A Sad Story About Blogging, Pride and Internet Spam

So, I keep a real blog, in addition to this secret blog, and it is about boring family things, and read primarily by family people, who love seeing additional photo evidences of parties they know they went to and Christmas gifts they know they gave.

The things we do for the people we love…..

Anyway. So. I did what any self-respecting boring family blogger did and went on some XML exporting site and downloaded my whole blog as a PDF and HAD IT PRINTED, HOLLA.

Actually, it was my mother’s idea. She said, and I quote, “Honey, I think that you should print out all of your blog posts in case the internet crashes.” WHAT??

But because she’s my mother,
AND BECAUSE I LOVE HER SO SOOO MUCH,
(and because, who am I kidding, it makes me giddy to read my words on actual white paper with actual standard binding),
I had that book printed up and gave my mom a copy and watched her grin for two weeks
(AND WHO AM I KIDDING AGAIN, I WAS GRINNING TOO FOR THE WHOLE TWO WEEKS).

Okay so. That’s the backstory.

When I got the book, it was beautiful, and it had everyone’s sweet comments on it. It had the comments on blog posts back in 2006 where some boy I was pretty sure I was in love with happened to stop by my site and left an eloquent comment that left me in the clouds for days (I think it was, “Cool post!”). He posted anonymously, but I knew it was him because I tracked the IP addresses regularly; to my dismay, he only visited once, although I blogged with him in mind for a year….or three.

It had all of the comments from my relatives, saying how much they looooooooooved the pictures. At the end, they would always tack on one of the requisite post-scripts:

You’re so pretty, I can’t believe how much you look like your mom!

Your Great-Great Grandma Betty was a writer, too; she would’ve been so proud of you.

I can’t believe you hold down a job AND blog, you can do anything!

They knew that adding one of these three on the end would be sufficient inspiration for me to keep blogging, and since I’m a sucker for compliments…..

It had the comments I added to my own blog: OH I’M SO SORRY GRANDMA I FORGOT TO PUT THAT GREAT PICTURE OF YOUR GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE! And, OH HI COUSIN TJ, SORRY I CROPPED YOUR HEAD OUT OF THAT PHOTO! And other disclaimers designed to keep the peace up in these parts.

But also.

I had forgotten that I have open comments on my blog, and shall we just say? ALL OF THE SPAM COMMENTS EVER POSTED ON MY BLOG MADE IT INTO THAT STUPID BOOK. I never bother to delete the spam comments because, seriously? None of my relatives care. I don’t care.

But now that it’s a book, and now that it’s on our shelf, and now that people can walk in and be all, ‘OH, NO WAY, YOU HAD YOUR BLOG PUBLISHED????’ as though they’re suddenly interested in tracking my blog although I’ve had the link posted on my Facebook for one billion years but still only receive an average of .02 hits per day, and then they start perusing and – WHAT OH MY GOODNESS WHY IS JANE BLOGGING ABOUT VIAGRA AND RUSSIAN MAIL ORDER BRIDES AND WAYS TO TRICK THE IRS INTO FORGIVING YOUR TAXES??

I have had to scribble a disclaimer in the front of my poor blog book, and it seems that no matter how many times I open that book up to peruse it at nights when I want to feel happy about my writing abilities, all I see is (and yes, this is an actual comment that was left on my blog: enjoy):

 

By: Anonymous

I sell a boat-program which will help you to outwit auction and to win, initially the boat was created for the

Scandinavian auction http://internet-aukcion.ru/ but now the program can work with similar auctions: gagen ru,

vezetmne ru and with ten.

The program-boat stakes for you, i.e. for this purpose it is not necessary to sit constantly at the monitor. The boat

can set time when it is necessary to stake, thus you as much as possible will lower expenses for rates, and as much as

possible increase the chances of a victory.

The price of the program a boat for the Scandinavian auctions 20 $

For the _rst 10 clients the price 15 $

To all clients free updating and support.

Behind purchases I ask in icq: 588889590 Max.

