Really, Internet? Yes. Really.

February 2, 2016May 9, 2016Heather Christena Schmidt 4 Comments

Today was errand day. It’s one day a week: Monday. We pack all the errands into that day so that we can avoid leaving the house the rest of the week. By the end of even a moderate Monday errand day I’m exhausted, crabby, and unwilling to tolerate anything. And that’s like two stops.

Today’s Monday errand day included nine stops spread over two cities. It was terrible. A terrible Monday errand day.

You can imagine, then, how I felt about getting home to find that another infuriating thing had gone viral on the Internet. I should have just not gone online. After errand day the only thing I should do is pop open a bottle of wine and cuddle up with my Netflix. But I was waiting to hear back from someone about this art show I’m doing in March, so I just wanted to check.

And so I got mad. Monday errand day mad.

No less than six people on my Facebook profile had shared this picture so vile and awful, I almost fell speechless. On the surface it seems like it’s just supposed to be some funny meme. A funny meme from well over a year ago that a random group of people just happened to pick up on, and has now gone viral. Really, it’s a silly thing to get so mad over. I mean it’s got this bland cartoon of a woman and this quote of supposedly-sage advice “always remember, it’s better to arrive late than to arrive ugly.”

But is it really silly to get mad about this? I would argue this thing raises some serious issues.

Am I The Only One Who Doesn’t Give A Shit About How I Look?

Don’t get me wrong, I still bathe daily and brush my teeth. And sometimes I throw on a little mascara, or put on a cute hair clip. But beyond making sure I don’t look like a homeless person or a drug addict, I basically don’t give a single fuck about how I look.

That goes for what I wear too. 90% of my wardrobe is yoga pants, tank tops, hoodies, and oversized t-shirts.

And why should I live any way other than this? Worrying excessively about how I look is an indication that I care too much about what others think of me. Again, it’s all about the time and place too. Obviously I’m not going to wear my yoga pants that are torn up at the feet to a wedding. Clearly I’ll pick and choose when it’s appropriate to show up with a unibrow (actually it’s never OK to show up with a unibrow). But at the risk of sounding sanctimonious, what kind of an example is refusing to leave the house unless I look perfect setting for my kids?

And plus…I have two kids. Once you have two or more kids, there is a different standard by which all things are judged.

If people are truly comfortable and confident in high heels, pants that need pliers to be zipped up, and 70 layers of pancake makeup, well kudos to them. I’m not sure I believe it, but kudos. That doesn’t change, though, the weird feeling I get when I know there are people out there who will actually refuse to leave the house for any reason at all without them.

Am I The Only One That Thinks Being Late To Apply Mascara Is A Little Narcissistic?

I mean…

Being late because there was a traffic accident on the freeway? Acceptable.

Being late because your aunt died and your uncle called to give you funeral details as you were walking out the door? Of course this is cool.

Being late because you wanted to finish your morning beauty routine before leaving the house? Well fuck you.

No really. Fuck you.

I have a serious problem with people that show up late. I understand that things come up, and I have been late more times than a lot of people, I’m sure. But I usually have a decent reason, and moreover I always – ALWAYS – send a text or call to say “hey, I’m running late.”

And it has never – NEVER – been because I prioritized my hair products or my lip liner over the respect whomever I’m showing up late to deserves. I mean really: isn’t it a little self-centered to think that your beautification is more important than another person’s time? They can just sit there pulling their pud while you apply false eyelashes?

Am I The Only One Concerned About The Messages We Send To Our Kids?

There are three symbols on the bottom lefthand corner of that dumb meme: a high heeled shoe, a lipstick, and a lipsticked-set-of-lips. Each of those symbols represents one very important idea: hiding who you really are. Making yourself taller. Tinting your lips brighter. Puckering those babies fuller.

Changing something about yourself, and then going a step further and calling an unchanged self “ugly.”

When I read that, over and over again as I scrolled through my Facebook feed and saw all the people that had shared it, I felt the nagging, unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach that comes up when I read something I just know is wrong – like the moral kind of wrong.

But then I Googled the phrase: “Always remember, it’s better to arrive late than to arrive ugly,” and tons of alternatives of the meme came up. It’s a colloquialism, something we have adapted as a way of life.

Maybe I’m just being old fashioned, or too hard on a silly joke intended for the sides of make up bags, but this seems to reflect a bigger problem our culture has. That what is on the outside is far more important than all else, and that respect and common courtesy is disposable if you can think of something better to do.

Really, Internet? Yes. Really. At least if you believe what the memes say.

It’s Time We Get This Out In the Open, and Just Have the Talk About Baby Showers

July 9, 2015May 10, 2016Heather Christena Schmidt 3 Comments

I’ve kept my mouth shut about this for SO. LONG. But I just can’t keep it shut anymore. I consider it to be hazardous to my health to hold this in any further.

If, through the course of this, I in some way hurt your feelings, I wish I could apologize. But I can’t. Instead I’m going to say as nicely as possible: if, through the course of this, I in some way hurt your feelings, you should probably take a look at your behaviors and adjust them to display a little more class and decorum when it comes to your baby showers. Or, in short: sometimes the truth hurts.

There, I said it. I started the ball rolling; no stopping now. It’s time we get this out in the open, and just have the talk about baby showers.

I’ve been to a lot of baby showers, and parties about or for babies. Sometimes it feels as if this is a punishment we women in our 30s are given as some sort of universal, karmic retribution for our prior behavior. Every time I made out with my boyfriend while babysitting as a high schooler is paid back with a terrible, tacky, and – quite frankly – disgusting baby shower now.

Don’t get me wrong, I love celebrating my friends and family and their new additions. But as with many things in life, there is a right and a wrong way to handle it.

