Bloguary

So ah, yeah. My audition tape is still in the works. That's code for, haven't filmed a single second of footage yet. But I will, I will! Last weekend proved a bit challenging, as I spent all of Friday night (the night I intended to shoot some footage, as I was in the most awesome mood ever driving home from work, singing along to the iPod) pouting about something so ridiculous, I cannot bring myself to even write about, even in hindsight, as it was that dumb. I spent the rest of the weekend apologizing to Roth for said lameness, and he did not read my Friday "hold me to it" entry until Sunday, so by then, it was too late. Next weekend, I swear. But! Good news to report! In an ironic twist of fate, the friend who suggested I take the sewing class with her dropped out, allowing me to take her spot. So she's out, and I'm in. Auf wiedersehen, Kirsten! Now I have to mentally prepare myself to be frustrated every Sunday evening for the next six weeks, as I'm fairly certain my propensity for allowing inanimate objects, such as thread, needles and bobbins, to get the better of me when they don't cooperate will likely rear its ugly head in this class. I keep envisioning miles and miles of tangled thread. Recently, I elected to participate in Neil's Great Interview Experiment. Yesterday I received a set of 20 questions courtesy RA, who unwittingly got me as an interview subject when she decided to play along, too. There are no hard and fast rules about how many questions we must answer or ask of our subjects (questions coming soon, Sara!), so while I love RA's plethora of questions, I feel like 20 is a bit much to tackle in one post. To make this easy on me (and you, my dear sweet readers!) I've divvied them up into three batches, the first part of which follows below. Parts two and three to come in subsequent days. Enjoy! *** 1. Why do you blog? I ask myself this very question almost every single day. I started blogging more than three years ago out of pure curiosity. Slowly but surely, I developed a decent following of devoted readers, which honestly, is one of the main reasons I keep doing it. There are days when I think, "Why am I doing this, does anyone really care what I have to say, I cannot write one more word." It's those days that someone, usually a complete stranger, comes out of the collective woodwork to tell me they like my blog, or that I've somehow inspired them, or best of all, I've made them laugh. It's then that my blogergy is renewed, and I can carry on. I also blog because it's so much easier to keep my family and friends abreast of our goings-on. And because, I love to write. 2. What are your most/least favorite aspects of blogging? I love the camaraderie between other bloggers, the little side conversations we have via e-mail. I love getting comments, good or bad. I love that there are people who think of me outside of my blog, like the one time a reader said she swore she saw Roth and I driving in a SUV in Ohio, of all places. I don't love the cliquey-ness between the more popular bloggers. It's turned into this elite thing, to say you know so-and-so for reals, or that you partied together at BlogHer, or that you also write for this site and that site. Maybe I'm just jealous, because I want to be part of that, too? Like, I want to be able to pay my mortgage from my blog earnings, which so far, are nil, zip, zilch. 3. How do your family and friends respond to your writing? Mostly positive, because I think it's entertaining for them, as these are the people who really know me, really get me. My MIL says she finds herself laughing out loud at our antics, and I love that! I used to worry about what my family thought about some of the more controversial things I've written about, like sex and religion, but not so much anymore. There was this time when some crude comments I made about Jesus-shaped turds offended my religious relatives, and I apologized via e-mail, but I had to explain to them that my blog is my personal space for me to say whatever I want. I think they respect that boundary, as it hasn't kept them from reading. I see their city come up in my tracker every couple days. 4. I have never tried a daily blogging challenge, but I'm fascinated that people take it up. What made you decided to take on NaBloPoMo last year? (and did you do it the year before, too?) Last November was the first time I participated in NaBloPoMo. I decided to do it for the personal challenge it presented - could I possibly have something to say every single day in November? Turns out I could, and it was fun, as I used my morning commute as my time to brainstorm what I might write about that day. Some days were better than others, yes, but I did it! 5. How was it dealing with the identity theft situation? Did you get a resolution? Ha! What a weird situation that was! After a series of several back and forth e-mails with the customer service department of the dating site (where my mug appeared attached to someone's profile as their own) wherein I had to send them additional pictures of myself to further prove the lifted picture was indeed me, I received an e-mail saying the situation had been "dealt with," and that they would take proper action on the offender. While it was mostly hilarious, there was a modicum of suspicion in my mind that it wasn't entirely random, but I don't want to go into that here. It's done and over with, and since, I've changed the settings on my Flickr pics so that they can't be lifted by trolls. Hopefully, that will thwart future thieves. 6. What are your five favorite posts? Oh man, this is tough. Definitely harder than choosing my five favorite Seinfeld quotes, or my five favorite movies, or my five favorite foods. Yikes. But if hard-pressed to choose, I think the following five nicely represent who I am as a woman, wife and blogger, in no particular order. This is the sound of Seattle-ing You are here I love my fiance, aka the one about toilet paper Divorce is difficult Karma, aka the one about spiders 7. What is the origin of your blog's title? (that John Mayer song?) Indeed, I stole the term from the John Mayer song "Why Georgia," long before people all over the world started searching for that term on Google. I would guess that half of my traffic comes from people wanting answers to how to deal with having a quarter life crisis, that period in your early- to mid-twenties, usually right after college where you take a step back and ask yourself, WTF? It was a serendipitous choice of title, because I never thought it would bring me so much traffic, and subsequently, lots of readers who stick around for the fun and games. Eventually I will need to change it, though, because I can't claim quarter-life status for ever, now can I?