I spuddle.

Who am I? Wouldn’t YOU like to know?

I meant to blog anonymously because  I had originally wanted a blog that my name wasn’t plastered all over.   Then I found that that didn’t work both because I need constant validation and recognition, and also because every time I met someone new or did a lecture or just foisted all my personal information on a stranger at the park, I said “Check out my blog at ispuddle dot com!” My anonymous blog! That all my visitors know is mine!

It was silly to continue to be all coy and anonymous, not that being silly has stopped me from persisting with things in the past. But in this case, it wouldn’t have taken any sort of brilliant deduction to connect the dots — links from my flickr page, my twitter name, and so on. All of which I was too damn lazy to change. Besides, I can’t keep secrets.   I suppose I wanted to feel like I’m at least partly protecting my kids from … what?   I don’t know.   Yes, I do. I wanted to protect them from being KIDNAPPED. Kidnapped! Who would kidnap my kids? It’s a pretty random fear based on the fact that I fear it and not any actual tangible threat. I have no money, so they’d be unlikely to be taken for ransom. They are also effectively never ever ever out of my sight (see also: random fears*). And, well, I hate to tell you this, but they’re a lot of work. Probably the kidnappers would give them back. I’m kidding, fate. I am not tempting you. No temptation here. Look away. Now I’m afraid that a kidnapper has found this page by googling “kidnap” and will kidnap my kids regardless of the obvious reasons why not to kidnap them and feel I ought to delete the preceding paragraph, but I won’t because hey, any writing is better than no writing and I wrote that paragraph.

I have another website where I talk about writing and books and there is a blog there, also, where you can ask me questions about writing and books (preferably mine because I’m not an expert on any others) or you can just analyze my different hair styles and colours over the years and say, “Wow, she’s really aged.” Or maybe something nicer. That site is here if you’re interested. And indeed, why wouldn’t you be? Please buy my books, that’s all I’m going to say.

This site is less about my books and more about me. All me, all the time. Me, me, me. Ah, me. A place where I can write about anything I feel like writing about for no particular reason and basically for my own amusement and yours too if you find it funny.   I’m not lying when I say that sometimes I look back at old blog posts and I think, “I have no memory of that ever happening, did I make it up?” Because I think I may have something wrong with my memory but I don’t want to delve into it further because next thing you know I’ll have diagnosed myself with Alzheimers disease and I’ll be too depressed to keep typing and will have to soothe my angst with twelve continuous hours of reality TV and some really good quality scotch cookies.

In other news, I’ll be forty … soon.    Not that soon.    I’ll be thirty-nine first.    My husband, to whom I’m not yet married, tends to round up.   I’ve heard him telling people that he’s forty often enough that I have to do the math to figure out how old I actually am, knowing we’re the same age and surely (although I forget a lot of things) I would not have forgotten turning forty. I expect that once he does turn 40, he’ll start telling people he’s 50. No, I don’t know why either.

I am a writer, as I mentioned.   I am not rich and famous and have never met Oprah. You can ask me for money but I don’t have any so there wouldn’t be much point. Speaking of which, can I have some money? If you have any to spare, that is. When I think about all the money I haven’t earned yet, I get panicky and hyperventilate and have to find a paper bag to breathe into which is harder than you might think now that we’ve switched to those reusable shopping bags that I always forget to bring with me, opting for plastic instead while reassuring the cashier who couldn’t care less that I HAVE copious amounts of reusable bags at home, I just forgot them THIS ONE TIME ONLY.

We have three kids.    My stepson is eleven and lives with us half the time.   We have a son (The Bun) together who is four-ish.    And a baby girl (The BIrdy), who is sub-two.  They are killer cute. Our household is chaotic, noisy, and pretty damn filthy most of the time. I’m going to vacuum right after I’m done with this. Maybe.

I like books.   Mostly right now I like to get stacks of books from the library that I never have time to read and then I return them feeling sad, like I’m never going to get a chance with that book ever again and oh, woe is me, because I really wanted to read those books but spent all my spare time on Twitter instead, attempting to be pithy in 140 characters or less.  (Because the number of followers I have is like water and sunlight and cookies for my ego, which is in grave danger of shrinking if people unfollow me.)   I need to figure out how to go the library without bringing home ten books.    Like maybe I should get just one, and then actually READ it.   Just an idea.

I like gardening, or rather, I like it when the garden doesn’t look squalid and/or like the garden of an abandoned house or crack den.  This year I’ve started tons of flowers super early under cold frames, which may be the most work I’ve ever put into gardening in my entire life. I can be a bit manic and that all took place during a brief manic moment. Now I’m overwhelmed at the idea of moving those now giant seedlings into the garden itself. I don’t know why I’m even mentioning gardening. Now I feel anxious about those plants and how the weeds are once again starting to outnumber the legitimate plant life.