Wrong Way: Not Enough Food

I guess I’m becoming the minority on this point, because it happens more often. Granted, I typically can’t eat the food at any of the baby showers (or other events in general) that I attend, because I eat gluten free and people still don’t seem to grasp the concept that more and more people have dietary restrictions.

But I’ve witnessed it. I’ve seen the rage in people’s eyes when they see they’ve come to a baby shower, bearing a gift hovering around a $100 value mark, to find there was nothing being offered. They’ve taken their Sunday afternoon or Saturday morning, when they could have been doing something else entirely, and brought that gift, dressed up in a flowery dress and high heels – and in return there wasn’t even a decent deviled egg or potato chip with ranch dip to be found.

I recently went to a baby shower where everyone was saying they were doing appetizer-type food. Pick-me-up food, so they could avoid having to set up the sit-down tables usually required when you serve a sit down meal. This way people could mingle – it would be spectacular! All anyone would talk about for the months preceding the shower were these fucking appetizers they’d be serving – it would be the appetizer party to end all appetizer parties.

Well then the mom-to-be’s friends all flaked out at the last minute, and it morphed into mostly a family party. Which she had no interest in. So no one gave a shit about the appetizer party anymore, or mingling for that matter; and it turned into a “give me presents and get the fuck out of my house” kind of event.

Oh, it was so tacky.

By the time eating the appetizers actually happened, people quickly realized that all they had was a small plate of Costco sandwiches, a small plate of vegetables, and approximately 7 deviled eggs. The guys in the other part of the house even had better food than the actual baby shower had, and fire shot from the eyes of the family members in attendance when this came to light. They weren’t even going to have a cake, until someone donated one – all in all, it was tasteless, tacky, and – quite frankly – transparent as to what the party was all about.

Right Way: Party Within Your Means

Now I get it, not everyone can afford to throw a huge party with the caviar on the side.

Can’t afford anything more than a cake? Then you need to have a gender reveal party in lieu of a baby shower so people don’t come expecting more. (And by expecting, I don’t mean people have particular expectations; I mean that’s the status quo so people will come hungry.) People will still bring you gifts out of the kindness of their heart, but they won’t be set up to get the impression that everything is about just collecting as many presents as you can.

Don’t have anywhere to throw the party comfortably with the number of people you want to invite? Well…move it to a restaurant, but only if you can afford to provide the meal.

Just yesterday I was invited to a baby shower that included both a copy of the registry, as well as the prix fix meal menu card with my bill.

Yes, that’s right. If I were to attend, I’d have to select what I wanted and send my check to pay for my meal ahead of time. I’m sure most of you won’t be surprised to hear that the registry items started at $200.

Honestly, if you are just interested in getting gifts, you shouldn’t have a party at all. Baby showers are supposed to be about a celebration, gifts are a side note – which is why the truly right way to handle a baby shower is to have one within your means, or don’t have one at all and just graciously tell people where you are registered if they ask about getting something for your new(est) little one.

Wrong Way: Being Gross

Everyone knows how you made the baby. We don’t need to talk about it.

Everyone knows baby diapers are gross and squishy. We don’t need to play games where you melt chocolate into diapers and make us taste it, as if we’re licking human feces out of an infant’s diaper.

And what is it with people’s more recent obsessions with talking about getting the baby out? I mean really. Everyone wants to talk about what their experience was squeezing their baby out of their v-hole. Baby cakes are now fashioned in the likeness of a woman birthing her baby, with words like “PUSH BABY PUSH” written in buttercream frosting around the trim.

And I think this giant vagina cake just says it all.

Right Way: Be Compassionate, Tactful, and Thankful

Babies are a really sensitive subject for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons. I think a lot of people have forgotten that.

Babies are also a really exciting time, which is why it’s a delicate balance. The bottom line is that no matter how well you think you know someone, there’s still a good chance that there’s something you don’t know.

One of your good friends may not be attending your baby shower because she just had a miscarriage. One of your family members may be struggling with infertility, and have a hard time doing much more than just coming, having a slice of your giant vagina cake, wishing you congrats, and leaving before the gift opening begins. The right thing to do is to be understanding of other people’s circumstances, even if you don’t know what those are.

But it goes beyond that.

You should never invite your ex-girlfriend or ex-husband to your baby shower.

You should never tell all of your family and friends of child-bearing age that your party to celebrate your future child is going to be “kid-free.”

And – this is a big one many people will disagree with me on – you should never have multiple parties.

I get that people have different factions of family-, friend-, and work life. You have a work shower and a regular shower…I’m not talking about that.

I’m talking about having so many different parties to celebrate your future child – a gender party, a baby shower for one side of the family, a baby shower for another side of the family, a work shower, an introduction of the new baby party… all of a sudden you’ve thrown four, five, maybe even six parties, crossed invites all over the place; and in all the hubbub, forgotten to invite people that should have been invited, and moreover you haven’t thanked those that came to each and all.

Ultimately, I think that baby showers have become the new pre-wedding experience. It’s one last hurrah, one last fling, one last “it’s all about me.” But what people are failing to realize, here, is that once you’re pregnant, it’s not about you anymore. It’s about your family, the life you’re taking care of, and the community and system of values you’re bringing that child into.

An Open Letter To My Husband, Regarding Our Home

February 13, 2014February 13, 2014Heather Christena Schmidt 6 Comments

Just the other day, I went to my husband’s work. I don’t often go, but when I do I always like to move things around. He works in film, so they have a lot of equipment – I especially like to fuck with that stuff. I make sure to spill things all over the machines and not clean it up. I move the chairs around, and the fixtures. Then I fill the refrigerator in the break room with crap that’s just for me, even though I go in there – maybe – once a year.