 

 

 

P.S. DON’T WORRY, I VERIFIED THE IP’s AND THIS ANONYMOUS IS NOT THE SAME AS THE OLD SEMI-BOYFRIEND ANONYMOUS.

An Update On Jane

A Report: I have been unsociable and unlikely to keep company. I haven't written anything important in over eight months. Boss took me out to the desert last week and I was laughing in the wind with my hair everywhere, and I thought that if I had food and water I could have stayed out there forever. I suppose this means that I am growing up, or maybe that I am only becoming an otherworldly creature who will eventually metamorphosize into a nymph and disappear. Either way, I am very happy. I will try to blog more; I will, I will. 

On Prodigals

The Moving Finger writes, and having writ

Moves on, nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line

Nor all they tears wash out a word of it.

 

-Omar Khayyam, trans. E. Fitzgerald

 

It befalls me to announce that my childhood friend, whom we’ll call Barbie, has come back to the Fold. In the years since high school, while I have gone on trying to do good, she squandered her teenage years in blonde ponytails and string bikinis making out with Orange County boys in a series of never-ending bars, going from one forbidden fruit to the next. God rewarded her binge-drinking, rebellion, and dishonor to His name by bringing her to Himself, and in the last year she has become a rather unstoppable force of Christlike Love & Peace, AMEN.

It seems selfish to follow up the theatrical astonishment of this story with a complaint, but I have a rather grievous one and it is this: Barbie's miraculous salvation was followed fairly immediately by any number of astonishing rewards. Everybody accepted her back with immediate and total forgiveness; they trusted her; she acquired an incredible boyfriend (who is the next Hudson Taylor I suppose) and who has oodles of charm, handsomeness and money to go around; she gained sudden relief from several physical quirks making her as beautiful outside as she is becoming within; and on top of that she got a new job, four vacations, sixteen or so maid-of-honor gigs, and God. I have been struggling to rejoice with her, even as I fellowship with her, but this week in Church I somehow stumbled upon Luke 15 and was rather amazed to read about me:

 

And he answered his father, "See how these many years I have served you faithfully,

and never in all of this time have I ever dishonored you or violated any of your wishes,

and yet never have you given me a calf so that I can make merry with my friends,

but as soon as your son comes back, who has squandered your money on

prostitutes, you have thrown him a party and given him your best."

And his father said, "Oh, son. You are always with me, and all that I have will

be yours. It is appropriate that we should celebrate your brother's homecoming;

be glad, because your brother was dead and now he is alive; he was lost, and now he is found."

 

The Bible never says what happened or how the brother responded. How do you respond, when your dad says that the thing your brother missed most was quality family time? I know that staying is not the same as coming back. I know that. But how should I react when Barbie lost mostly fellowship with God? It is the cry of my heart some afternoons -- like this one -- Why, God? Why do you let her disrespect her family and you, burn her bridges, give into sin, stray, and mock You, only to reward her with the restored friendships, the spectacular boyfriend, the eager converts? I am struggling to rejoice with her. I am trying to invest, to choose to be glad for her, and I am.

But I do so wonder what the older son did. How did he enjoy that calf and that supper?

 

I Wish I Could Make You Less Single

A boy I know got married yesterday.

He was one of my favorite men from my youth, when I trotted off to some other state after high school and did disaster relief work and found out about the world.  He was one of the brightest, friendliest, funniest, most well-spoken men I have had the privilege of knowing. We didn't know, really know, eachother and there was certainly no romantic spark because I never like popular boys and because when I was the house-marm at the disaster relief center all of the girls were madly in love with him and I was sworn to secrecy in exhausting long midnight talks and whatnot. But he was a good man, a really good man, and anyhow he married this girl who was about six feet tall with everlasting little legs and some work undoubtedly done to render her especially resplendent, and when a photographer friend of mine blogged the photos she was paid to take at their wedding I marked the post as "Read" immediately because it was discouraging to me.

