How to Keep Your Child Under Control: A Mommy Blog

My mom likes to praise herself that she never put me or my brother on a leash. The only reason I think that she mentions it so much is because in all truthfulness, she wishes that she had put us on a leash at some point. But should we put children on leashes? I would have to say that it depends on the child and their ability to not freak out in social settings.



For instance, a couple of summers ago I went to a summer festival with my friend to watch the band Ok Go. Since we had gotten there late, we had to sit on the grassy hill where a lot of families with young children were sitting as well. During the set, I happened to look over to an adjacent hill and I noticed a small child freaking out and running around with a small cow backpack on.

I love how the child leash makers like to lessen the blow that your child is being demeaned by making the leashes look like cute little animals, but I digress.

I pointed the child out to my friend and we both laughed as we watched the child’s mother chase her. At first, we did not notice that there was a leash attached to the cow backpack because it was dragging on the ground. The child had miraculously escaped her mother’s clutches and gotten the leash out of her hands (you go kid!).

But when the mother finally got the leash back something interesting occurred. Because of the tug of war that they were playing, the child running forward to escape and the mother pulling backward, my friend and I witnessed the flight of a two year old into the air . . . At the time we laughed because of the ridiculousness of the situation, but then my friend quickly said “Ooo, that’s messed up.”

This child probably was on a leash because she needed to be. You can only escape but so many times before your freedom is compromised with a fuzzy cow leash. Unless you know how to act civil and not run away every five minutes, the leash is an option to keep a mother sane. Based on that theory, I wonder what the oldest recorded age of a child being on a leash is?

However, there are people highly opposed to child leashes. They run campaigns on other Mommy Blogs that might as well be named: “Kids are humans. Don’t treat them like animals.” Or “Would you treat your child like a dog?” Apparently, Child leashes are a heated debate among the Mommy blog sphere. Just check out this segment from the Mommy blog, The Nut House called “Free the Leash Kids” http://talesfromafewnuts.blogspot.com/2010/03/free-leash-kids.html

I kid you not I saw a kid on a leash crawling around like a wild animal.
You'd think we were at the zoo or something.
We also saw a leashed 5 year old girl running at the end of her tether pulling her mom along.I bet the mom was wishing she had some rollerblades.

Oh disgruntled mothers . . .

Types of Blogs

I am trying to come up with a topic/theme for my blog. I want it to be something that will transport my readers into a figurative gray area. Somewhere where things almost kind of make sense and merge together, but they really don’t. You know? Something like a Meta Blog that comments on itself. So, what type of a blog will help me to do this? I could make my blog be a journal blog recapping the daily events of my life. A blog like that would go something like this:

Today I woke up, baked myself a pop tart because I don’t own a toaster, fed the fish, went to work, came home at exactly 3:330, read a book, laid on my bed, joked around with my roommate, went to dinner group, and did various night activities. The only problem with this type of blog is that my readers would most likely get bored. I do the same thing every day, exactly. You can call it a slight case of OCD if you want to, but it’s absolutely true. So, a journal blog may not exactly work.

I could write a venting blog—a blog that is eternally angry. This blog is the essential, I hate the world, I hate my life right now, people suck blog. I could come up with a few stories for a blog like this. As a matter of fact, today I just got my backpack trapped in the door of a city bus because the driver “didn’t see me get on.” She was not even apologetic at all and explained this to me as me backpack was still caught in the door as she drove off. She finally opened the doors and released me. I wasn’t so much angry about this incident as I was unaffected by it. Ridiculous stuff like that seems to happen to me a lot. You just get used to it after a while.

Angry blog is not going to suit a content person. I couldn’t keep it up, for sure. But, maybe I could make like a pop culture or music blog. Those are hip now-a-days, right? I could talk about the time that I listened to Beyonce’s Halo like ten times in a row in the family history library one day, mouthing the words and head dancing as I tried to make sure that no one else saw me. I suppose I could write about new songs and stuff and not my own habit of pressing repeat on every song I become obsessed with for a month . . . or more . . .