I’m just kidding. I don’t do any of that. I also didn’t go into my husband’s work the other day. That would have required me to drive all the way there, and have a reason or will to see him during the workday (which I don’t, on either count), and to wear pants and a bra – just way more than I can handle most days.

I think my point was made nicely, though.

Each of us has a space. My husband’s is his place of employment; mine is our home.

And yet while I would never – not in a million years – dream of going into my husband’s space to move shit around to suit my fancy, make a huge mess and not clean it up, leave things in a way that sets others at an inconvenience, and break things without repairing or replacing them, time and again he does this to me.

Well this lady just can’t take it anymore. I’ve had it with working my ass off for it to all be undone, and for all of my own downtime being taken up with cleaning up his shit. I’m issuing him one more, final and public warning.

Dear husband. Dear, dear, silly husband.

I think it’s “fun” how you fill the refrigerator with so many beverages it looks like a frat house on the eve of a kegger when you open the door to get – oh, I don’t know – some food. That’s a lie, no I actually don’t think it’s fun. I don’t think it’s fun at all. One time my grandma looked in the refrigerator and joked that we clearly live on liquids. That day, no less than 75% of the space had been taken up with cans of beer, bottles of beer, Soda Stream bottles with small droplets remaining, and approximately 36 bottles of Arrowhead water. With literally no room for food, this requires me to cook more often and grocery shop almost daily.

Fuck eating, we’re drinkers right? Wrong.

Yesterday, as with most days, I cleaned. For four hours. Three of those four hours were spent simply putting things back where they go. I put the throw blankets back where they go on our bed. I draped them over the unfortunate wear of the bed frame, versus where they were – folded up at the foot of the bed, implying they had been used (those are not for use) and exposing those scratches on the frame. I also rearranged all six of the throw pillows on the couch that cost $40 a piece, and yet are routinely treated as seat cushions and stress balls, squished and mashed out of shape while we watch movies in our living room.

Fuck having nice things, this shit’s for mashing and folding up right? Wrong.

Then there are things I think are just typical man, careless macho crap; though ironic since you are one of those LA hipsters that doesn’t like to be pegged a “typical” anything. Like when I go to take a shower and get sprayed in the face upon turning it on, because you can’t be bothered to remember to switch the water from sprayer to tub. Or when I clean the house only for you to spill food all over the bar table twenty minutes later while eating your dinner. And not clean it up, just leave it there in a pile of olive oil and pasta, bread crumbs and my forgotten dignity. And then there’s that whole tracking leaves in the front door thing, every fucking time that door gets opened.

Fuck respect for others, this place is your stomping grounds right? Wrong.

What I’m saying is that when I spend about 4 hours of each day in the kitchen cooking, over three different and complete meals, the last thing I want to do is look at a disgusting pile of olive oil, bread crumbs, and bits of pasta that fell from your mouth, sitting there on the bar table.

What I’m saying is that I would like to vacuum once a week. Not daily because leaves got tracked in and then stomped all over the living room.

I am so tired of our nice things being completely destroyed and left as is, as if once you have used and consumed everything you then will just leave behind a wasteland of broken furniture and damaged decor, and we should all just be totally OK with living in a trash dump.

Because let us not remind you of that temper tantrum you threw when I decided to turn our two, broken dining room chairs into a makeshift dining room bench that doesn’t look broken and dilapidated.

Being a Stay At Home Mom, especially in your early 30s, can be a very stressful and isolating thing. We don’t get time with other moms quite like we’d like to. Or even just other adults. We don’t get to leave the slop and the slovenliness behind for 8 – 10 hours every day either. We have to sit in it, breath it in, see it all around us. If everyone, at the very least, would just wipe up the mess they leave behind – the toothpaste out of the sink, the crumbs off of the counter, hit the button in the shower, flip the shoes off before walking in the door – maybe four hours of cleaning almost daily would be cut down to two; freeing up more time for me to escape for a little bit in a book.

Let me be a little clearer:

Oh, I’m sorry. Did my opinion offend you?

June 6, 2013Heather Christena Schmidt 20 Comments

Tough shit.

Last week I posted this photo that I found on EpicFail.com of a cat that’s owner had covered it in make up. A few people noted feeling a little disturbed by it. Someone else told me that she hoped a herd of cats mauled me while I bitch.

Note that I said “…of a cat that‘s owner…” as opposed to “…of a cat whose owner…” You know why? Because cats are not people. They are animals. Filthy, disgusting, rancid, disease-filled animals.

That’s just my opinion.

Now as for putting makeup on the cat, it didn’t look like it was all that disturbed to be dolled up like that. In fact, it sort of appeared to enjoy the attention. It wasn’t – like – chained down or anything. It was of a healthy weight and its hair had a nice glow (indicating it is well taken care of). If it had appeared to be abused, that would be a different story. While I do like to distinguish the difference between animals and people, I also can respect an animal as a living, breathing thing. But really … the cat looked a-OK with the makeup. So I saw no problem with it.

I’ve pasted it in above, do you? I mean really. Let’s keep things in perspective here.

And yet it turned into a direct attack on me, and lost me a whopping 20 blog Facebook followers, because I included the note that I actually hate cats.

As for owning cats, while I wish all of them were nuked off the face of the earth; and I do see a moral dilemma with domesticating any animal meant to be in the wild – in the end I say: to each his own. I respect other people’s rights to their feline friends if they so desire. But that isn’t going to make me love cats. As horrifying as the thought of me hating a kitty-witty is, I actually do and feel I have good reason. My mom was bit in the neck and sent to the hospital once by her cat of five years; and I am so seriously allergic that on more than one occasion my throat has started to close from a cat rubbing against me.

