I spuddle.

Oh, time.   What HAPPENS to you?   I go from five thing friday to… Five Thing Friday with nothing in-between.   Depressing!  The truth is that I’m finishing a book and so my next couple of weeks will be filled with putting every last precious word into the wee novel and less here, but you won’t mind because you love me, right?    Speaking of love, last week on Five Thing Friday I gave away TinkerToys and the winner is …

John Overall!   John, e-mail me your details and csn will send you your prize.   Thanks for entering!

I feel strange about the whole blog giveaway thing.   Initially it seemed like an awesome idea, and also validation:   someone thinks enough people read my blog to make this worthwhile!  But some odd things happened along the way, and none of them are a particularly big deal, I just… I don’t know.   The point of blog giveaways, theoretically, for the blogger is to garner new readers to appeal to a mass audience that you wouldn’t normally be able to hook.    The truth of this blog giveaway is that it actually drove my stats DOWN.   I don’t know how that happens or why or if it was just coincidence or what but it was a bit of a blow to my very fragile delicate ego which is much like an egg after you’ve blown the insides out very carefully after poking holes in both ends with a pin.   i.e. Apt to break.   So I don’t know about giveaways.   I don’t think I’ll seek them out in the future but I guess if they fall in my lap, I’ll do them.    Unless they are too much trouble.

There is a lot (A LOT) of talk in The Big Blog World lately about mom bloggers and giveaways and compensation and reviews and honestly it makes me tired thinking about it and it makes this blog feel like work, which it was never meant to be, because I do enough work.   This was just meant to be a place where I tell side-slappingly HILARIOUS ANECDOTES about my kids and myself and the creepy guy at the bus stop and even random strangers.   ALL FUNNY, ALL THE TIME.   Plus, I was thinking about magazines, and how on the front there is always FIVE GREAT WAYS TO LOSE WEIGHT and FIVE TIPS FOR BETTER ORGASMS and thought, hey, I could do random collections of five whatevers on my blog and it would be funny/relevant/like a magazine!   Except I didn’t even think about it THAT much, I was just throwing stuff out there.

And honestly, that’s all I want to do.   Throw stuff out there.    No, I mean literally.   I want to throw stuff.   (FIVE THINGS YOU CAN THROW WITHOUT HURTING ANYONE!)   I’m not a good thrower though.   I never learned to throw properly and when I do throw something — yes, I mean like a BASEBALL — my arm feels all funny and weak and strange and I immediately become convinced I have ALS even though this is something that has happened to me for my entire life and obviously ALS is progressive and I’d know by now if I had it.   (FIVE DISEASES I BELIEVE THAT I HAVE EVEN WHEN ALL EVIDENCE IS TO THE CONTRARY!)

Anywho, I mentally wrote a brilliant post about compensation, reviews, bloggers’ time and efforts, etc., but then I became too verklempt to write it out.   I’m a blogger as a hobby and not as a job, I’m not a marketer and nor do I harbor dreams of becoming all entrenched in the marketing aspect.   I don’t WANT a company to send me to Blogher because I’m paralyzed by social anxiety and would feel overwhelmed by angst at the idea of attending in the first place.   SO I’m going to let the flurry pass me by and am going to instead write semi-pointless drivel about whatever I feel like writing.   Like the following:

Five Things That Everyone Else Has Done And I Have Never Done and Likely Never Will:

1.   Had a manicure, and/or pedicure.   DO NOT TOUCH MY FEET.   I’m serious.   If someone came at me with some kind of sandpaper for feet and started assaulting my grotesque foot callouses, I would kick them into tomorrow.   I would.  And I don’t believe in violence.   (See also:  have never shot a gun and never will, have never wielded a weapon, have never been fascinated by cage matches).

2.   Watched any of the following movies:   The Titanic (too long), The Gods Must Be Crazy (too overhyped)(and no, I don’t know why I thought of this one either), Schindler’s List (can’t deal with it, cry just thinking about it), basically all war movies,  The Dark Knight (just… no)(I’m sorry Heath Ledger is dead, I just don’t get the appeal of this film), Harry Potter and the Anything (I liked the books well enough, just have no interest in the films) and/or anything with the word “horror” in the description.   I like good hair and happy endings, OK?  IS THAT SO WRONG?   And The Titanic just looks so LONG.   I could write an entire book in the time it takes for it to unfold painfully slowly on-screen.    Not that I’ve seen it, but I’m guessing.

3.  Gone to Europe.   I want to go to Europe, don’t get me wrong.   I just never have.

4.  Seriously considered jumping off a bridge or crane with an elastic cord around my feet or waist.   Just NO.   I mean, maybe this is something that not everyone has done but I’ll bet you’ve maybe thought about it.   This extends to going on any amusement park ride that turns me upside down.   I pretend it’s because my eye might rupture (see: Hyphema), but really it’s because being HIGH UP and also UPSIDE DOWN is not on my list of things I want to do ever for any reason whatsoever.   Almost every book I write features bungee jumping or carnival rides or other high up and upside down things that I myself would never do.   Analyze THAT, Dr. Freud.   Or whomever.   I mean, Freud’s dead so obviously he’s not going to have much input, he’s just the only famous shrink I could think of on the spur of the moment.

5.  Read any of the following books:   The DaVinci Code, Twilight, The Kite Runner, or basically anything that’s massively hyped (it can only be disappointing after such a big build-up, I figure) (unless I’ve read it before the wave of hype threatens to knock me unconscious like an unexpectedly big wave encountered while surfing, something I’ve never done either) (although I’d like to) (maybe) (if all the conditions are right).  I have not read most of the books on the top-ten bestselling books of all time list, which isn’t surprising, because seriously?   Wow.  I’m surprised somehow that Agatha Christie snuck on to that list considering she does not write religious manifestos.

And… that’s all for now.  If your name is John Overall, don’t forget to e-mail me and I will have your prize dispatched forthwith heretofore nevertheless, etc.

Filed under: Five Thing Friday