregnancies and some were changed in ways that well, just weren’t good for anyone involved. I don’t need to and I may not agree with every choice that every woman makes about abortion but I never want to live in a place where women don’t have that choice.