But what do I get for it? What? Courtesy? Understanding? Fuck no. I can respect all of you for loving your cats; but then I in return have a herd of psychotic, mauling cats wished upon me for having a different opinion than all (some) of yours. Gee, this seems fair, doesn’t it?

I think this is a bigger problem.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I think that there is very little respect anymore in our culture. Maybe around the world it’s different, but in American culture – and especially in the community in which I live – it seems to be waning.

A great example: RSVPs. This last year I have thrown so many fucking parties that I didn’t want to throw: birthdays, dinners, funerals… you name it, I threw it. The only thing I asked everyone for was an RSVP. Let me fucking know if you are going to come. You know that I am going to cook up a gala of a meal. You know how hard I fucking work to make my house look nice when people come over. You fucking know that it is a thorn up my asshole every time someone doesn’t even acknowledge that I invited them. You know goddamned fucking well that after throwing all these parties for everyone and everything else, I didn’t even get a fucking piece of cake on my birthday.

And yet there is so little respect for other people and their time and effort and planning to pick up the goddamned phone and say “sorry, I just can’t make it” around where I live. Or maybe it’s just no respect for me. In truth, I’m starting to think that’s the case.

Fuck that.

I’m throwing one more party this year and then I’m done – forever: a baby shower. It’s in the Midwest, though, and etiquette is a little different out there. People that plan on not coming actually let you know. Some of them even call and apologize, rather than just sending an email or RSVPing “no” on an event site. I hardly know what to do with myself after years of assholes being so rude.

There is very little respect for other people, other people’s feelings, and others’ opinions anymore.

Opinions Are Like Assholes:

Everyone’s Got One And Some Of Them Stink.

I don’t know why everyone always gets so up in arms when I say the following:

Opinions are like assholes: everyone’s got one and some of them stink.

What is so offensive about that? It’s a case-in-point fact.

One of my favorite undergraduate professors once told me that: sure, everyone has an opinion, but that doesn’t mean all of them are right. This is a big issue in philosophy, and it’s called relativism. Anybody who’s anybody in academia knows that relativism is a big, fat, crock of shit. Allowing relativism is how you get people like Hitler mass-murdering Jews; and psychopaths like that Batman Returns killer, just last year in Colorado. It was just their opinion that those people deserved to die! Baseball players believe it’s OK to use performance enhancing drugs because they believe the rules are stupid. They all had a right to their opinion, right?

Sure, everyone has a right to their opinions, but it doesn’t mean that their opinions are (a) actually the correct or accurate or morally OK option, or (b) that they have an inherent right to act on them.

And on the note of opinions, I think people take opinions too personally. I have never seen people so offended than when I say that I hate California. I do! So sue me! A lot of people do. Just because I’m honest and don’t bottle up my feelings doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. Instead, though, a lot of the people I know who take personal offense to my feelings about the Golden State spend all their fucking time trying to invalidate my feelings and tell me why I’m wrong for having them. Which brings me to one last issue…

Cultural Narcissism

I think one of the biggest problems with our contemporary, American culture is that we have somehow come to the belief that everyone is experiencing things exactly as we are. So often I experience with people in my own life and my own community others forgetting that everyone in this world is living a different life, with a different situation, a different financial standing, a different upbringing, in a different time period, with different parents, under different circumstances, and along the lines of different health issues beyond their control.

Clutter in the house makes me feel physically sick. It stresses me out. It creates more dust, which I am terribly allergic to as well. My husband doesn’t get that and just keeps adding more and more clutter, because he fails to recognize that I am different than him. Along the same vein, I am deathly allergic to cats. And no matter how many times I say that, people very close to me absolutely refuse to understand why I would not like them. They have a hard time believing that I could dislike something that they love – they love it so everyone must love it, right?

Wrong. We all are entitled to our own opinions, just like we all have our own lives to live. Oh, I’m sorry. Did my opinion offend you? Well isn’t that too bad. Unless you are living in my shoes, in my life, with my problems, with my money, with my family, during my time, and encountering everything that I encounter, you kindly can keep your own comments to yourself.

I say put makeup on all fucking cats. And if that makes me deserve a group of psychotic, mauling cats, so be it. At least I went down being honest, rather than acting like a little bitch who’s too afraid to speak the truth for fear of the wrath of others. But then again, the wrath of others really is the problem, isn’t it?

Good News! The Porn Industry Is Coming To My Town!!

March 27, 2013March 27, 2013Heather Christena Schmidt 4 Comments

So we ran a couple of errands tonight. Those errands included: dropping a frozen turkey off at my dad’s house for Easter Sunday, getting the guinea pig birthday presents for his first birthday (coming up this Monday), and to CVS to get dish soap.

I know. Big night for the B(itch) family.

As I was pulling out of the CVS parking lot, my kid started screaming in the back seat. “Naked!!! AHHHH!” she screamed, and I slammed on my brakes – not really knowing what the hell was going on, and thinking there might be some emergency. Or maybe Ryan Reynolds was visiting our community, and walking around topless. A girl can dream, right?

To my dismay, I saw what she was referring to. Outside this breakfast cafe (which was closed at the time, it being around 7:30 in the evening), there was a grown man getting dressed. He was naked, except his tighty-whiteys. In a public parking lot.

Indeed.

Things are starting to get a little weird around this place. There’s more of that kind of stuff out in public. That whole Korean Hooker Hostage situation went down at my nail salon last year. Kids are doing drugs in our apartment parking lot. And that guy with blue hair last week said I was hot at the Souplantation. So I guess after seeing the guy getting dressed in the public parking lot, it seemed only natural for me to come home to learn that the porn industry is vying to move into the community.

