this woman’s work

You are browsing the archives from 2007 October.

If I make him one I’m going to make it password protected or something. And I won’t link it here. I’d like him to have the writing practice and he’s interested in learning html.

I’ve been thinking about blogging a lot as I work on this paper I’m supposed to present. The title is: “Someone Else’s Shoes: How Dialogue On-Blog Impacted a Real Adoption” (I’m pretty sure I mentioned that here before — forgive me for repeating myself!) I’m writing it about Jerome Bruner’s theories that we make things true by putting them in narrative form. (Read more about that at that wikipedia link.) I started getting interested in this when I was writing that article on forgiveness and I started talking to one of the interview people about journaling and infertility because I’d read this study about how women who used journaling to talk about their infertility used those stories to make sense of the chaos of what was happening to them and that this changed their actual experience. And then we got to talking about journaling being a therapeutic tool. When I hung up I started thinking about how blogs don’t seem to necessarily be therapeutic for every infertility blogger and then I thought that it’s because blogs have comments and so the narrative shifts in response to those comments and this is why I think some infertility bloggers can sometimes feel more stuck in their infertility than someone who’s journaling alone.

Anyway, that made me think about how blogging has impacted my own adoption story and I know that specifically that it was hearing from first moms (then called birth moms on my blog) before and after Madison came home — particularly in that first year — that strongly influenced my story. So this week I sat down and thought hard about that and how it’s changed me and how it’s changed how this adoption has played out. My thesis is that if writing a narrative constructs reality, then having a blog invites other people to help you construct that reality. It’s been true for me anyway.

Now doesn’t that sound like it might be interesting if I actually get it written in time?

The trick I’m having is that I’m only talking about that first year because that was before I was really reading any first mom blogs (I believe that many of the first parents were blogging on LJ — I may touch on that). I want to strictly focus on how the realization that first moms were reading me changed my thinking and then to specific bloggers who challenged me a lot that first year. Since my argument is that writing narrative — not reading it — creates reality, I’m focusing only on my blog and my commenters.

(I wonder if it’s kosher that I just blogged all this? But in the interest of constructing my reality — and my paper — I needed to get it down here, too.)

I made it match up more to the cards I had printed up with the butterfly hands and stuff: Open Adoption Support

Tell all your friends!

Yesterday I met with MaryB, the woman who runs DamesBond.com, about joining her board. She’s making plans to expand what her networking group does and she’s putting together a board of complementary women to help her make it happen.

I’ve only been to a few Bond events but I liked ‘em. MaryB has lots of energy and excitement and a passion for helping women gain the confidence and expertise they’d need to build their business. But I was hesitant because you know, I’ve only got so much time and there are already some other volunteer-y things I’m doing and I’m worried about getting overwhelmed. But her vision is so compelling and she knows how busy people are so she’s working on things she can do to help the board build their business through their work with Dames Bond.

She’s got over 700 women who subscribe to the newsletter announcements right now, which is amazing. So I said, to heck with it, yes. I’ll do it. So far, frankly, it sounds like fun socializing with some work added on and I really like the energy of the group. It reminds me a lot of working at the shelter because it’s feminist by default, casual and opinionated. That feels very comfortable to me.

Hey, did you know that Columbus is the 15th largest city in the country? Allyo told me that a couple of months ago and then I heard it again during the mayoral debate. I just thought I’d mention that.

That’s what someone said to me the other day. This is a woman I’m just getting to know — a strong, smart, funny, passionate woman. She’s generous and bold and someone to admire. She’s also an adult adoptee with a story that’s hard to hear and probably harder to live.

I was talking to her about her great store of optimism and her resiliency and I said that this was a commonality I’d started to notice among adoptees of my acquaintance and I wondered out loud if this was coincidence or a true connection.

“Well,” she said. “The worst thing that can happen already did so then you know nothing else can be so bad.”

We talked more about adoption (and about a lot of other things) and then she bought me a cupcake to take home to Madison. It was chocolate-chocolate with a cherry on top. I told Madison, “I met a woman today who has a birth mommy, too, and she’s adopted, too and she wanted to share this cupcake with you.” And Madison said, “Thank you” then cut slices for Brett and Noah.

It was a nice lunch. I feel lucky that I’m getting to know this woman better for a lot of reasons and hearing her adoption story is just one of them.