I’ve been reading a lot of the blog, Hyperbole and a Half, and I have become quite inspired by Aly’s use of cartoons to depict reality. This gave me hope that I am not the only person out there who likes to live their life in cartoon. The first time that I read it and saw what she could do with cartoons my face went




(Luckily I drew this picture and kept it for such occasions as this.) I could easily write a blog that incorporates cartoons to talk about the human interactions. I am a self proclaimed MS Paint master, after all. My Fb profile picture tells it all. But, until I can come up with a legit idea for a blog, I think that I will try some different types out just to see how they feel. What do you think?

Getting Followers

The heart of a blog is its followers. A blog strives and survives because of its followers and the more followers a blogger can get, the more prompted he or she will be to write. Blogging is essentially the act of writing for an audience. Most people blog because they want other people to read what they’ve said. I don’t think that any blogger can truthfully say that they just blog for the sake of blogging. If that were true, they wouldn’t have to put their writing into a public forum like the internet where anyone can see it. They want people to read it and to gain approval of their writing or artistic abilities from their peers.

Hence, bloggers gain followers by writing about a common interest or subject which many people can relate to. Here in lies the problem with my blog; here is the answer to why I only have six followers: No one can identify a common interest in this bile that I’m writing. But, let me tell you, it is hard writing for an audience, especially when you have no idea what you’re writing about. You want to keep everyone entertained and wanting to read more (what a burden, huh?)

So, it was not until recently that I decided that I needed to get more followers for my blog than the dedicated four that I had at the beginning of September. My blog is so sad that my own mother won’t even follow me and vaguely realizes its existence. You know how your mom is always supposed to be an unbiased, guaranteed fan/ follower of everything you do? I don’t even have that. So, you know I’m in a low ground of sorrow. So, to fix this ‘following’ problem, I enlisted the help of the internet. I asked the internet: How do I get followers on a blog?

The internet said:
1.Pimp Yourself Out to your friends- I recently got two new roommates. One of the first conversations that we had was about adding each other as friends on Facebook. I noticed that they each have a blog listed on Facebook, so I let them know about mine. After this conversation, I started telling people at work about my blog and at RS meetings. One day, someone will follow . . .
2.Work That Social Networking site- I put my blog url in that little “about me” box on Facebook. A lot of people even put that they have a new blog post as their status. I even got so desperate as to Tweet on twitter “Someone follow my blog, please : (“ that got me one more follower, thanks Jims
3.Barter and Trade- I’ve had to hold myself back from saying to a lot of people “The only way I’ll follow your blog is if you follow mine :p” I think that would be effective in getting followers, put a little pressure, you know?
4.Read Other People’s blogs- Apparently, some people with tons of followers have them because they read and follow other people’s blogs who they don’t even know. So, I started to do the same.
5.Make yourself searchable- So if I put something like WWE and talked about John Cena, or if I wrote about how much I love Kim Kardashian, someone is bound to look them up on Google and possibly find my blog and read.

I’ve been experimenting with this for like a week, but I did get another follower. Who knows? Only time will tell. My ultimate dream is to have 10 followers! : )

The URL

So, after I picked out the lovely name for this blog, Gray Area, Blogger asked me to create a URL so that my friends and other readers could find it. I think in the suggestion box they say something on the lines of “pick something that is identifiable.” Well, being the complicated person that I am, I decided that I could not have a blah name like ACL0888.blogspot.com or itsangelasblog.blogspot.com as a name for a blog. And even if I had decided to pick one of these urls, I’m sure that somebody else out there already claimed them as their own.

A lot of people blog. Apparently, in 2009 there were 126 million blogs on the internet! That is crazy . . . What’s even more crazy is that there are actually websites like blogpulse.com that actually record the statistics of how many blogs there are on the internet. Blogpulse.com even picks the top 40 blogs based off of links of other bloggers. I did not realize how much this phenomenon had grown in recent years.