Apparently some months ago the city of Los Angeles passed a law requiring porn stars to wear rubbers when they’re filming their dirty BBW, SBW, MOM, MILF movies. Since then the “industry” (if you can call it that) has been seeking out a new, local hub of operation to take its sales and property taxes. But city after city is creating this “cover your manhood” law, so my town is next in line as the potential successor to the throne of Ron Jeremy.

The weird thing about this is that the small community in which we live is just about the exact antithesis of what you’d think as the new “porn capital of the world.” Probably 90% of our residents are over the age of 90. The other 10% are inbred hillbillies lacking much education. This means that if the local yocals try to get in on all the money-making that is to be had in the porn capital of the world, there will be a lot of senior citizens and rednecks trying to market their homemade movies on the street corners. Just great. Cletis Goes Wild At the BINGO Hall.

Has the Blogosphere Become High School All Over Again?

March 24, 2013March 24, 2013Heather Christena Schmidt 19 Comments

Short answer: YES. Long answer:

I wrote a blog about six months ago called “Are Bloggers Becoming Mean Girls?” In it I argued against the notion that bloggers are cliquey. I had seen some bloggers complaining about how they couldn’t seem to “break in” to the mom blog, and other blog community, cliques, and for this they felt a great injustice. In the post, I started by saying:

In high school, I hated the cliques. Now when I think of them I think of Mean Girls with Linsay-the-trainwreck-Lohan. When you have cliques, you have backstabbing. You have cheating. You have a load of gossip. You have more drama than a daytime soap opera. And you have people being excluded for no reason other than that they aren’t “cool” enough, by whatever standards of “cool” the clique collectively determines. I have a hard time believing that bloggers have become Mean Girls.

Either I was terribly wrong, or things have changed. A lot. Today – over six months after writing that blog – I believe more than ever that bloggers are the new Mean Girls. In fact, I know exactly who could be slated as the main characters (although I’ll keep that opinion to myself).

Let’s examine how my opinions have changed.

#1 Good versus Bad Content

In my post six months ago, I argued that maybe it isn’t really you or your blog, per se; just that you were not one of the more popular blogs because you had an absence of good blog content. And this is perhaps the most compelling reason in my mind now for proof that the blogosphere has become high school all over again: there is more bad content out there than my mom’s supply of edible panties.

It’s just like in high school. The meanest and ugliest girls were always the most popular. The douchiest guys with the worst acne were co-captains of the football team.

Sure, when you give access to a portal of information sharing to anyone and everyone, you’re going to have gads of bad content. But I’m not just talking about your run-of-the-mill crap that never gets around. I’m referring to the truly bad content that gets thousands (dare I suggest millions?) of hits. That everyone knows about. The bad content that people “like” and comment and share and find witty, in spite of its over all dryness, lack of whit, lack of insight, and glaring grammatical errors.

Here’s the deal: if you are going to call yourself a writer, be one. Only post what’s good. Get the opinion of others (and by that I mean objective others, not your BFFs) before you just assume that anything coming out of you is the next best thing to bars of gold. If you think you’re a writer, prove it with good spelling and appropriate grammar, and nipping your verbosity problem in the bud once and for all. Make sure everything you write about has something to do with your overall point. And for God’s sakes, make sure your blog post makes at least one ounce of sense.

Otherwise, you’re just another pimply captain of the football team, or mean girl wandering the halls of high school. You may be popular, but in the end your blog is nothing but garbage.

#2 Lying versus Honesty

I think that when I wrote that post last year, I was terribly idealistic as to the nature of the blog community. I suggested that your blog may not be that popular because you are dishonest. I really believed that truth prevailed in the world of the blogosphere – as if it is not merely a microcosm of the world at large, where the only people who truly prevail are those whose words uttered are rarely truth.

In high school, everyone creates themselves and others through a series of lies. That’s how the gossip train starts as well. In real life, we’re all supposed to transcend beyond all this lying bullshit and to achieve our successes off honesty.

How infrequently that happens – in life, as well as the blogosphere.

I know a lot of big gun bloggers that lie through their teeth, so much so that there is probably little truth to anything they say. It’s one thing to be anonymous or to change characteristics of people for safety and fairness and such. It’s another thing to fake celebrity endorsements. To claim site statistics that the public record on Alexa shows are clearly false. To say you write for all these different sites, when in fact those sites wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot poll.

To call yourself a writer.

Not to get too uppity about this, but there is actually a criteria for calling yourself a writer. Any old blogger is not a writer. For one, a writer of fiction and Fox News has the liberty to lie. The rest do not. For two, a writer writes good content with attention to rules of writing – as mentioned in point #1. (And to those you unaware, yes: there are rules of writing.) Without some attention to these things, some honesty and brevity, a blogger cannot call him or herself a writer any more than I can call myself the Dalai Lama or Mother Theresa.

Well they can, but it would be a lie.

#3 Gossip and Exclusion

What I’ve learned more than anything over the last six months since writing “Are Bloggers Becoming Mean Girls?” is that the blogosphere (at least the parenting blog blogosphere) is loaded with gossip and exclusion. Really great blogs are excluded all the time – and I can’t really put my finger on why. There is a lot of “you pat my back, I’ll then turn that back on you and pretend we don’t know each other” as well. I see it all the time, and is another thing I spoke to the contrary six months ago.

And the gossip is worse than high school. In high school the gossip hurt – don’t get me wrong, it did. People said I stuffed my bra when my boobs grew overnight. That hurt, but it went away eventually. I got over it. One time a friend of mine was dating another friend and a gossip train started that she was cheating on him. That caused some drama in our circle of friends; yet, perhaps more mature than some of the adults I know in the blogging community, as a group we talked about it and it all worked out.