I love wordpress. I think of all the blogging software out there it’s the best, most supported, best-looking and most configurable but man, the last two updates? Hell. Of course I don’t have to be as update-happy as I tend to be, especially since every time I update I lose plugins that haven’t caught up. So why not just stay stable? Oh well, I am what I am and that’s someone who upgrades more than she should. At least I’ve learned to back-up although I haven’t yet learned to back-up right before the update. (The update I used to fix things here was from the 23rd, thus the lost entries, which I still have hopes to find and reinstall.)

All my business is catching up with me and I woke up with a terrible earache. I need a day off but I don’t think I’m going to get one for at least another week or so. I might try to lie low a bit tomorrow but I still have a lot of writing to do.

By the way, I wrote about the Polly Pocket debacle over at AntiracistParent.com for this month. Head on over to check it out — I’m diving back into wordpress to fix up a blog for a friend!

You may notice some really screwed up things while I try to fix it. I upgraded to wordpress 2.3 and lost all of my categories. Fortunately I’d backed up my blog — last week. So I reinstalled the older version of wordpress, dumped and reinstalled my database then imported some of the lost entries (but not all) and upgraded again. These last two wordpress upgrades have been awful but I think part of the problem is that my blog is so damn big. I kinda wonder if I shouldn’t break my blog up into smaller blogs or something — like a purely archival blog. It’s six years of nearly every single date updating and it’s unwieldy. Meanwhile, please have patience with the mess!!

During my downtime today at the job that was temporarily mine I got a whole bunch of notes for the paper I’m presenting. I feel a little less worried about it now and am taking the comments to heart about not fretting too much. Also, my career isn’t riding on it and I’m not trying to get tenure so I’d say that it’ll all be ok.

I used to think I’d be a good academic but then I realized that I’m a terrible gossip and an environment like that would be terrible for me. Same goes for small town living. I have very romantic ideas about both but to do well at either of them I’d have to be another person entirely. Sometimes I wish I could be that person — gentle, patient and kind — but then who would be me? I do such a good job of it! I’m pretty sure no one else could nail it quite as well.

(Madison wants to play first and since Noah is on some web site and ignoring me, she’s going first.)

Madison: I want … I like to go to get suckers. I like to go swimming. I like to go to Ruby Tuesdays and get mints. I like to go get swimming days from preschool. I do like to go stealing the controller [for the television]. I like to go and have sippies to eat. I like to go eat water bottles!

(I typed while she talked. Now I’m going to interview Noah and hope he can grunt meaningfully.)

These questions are from Raising WEG and I’m just going to type his answers, whatever they are and hope he doesn’t need prodding.

1. What are your thoughts or ideas about the new curriculum?

It was difficult at first but now it’s easy. Sometimes it’s boring and that’s pretty much it.

2. What’s different or the same about having your dad home, especially when it comes to school?

It’s easier because sometimes he helps me. There are still good lunches. That’s it.

3. What are you most looking forward to, this year?

Being done with school!

Well, I’d say that Noah gave it his best effort considering that he had a game open on the computer and limited time because he only gets two hours of screen time a day and he was anxious to get to it. I apologize for his rather dull responses!

I’m sitting in an office like a real person. I’m wearing a blazer. I’m trying to look busy and awake and interested, just like an actual person with a job. It’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live here.

Pros:
–Clean office.
–No 3-year old invading the restroom.
–All the coffee a person can drink just steps away in the break room.
–Lots of pens! (The pens at my house seem to grow legs and run away from my desk.)

Cons:
–Must wear bra in office.
–No 3-year old to chat when one needs a break.
–No handsome husband to serve coffee.
–Pens can’t come home with me.

It’s bright and shiny out but breathing recirculated air makes for a change (and here I breathe deeply — ahhh! there’s nothing like the smell of air that has no smell!). Also the stuff I’m doing is fun/easy. One of the things that I didn’t know before becoming a Professional is about styleguides and how some people want you to write 10am and some people want you to write 10 a.m. and some people prefer 10 AM. There are meeting about this stuff and don’t be fooled — it’s vital to the well-being of the account. I find this interesting because I’m of the camp that both thinks these things really do matter but is amused that they matter and that people (like me) get paid to talk about it, read about it and correct it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have Very Important Work to do.

BMI Charts illustrated over at Shakesville brought to you through the tireless blogging efforts of Jennifer Niesslein. (Seriously, you have to go read it!)