I vaguely remember hearing about someone writing a blog while I was in middle school, but I didn’t think much of it. Back then AOL’s IM was the internet craze, and now we have blogging, and facebook, and twitter, and all that social networking stuff. So, with my aversion to technology, also came my ignorance about the increase of the blogging world. It has increased so much that when I tried to give my blog the URL grayarea.blogspot.com that it had of course already been taken.

Upon discovering this, I then tried different variations: grayarea0888.blogpost.com (TAKEN), thegrayarea.blogspot.com (TAKEN), thegrayarea1234.blogspot.com (TAKEN), thegrayareamass. blogspot.com (TAKEN), grayareacentralstation.blogspot.com (TAKEN). I may be exaggerating this a little, but you get what I went through? It was at this moment that I came up with a ridiculous solution. I knew that I wanted grayarea in the url, so I decided to make a url using my brother’s birthday as the numbers.

I was quickly told by my friends that no one would ever be able to remember, let alone find my blog with that url. So, I came up with the next best option, graysector.blogspot.com. It’s kind of similar to Gray Area, right? But the fact is, that still no one can remember my url anyway . . .

HTML?!?

Well, if there is one thing that these past four months have taught me, it’s that I am not a blogger . . . I already had my suspicions of this confirmed when I started the blog and began posting on it somewhat faithfully. The truth of the matter is that I had given up on this blog . . . I had given up on the Gray Area and blogging in general. Ouch . . . me writing that last sentence hurts even worse than voicing it to the four people that actual read my post. But, when I remember the exact night that I decided to give up, I can’t blame myself for throwing in the towel. When I think of that night, feelings of anger and frustration still remain.
Now, I remember what made me give up and want to throw my Netbook across the room—HTML. At this time, I would like to call your attention to the wallpaper and header of this blog. I would like to apologize right now if you are feeling slightly claustrophobic. You may also be experiencing feelings of nausea just as the Milky Way did when it vomited on this page. But, I really can explain what happened. That fateful night was the same night I found the star wallpaper. In the moment that I discovered it, I was so so happy because I really really really like stars (no joke).

I had already set up my blog several times before finding this wallpaper and I chose to use this artsy picture of a man standing in shadow/nothingness as a “cute” metaphor for the Gray Area theme. But, even though I found the shadow man picture, he just wasn’t right for my blog. I was always looking for a way to change it. However, when I found the star background I could not figure out how to get rid of the man for the life of me! I spent like an hour trying to figure it out and then I had the brilliant idea to go into the HTML, read the code, and fix the mistake.
I figured “how hard is it to read HTML?” At my job that past week, my supervisor sat in our staff meeting explaining to us all how to write in and read HTML. It looked easy enough when he showed us all the stuff like this




But really? What the heck does that mean? In order to solve the problem on my blog, I went to my internet source for everything, Google. I found that I was not the only person who could not figure out how to get a picture out of the header on blogger. The best response that I saw on Ask.com or something was “go into the display settings and look at the HTML. Then look for something in it that looks like it would be a picture.” How am I supposed to know what looks like it could be a picture out of all of that?So, I discovered that if I want to blog, I better get to work learning some HTML. This scared me because of my track record with technology. But, if I want to become a dedicated blogger, or at least try to be, I better start studying up on my HTML. Until then, can anyone help me solve my problem?

Blogging: The spontaneous flow of emotion

So, it took me about an hour to write my first post on this blog . . . When I told my friends to go and read what I'd written they said that it sounded a little too proper for a blog post. It's true though, I spent half my time editing and re-writing certain words and sentences in order to get some witty remarks in there. I was pretty positive that I am not the only one who edits their posts and that they were overreacting to my editing.

However, the other day in my English class a girl did a presentation on blogging in which she talked about how blogging is supposed to come straight from the heart; it's supposed to be unaffected and unedited. She also found that blogging improves a person's writing abilities because they know that they are writing for an audience. So, there's a trade off between edited writing and natural flow; there are benefits in each area for a person's writing.