Not in the blog community, though. Here the gossip runs rampant. There is no end to it. There are no resolutions. So and so is doing this to screw everyone else. This writer is stealing content. That writer is not giving us proper credit. God it’s awful, and everywhere – email, Twitter, and the ever-ominous Facebook updates that are meant to be vague, but cause such a ruckus you start to wonder what the point is of any of this.

Courtesy of FriendFace Town … for more of their satire on all the weirdness on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Friendface-Town/484841884903320

Here’s the thing about blogging: it’s a double-edged sword. Everyone can do it. But then again, everyone (with a computer and an opinion) can do it. There is a lot of bad stuff out there. There is a lot of good stuff out there too. There are popular blogs, sure; but there are no cool people. As a fellow blogger, or just a reader who likes information other than what the mass media puts out there, take a step back from your old-favorites and take a look around. Falling for the bad content and the lies, and narrowing yourself to a small group for no reason other than you don’t know any better, makes you nothing more than a bleating sheep. For every bit of crap you fall for, day in and day out, there is a world of awesome out there, just waiting to be discovered.

Destroying Your Carpool: A Tutorial

March 18, 2013Heather Christena Schmidt 6 Comments

Be it a carpool for work, extra-curriculars with the kids, vacations, school – you name it, there are a lot of reasons people carpool. If everyone in the carpool is on the same page, it’s great. But for every carpooling success story out there on the Internet, there are about ten times that in horror stories. It’s as if these people are actually hellbent on destroying their carpool from the start; or, they just don’t care about anyone but themselves.

I’ve mentioned a few times, both in recent blog posts and on my blog’s Facebook page, that my husband has been in a carpool from hell for a little over a month now. What made the situation that much worse was that my husband just thought it was the next best thing to my vagina and a bowl of pistachio-flavored ice cream. The woman he was carpooling with was in the exact, same sector of the film industry as him, so he just lapped that shit up like a lost puppy dog wandering the streets in search of anything. I imagine that every day they sat there and just blew their editorial, industry bullshit up each other’s assholes the whole way to and from work (well, that is when they actually carpooled on the days they were supposed to carpool). I fully believe at this point that were that woman single, I would have had something to worry about. Maybe I still did (or do). That is the depth to which Poor Nick seemed to be taking this relationship, and what he was willing to sacrifice to maintain it. In the end, the carpool is no more, though. Too many things stacked up against their woe-begotten arrangement, which has led me to throw together this little tutorial on how to destroy your own carpool.

Because that bitch didn’t just destroy their carpool. She dropped a fucking nuclear bomb on it.

Let’s go step by step on how you – too – can lay waste to your own carpools. We’ll use film industry ass can lady as our tutor.

Always Show Up Late In the First Leg Of Your Carpool

Doesn’t matter what you are carpooling to, if you want to fuck your carpool up worse than you fucked up your marriage, just always show up late in the first leg of your carpool. By “first leg,” I mean the “to” part; so if you are driving to work (for example), I mean driving there.

Never let the other person or people know you are running late either. When you get there twenty minutes late, act as if there is nothing wrong with you being late.

Film industry ass can lady was the best at doing this. Once I had to use my husband’s car when mine was in the shop and she knew we would be sitting there waiting – half asleep and waiting to go back home – and that bitch showed up twenty-five fucking minutes late. To make matters worse, she was disheveled and her kid was in the car with her. Which leads me to our next lesson in destroying your carpool …

Expect Your Carpool Mates To Run Your Personal Errands

I always thought that no matter what a carpool was for, it was totally tacky to run errands and shit while your carpool mates are in the car. Say you are carpooling a group of kids and their moms to a soccer game. Would you stop at Ralphs and pick up some bread on your way there, then pick up your dry cleaning too (I mean, it is on the way..)? Fuck no, you wouldn’t run your bullshit errands while you are carpooling. It’s rude and reeks of the notion that others have nothing better to do with their time but sit in the fucking car for no reason.

So film industry ass can cunt lady would sometimes have my husband go along with to drop her kid off at school. Happy fucking family that they were: dropping the daughter off to preschool and waving good-bye on their way to pursue their illustrious careers in film industry ass can cunting. I asked my husband where the fuck this lady’s husband was, to which I got no response.

Indeed. Run your fucking errands into the motherfucking ground if you want to destroy your carpool.

Never Do What You Say You Are Going To Do

This must be a film industry thing, because my husband often does not do what he says he is going to do either. I mean with regards to me.

They agreed to meet at the carpool point near her home on days that she drove, and at the carpool point near our home on the days that he drove. He drove a lot of fucking times. I mean a lot. She met at the carpool point near our home once. He went to her every other fucking time.

If you want to bury your carpool, never do what you say you’re going to do. If you say you are going to meet in one place, meet in another. If you say you are going to leave earlier, leave later. Always expect others to cater to you when you don’t do what you said you would do too.

End the Carpool Day By Expecting Everyone To Wait For You

At the end of a long day, I think the last thing I ever want to do is sit around and wait for people. At the end of a long vacation, the last thing I want to do is be delayed in getting back to my regular routine too. I could go on with every scenario in which one might carpool; you faithful blog followers get the point. The real surefire way to destroy your carpool like film industry ass can bitch cunt lady did is to always make people wait for you at the end of the day.

This bitch was so ballsy about it. She’d just show up forty-five minutes after they were supposed to leave, and act like there was nothing wrong with it. Once it was an hour and a half. The worst was when she kept telling my husband to wait for her until it ended up being two hours after the work day ended. He got home that night at 10:15. Family? Household responsibilities? No such thing can exist or be considered for anyone in the carpool, if you want to destroy your carpool.