I have a sore back. I don’t know why (herniated discs? back cancer?) because my MRI isn’t until November. I just want to register with you that I have a sore back so you never ask me to lift anything heavy and also so you feel a bit sorry for me and then amazed that I carry on so heroically without whining. Except the part where I actually do whine a lot because I am constantly having to pick up the kids to put them on the naughty chair or in the car or on the toilet. Those KIDS. Man, they’re killing me.

But seriously, I live for the moments when my kids figure out how to do something they’ve never done before and they get that look.    You know the one, that little funny smile that says, “Holy cow, I can’t believe I actually DID that!”    That’s 31 flavours of pure awesomeness.   It makes up for a lot of the other stuff that goes along with raising them up, such as lack of sleep and bad backs.    My funny little monkeys rule, dude.

I love photography, I have a Nikon D80 which is currently sporting a Sigma 18-200.   I agonize about lens choice.   I fell in love with a Nikon 50mm Macro lens but returned it because it didn’t make sense for my life.    I hate changing lenses mid-flight.    (And by “flight”, I mean “not an actual flight” because I never really go anywhere, except occasionally for work.    But right now Actual Flights are pretty rare.)   (I’m kinda scared to fly.   I’ll be honest.) I take a lot of pictures. Please say nice things about them. My ego is like a great white shark that needs to eat a goat at least every three months to survive. Or whatever it is that great white sharks eat. Surely not goats, because where would they get one? That would be ridiculous. I’m sure I meant “seal”.

I like poker and I can kick your ass at it.    Try me.   One day you’ll see me on the tour on TV and you’ll be all like, “Hey! There’s Karen Rivers, I used to read her blog at ispuddle dot com and it ruled!” Or something like that.

I drink rum and eggnog for one month out of the year.    I love it until I’m sick of it and then I can’t stand the idea of it again until the following November and then I love it again. Right now the idea of eggnog makes me throw up into the back of my mouth, but it’s only May. Probably by November, I’ll really want it again. Not sure what brought that up. Maybe just writing this has made me crave alcohol.

This is really less about ME and more just a list of things I like. Oh wells. Carrying on:

You know what I really like? Public speaking. No one likes public speaking. But I do. What does this say about me? I could just be some kind of attention whore. Not an actual “whore” but someone who likes attention. Publicly. I couldn’t think of another word for that, so I used the word “whore”. I wonder how many Google searches are going to misdirect people to this page now. I feel badly about that, except not really.

The way that the sun shines in the living room window of this house we can just barely afford (see: money, not enough) makes me want to curl up like a cat and nap.   Cats actually scare me to death.   Those eyes!   The way they look right through you! So really what I’m saying is that I’m tired and would like to have a nap in the sun, not really anything to do with cats at all. Which I’m allergic to, by the way. And any amount of sneezing at this point in my life wreaks havoc on my back, which is just another reason to scream and run when a cat so much as looks my way with his/her beady devil-eyes.

I like reality TV of the kind that everyone says they never watch, but someone other than me must be watching or it wouldn’t still be on.    You know who you are. I will be blogging The Bachelorette this season, which starts May 18. Mark your calendars. I still think that Jason Mesnick can probably be blamed for most of the world’s problems. Because he is a douchebag. Perhaps the biggest douchebag in Bachelor history, which is saying something, because that show has really featured a lot of douchebags.

I drink whole fat milk every day. A giant glass. I think skim milk scares me almost as much as flying. It’s BLUE. I don’t understand it. Fat is good for you. Not processed fat, but good old milk fat. It is. It will give you essential acids and a smooth, sleek coat. I swear it. Consuming good fats will keep you thin. I am not a nutritionist, I just pretend to know what I’m talking about.

I don’t know how to do a cartwheel. I’m just waiting for the moment in my life where that becomes a problem, like I’m in a situation where I could save the world but because I can’t figure out how to make my legs leave the ground, the world will fall into ruin. Could happen.

I’m pretty happy.   I’m a pretty happy person, I think.    It’s taken me a long time to get here, to this good place.    I hope to stay a long, long time.

Thanks for coming by.    You can e-mail me if you want to say something nice at i dot spuddle at gmail dot com.

Smooches.

*Other Random Fears Not Mentioned Elsewhere In This Post: great white sharks, tiger sharks, really any sorts of sharks, heights, bungee jumping, my children being kidnapped or in any way hurt or even slightly dented, cancer, death, cats. (I know I already said that about cats, but I thought they deserved a second mention.) (They are that scary.)