I feel happy these days, because for better or worse I am surrounded by a little group of people who for whatever reason need me. I feel lucky working for my boss, who encourages me to wait for the right guy and who in the meantime tries to make my life as full as possible. I'm lucky to have a family who believes that I am reasonably good at everything I put my hand to, and a network of friends who with very few exceptions invest more in me than I have opportunities to invest in them. Therefore, I want to be clear that I am not complaining. I am sad, though, because I have a growing number of friends who seem to have been promised any number of things that aren't true. Everybody always said that if you had a beautiful soul everybody would notice, and I have so many thirty and forty year old friends of average looks and glistening personalities who have never even been asked out on a date. I am sad for them because none of what anyone said helped them, and because when it comes down to it, having a beautiful soul doesn't mean anything if no one is fated to come along.

 I am so sad, so heartbroken, for these multitudes of girls who have lived good, unstained lives in honor of the men that they will never meet because the best men command the attention of the prettiest and the most enchanting.

 

How A Text Message Made Me Doubt That I Am Ready To Get Married

My friend texted me that her cousin had had an anorexic "episode" shortly before her wedding, after a lifetime of struggle with anorexia, and had left the wedding before the cutting of the cake due to a fainting incident.

Let me just say: I had NO IDEA HOW TO REPLY.

See, here’s the sitch: It is my immediate thought to display my boorish insensitivity by saying that anorexia, fainting episodes, and the like are silly and theatrical because there is no medical helplessness surrounding grown women who decline sustenance, and because furthermore such women are acting primarily for an audience. I think spells, especially fainting ones, are designed to solicit pity, reassurance, flattery and approval. We are likely to be universally less interested in our own persistent self-doubt than we are in another's opinions, and for this reason public and private spectacles are only further manifestations of the anorexia.

But what do I know? I feel uncomfortable even thinking these things; they make me suspect myself of intolerable insensitivity and lead me to believe that I am unqualified for friendship and all of that. I don't mean to disrespect poor Cousin Sandie (or whatever her name is), and I don't know her and I have no idea of what she has gone through; I'm just saying that she is representative of everybody.

I am not really sad that she cannot eat, because she has the tools (the wheat toast and the concord grapes and the shaved asparagus and the pulled pork) to fix it when eating is, of all the choices in the world, maybe the most obvious.

If I knew Cousin Sandie well I would hurt for her, maybe even ache, but when I got the text all I could think of was sadness because Husband John Doe is now responsible to Cousin Sandie for all of this. Marriage means that no longer is this her problem; marriage means that when Cousin Sandie is sick her husband is, for the rest of his life, inextricably linked to her problems and everything he ever does is either a contribution to her failure or a part of her healing.

Isn't that terrifying?

Isn't such weighty and inescapable responsibility a deterrent to marriage? My own imperfections, every single bad choice I ever make, will be my husband's problem, and I will share in consequences for all of his sins. It is so critical to marry the right person, but no amount of vetting can account for the devastation of fallen humanity. God's grace alone must sustain Cousin Sandie and Husband John Doe in these days ahead, when he married a girl who is in the middle of the worst of this sickness. I am sorry, because love sometimes hurts, and because hope is so important on the day of one's wedding.

Was that completely inappropriate to say? Anyhow, it made me doubt that I am ready for marriage.

 

How I Decided To Become A Mother Someday (And Possibly A Felon)

I am going to get an Asian baby. I am saving up my pennies, and one of these days I'm just going to get one. Asian little girls are all that is right with the world, and as long as one is orphaned, obtaining her is the Lord's Work, obv. So far my scouting efforts will be concentrated on Chinatown, San Francisco, where there has got to be some beautiful little creature being raised by angry lesbians. Since it is a fact well-established that one mother is gentler than two, and since it would be a clear battle of good vs. evil, I think that God would allow the kidnapping without the usual moral ambiguity of peacetime questions about lying under oath, impersonating a law enforcement officer, and rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's. If you spot a little Asian girl, preferably between one and two years old and surrounded by pretentious communists, please put me on notice. Who doesn't want to be the formidable white mother of a darling child who is genetically inclined to be skinny, brilliant, and very short? Like I said, I'm saving my pennies.