In the end, the real kicker was that driving to and from this woman’s work in city traffic from my husband’s work, as well as to and from her home since she could never make it down fairly for him, added our gas bill up to such a point that he spent more money on gas in the month he carpooled than in the months he drove himself. Between the extra driving, and the many times she just never showed up, this was the end of this cuntly behavior affecting our lives.

He has yet to tell her she destroyed the carpool. They are off carpool this week and he is probably coming up with ways to justify continuing to do the carpool anyway. I’m sure he’ll blame me, like he always does. Not to emasculate my husband, but he doesn’t really seem to even want to have the cajones to be honest with anyone. But me, of course. If it were me he would have told me I was a film industry ass can bitch cunt face and that the carpool was off on the second day (which is another blog post altogether).

If you want to destroy your carpool, I highly suggest you follow that broad’s behavior, with her nappy ass hair and her disrespect for anyone’s priorities other than hers.

Good riddance, carpool!

48 Hour Technology Strike

January 24, 2013Heather Christena Schmidt 4 Comments

Keep track of my strike time at http://countingdownto.com/countdown/223092

I’m going on strike. Not from a job because – I think we all know – I don’t work. I mean I work at the most thankless job on the planet (housewife and SAHM), but there is no monetary compensation for that.

Yet.

No, I’m going on strike from technology. For the next 48 hours I’m ditching my cellphone, laptop, and iPad, and I think you should too. Here’s why:

#1 There Is A World Outside Your Cellphone

I just have had it up to about my eyebrows with sitting at dinner with people that spend the entire time texting and BSing on their cellphones. My husband is notorious for doing this; and the most egregious part is that he’s just scrolling through his apps doing mundane updates that are entirely unnecessary. It’s so rude, and reeks of the implication that the only world that exists to the people committing this etiquette faux pas is within their cellphone and computer. That the world in which I am – sitting across from them at the table – does not exist when the world of technology is around.

There is a world outside your cellphone. And your computer. Not getting Facebook updates is manageable, dare I say – not a big deal.

Just today I read an article about the growing problem of Facebook addiction, in which it was reported that as many as 1/3rd of people that were interviewed admitted to experiencing feelings of envy when viewing photographs and other updates of others on Facebook. This implies a number of things, but as for this point I think this has a lot to do with the fact that some of us think there is no world outside of Facebook.

Do you faithful blog followers actually believe that life is as wonderful and exciting as it appears to be for some people on Facebook? Every photo is from a party; therefore life is a party? Every update is positive, fun, and full of excitement; therefore nothing bad ever happens to the people on your Facebook page? Nonsense! The only reason why people post on the social networks great and wonderful and awe-inspiring news is because it’s looked down upon to report anything real that happens. People call reality “bad” and “negative” – two words that have been demonized by our terribly childish social network culture.

There is a world outside of your computer. A real world. A world where you are not alone.

#2 Capturing Photographs Is Not the Point

Recently I realized that I spend more time capturing some moments than actually experiencing them. A blogger, I’m constantly trying to shoot things that can be used for my blogs; but now it’s leaked into every aspect of my life. Yesterday I snapped over twenty photographs of my car being towed. The experience from beginning to end was captured on photograph, and yet when it came time to recall the tow truck driver’s name today when AAA called to survey the experience, I had no idea. The guy really went the extra mile in taking care of us and I was so focused on my own photographic evidence that I couldn’t even take the time to learn his name.

The point of having a good meal is not to capture a photograph of the food. The reason for going on a hike is to get exercise, fresh air, and experience the outdoors. I have friends that have so many photographs of their experiences that I wonder if they even would remember what happened if it weren’t for the photographs, much like I can’t recall the tow truck driver’s name.

And is a memory not sufficient anymore to prove that something happened? Take a picture of your kid at this park, then that park, then this other park, then another. We get it! You take your kid to the park. We would have believed you if you just said it once. 7,000 shots a day of the kid running in the grass gets old. Really old. This isn’t to say that the kid isn’t cute, or the food doesn’t look as tasty as you describe it.

It’s just that technology is replacing even our most intimate moments and experiences.

#3 Technology Really Makes Me Hate People

And lose respect for them. This person didn’t respond to an email I sent in due time. A text message got ignored. People didn’t “like” or comment on my blog.

How many times have you Tweeted someone for them to never respond? How many times have you followed a blogger only for them to ignore you, as if they are too “big” to follow back?

The list of Internet etiquette grievances is a long one – not just mine, but the conglomerate list of all the billions of people using the Internet regularly. Sometimes it makes you hate people to be connected all the time. It makes you hate how not everyone operates by the same standards you do. And it makes you loathe the ways in which they think and act – from political posters on Facebook, to people that use their cellphones and computers as a way to bully; technology has just made it easier for the whole of humanity to act like assholes.

While I am definitely a fan of general misanthropy, I get too angry when I’m online too much.

#4 I Need a Break From Web MD

I need a break from Web MD. And the news. And Google flu trends. And Sickweather.com. I’m such a hypochondriac, with a glaringly unhealthy level of OCD, that I am obsessed with what’s going on around, who has which diseases, and whether or not I have [insert obscure, unlikely disease here].

I need a break from all that nonsense – I wash my hands; cover my cough; and avoid sick people. How exactly does checking up on where people are sick in my area every day make us any more safe? Am I going to avoid running errands because a few people Tweeted that they had the stomach flu in my area? No. No – we still need milk, eggs, and bread.

But it’s also a matter of not just health, but of the news. This is another thing my husband is horrible with – he is obsessed with the news, and occasionally I am too. It isn’t just one article on something that happened, or a study that was done; it’s all of them that show up in the Google News Aggregate. While I don’t think it’s good to stick our heads in the sand, sometimes shutting it all off is for the best. There is nothing I can do about the fact that North Korea issued another threat to the United States. The fact that emergency room visits from energy drinks have increased by 47% bears absolutely no effect on me.