This natural flow of writing reminds me of Wordsworth's idea of the spontaneous flow of emotion in the preface to Lyrical Ballads.In this preface, Wordsworth discusses the "correct way" to write "true" poetry. "He sees poetry as acting like Nature, which touches all living things and inspires and delights them. Wordsworth calls for poetry to be written in the language of the "common man," and the subjects of the poems should also be accessible to all individuals regardless of class or position. Wordsworth also makes the points that 'poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility'" (151). (http://www.wdog.com/rider/writings/wordsworth_and_coleridge.htm)


This idea applies to blogging as well. Blog so that people can understand what your saying! Blog about things that everyone can relate to! Blog for the natural man! Blog for ya life! So, I tried writing this post without editing . . . (I may have tweaked a sentence or two), but how did I do with the whole "spontaneous flow" thing?

The Blog Name Generator

So, I think that one of the hardest things about starting a blog is picking out a name for it. I had no idea what to call my blog, none. That is why you are all graced with the lovely title, “Gray Area.” I have no particular attachment to this name, but I thought that I could create some sort of ambiguous mood with it. So, if anyone has any suggestions for a new title, hit me up.

While I was looking for a blog name, I resorted to going to the internet for suggestions. Did you know that there are tons of Blog Name Generators on the web? It’s ridiculous. I have participated in web name generators before, just because. I have done several like, what would your sixities hippie name be—Rose Dawn Phoenix Dust and what’s your stripper name—Raine Bow. I have no idea how they come up with some of these words to put into the names.

So, I came across this Blog name generator out of desperation because I couldn’t think of anything good that day. I found a pretty good site that you should check out if you are ever in need of a blog name:
http://gzzt.org/pages/weblog_name_generator.php.

Here are some of the suggestions it gave me which caused me to name this blog, “Gray Area.”
Textual Page/notes
Grey Days
Nude Diary/Nude Loft (personal favorite)
Hobo Fantasies (what does a hobo fantasize about? I don’t know if I really want to know)
Cool Life (very original)
Bodacious Visions
Crooked Updates
Blank Thoughts
Bum Timer (How could someone live with themselves if they picked this name? Is this a bum to go with the hobo theme or is it your butt? Why would anyone have a timer on their butt?)
Sexy Days/ Sexy Updates (this is the hotness)

Those are just a few of the quality names that I found. If anyone out there can find another name generator with really ridiculous or good names, let me know.

Procrastination at its finest

So, I’ve done it; I’ve finally decided to start a blog. I have been thinking about starting a blog for a couple of years now, but I could never bring myself to do it. The creation of this blog acts as a rite of passage for me, I guess. Today, I have passed into the threshold from pen and paper into the digital age. This has been a hard transition for me to make in the past two minutes since I started writing, but bear with me.

I guess you can say that I’m a traditionalist. I have a slight aversion to following the trends of the digital age. I realize how sad this statement is because it’s not like I’m 65 years old and can’t even work a computer. But, I think that my aversion to the trends of the digital age started on the day that my parents decided to switch out our Beta Max player for something called a VCR.

I remembered being very confused on that day, or maybe I was just sad because I could never watch the Care Bears movie EVER again. I know that my brother praises that day because it marked the death of him having to hear those bears sing about “the Forest of Feelings” everyday. The digital age had betrayed me on that day.

I remember eyeing the first computer that my family got very suspiciously as well. It was a cheap IBM or something, but there are pictures of my brother on Christmas morning with his mouth hanging open with joy as I scowl in the background. Every computer we had after that broke down because they were cheap. And I started to reaffirm the fact that you can’t trust electronics, they always die in the end.
But it was on one of these cheap computers that I first discovered my love of writing.

At home, I have a lot of notebooks, and journals filled with writing that is most definitely blog worthy stuff. But I think the real reason that I haven’t started a blog is because it would just increase my growing procrastination. So, the lovely stories just offered to you are an example of not only the bile of my mind, but also of procrastination at its finest.