Obsessing over all of these things is just another way that technology has a hold of our lives, just as in the case of cellphones leading us to believe there is no world outside, and photography applications robbing us of having actual experiences.

Realistically, 48 hours off technology is nothing. I still remember a day when I never used a cellphone or a computer. When I never used a computer – oh what I would give to say I still did that now. What I would give to be able to say that any of us could be successful at anything without all the advances computer and cellular technology can offer. Sure, my Klout score may go down about a point from being offline for 48 hours. I may offend someone much in the way I have been offended by not responding soon enough to an email or a text message. But think of all the things that can come of unbinding myself to the chains of my technology. I don’t even know what the next 48 hours holds. It’s kind of exciting to know that they won’t involve a cellphone or computer.

The real question isn’t “why should I do it?” though. It’s “can I do it?” Can you?

STFU Fridays: Rude Comments

January 11, 2013Heather Christena Schmidt 11 Comments

Ugh.

That is a new thing in our house. Everything that is disliked, annoying, arduous- just about anything distasteful – begins with a big, long “UGH.” It started when Pookies didn’t want to do chores and just started flopping around the floor going “ugh, why do I have to do that?!” From there, the trend began, and it seems now it’s every other word out of all our mouths. “I have to put away the dishes.” Ugh. “The laundry needs to be folded.” Ugh. “What’s for dinner?” Ugh.

I’m sure you faithful blog followers can imagine that rude comments, on all fronts, are met with the unhappy groan in a big way. This week’s STFU Fridays is devoted to them.

Rude Comments on the Blog … Ugh

Being a blogger is the most bullshit job there is, I think. Sure, it’s cool to have a place to vent in a no-holds-barred way. Yeah, the community of bloggers is awesome. Will I ever stop doing it because it’s bullshit? No way.

But man are there a lot of dicks on the Internet.

At least once a week, I get a comment on an old post or my About Me page. I have come to emit the “UGH” right off the bat when I see it in my email, simply because it always means one thing and one thing only: someone is attempting (in an anonymous, chicken shit way) to call me an ugly, nasty, dirty, miserable whore. Some beat around the bush and say I’m childish because I stand up for something I believe in. Others go below the belt and tell me I’m a slut. There is also the group of comments that I just know are from my husband’s family and friends (most of whom very much dislike this bitter cup of tea).

To all of them: shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up, or at least grow some balls. I have never had a rude blog comment come with an actual identity. You know, someone that has the guts to actually say their name and real email address? Because with a real email address, we may actually be able to talk it out. Sometimes people just got offended by something I said, or misunderstood me – that would be remediable if only we had a real identity other than “UraCunt@fuckyou.com”. But then I’m sure anyone that calls me something like that, or says that I “look like someone gang-banged your face and left you for dead to put you out of your ugly, slutly misery” may not be in the mood to smooth things over.

Rude Comments on Facebook … Ugh

Have you seen anyone post rude comments on Facebook? I see it all the time. In fact, I see it so often, it’s a wonder I haven’t bled to death from biting my tongue in an attempt to preserve friendships with people I am slowly, but surely, losing respect for.

One such rude comment is this eCard that goes around regularly about how Facebook is not your diary. That is the rudest fucking comment anyone could make – be it directly or indirectly. Facebook is whatever-the-fuck people want it to be. If someone wants to blather their shit all over about their drama and their life and their various issues, just who the fuck is anyone else to tell them that they are using the social network wrong? If you don’t like it, don’t look at it! And shut the fuck up!

Ugh.

But it isn’t just a comment in a card like that. It’s everywhere. The other day I saw someone post that a girl with no money is made even uglier than her taste in clothes. What the hell? Yesterday one of my friends felt it necessary to qualify her complaint over her Facebook status with an entire paragraph about how she doesn’t usually like to complain on Facebook. In the comments, someone made some rude comment about how she’s “become one of those.” I could go on with these anecdotes for days.

It is as if all of our social barriers have gone away, and rudeness is the status quo. Shut the fuck up.

Rude Comments in Person … Double Ugh

I deal with a lot of rude comments in person. For those faithful blog followers that work in customer service, deal with assholes on a regular basis, or are surrounded by people that feel it their duty to let you know on a regular basis all the reasons why your existence in this world is wrong (I fall into this latter category), then you will really get this one.

Lately I have felt very criticized. Everyone in my family seems to be having a really hard time not telling me why every step I make is wrong. “This needs more…” “You did this wrong…” “Way to screw up…” “You aren’t cleaning this right…” “You folded that wrong…” “Why did you do that the wrong way…” and so on.

In the last week alone, my husband has implied I am a bad mother, told me I really am a bitch; and my father has questioned and argued with my decisions as a parent no less than eight times. Don’t even get me started on my Trailer Trash Mom – UGH, I know.

A few weeks ago, we had guests over for dinner and I was told that I went to college and graduate school to “do nothing.” That apparently spread around the family, and on New Years Eve I was reminded of the rude comment. These types of things occur in our house (directed at me) every, single day.

People that make rude comments like this in person need a big punch in the gut with a shut the fuck up fist. Life is hard enough without some trollish a’hole making things more contentious and miserable.

So, faithful blog followers – I implore you to ruminate on this one a while. Because as I wrote, I realized a few times in recent history that I too could have been construed as having made a rude comment. I mean, I’m called The B(itch) for a reason, right? If you are a rude commenter, please join me in shutting the fuck up. And for Christ’s sakes, stop calling me a cunt on my About Me page. This Friday’s STFU will be meaningless if we don’t.

Heather Christena Schmidt

I like my dogs. My kids? Not so much.

Tag etiquette