It is well past the witching hour and I haven’t yet sent out my usual tweet about Twitter Vampires. Rumor has it that some of the dads that attended Mom 2.0 are still out trolling bars and or roaming the 9th ward. The bigger rumor is that there is going to be another attempt to put together a dad blogger convention of some sort. Don’t know why but this all makes me think of  The Devil Went Down To Georgia.
The devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind ‘cos he was way behind: he was willin’ to make a deal.
When he came across this young man sawin’ on a fiddle and playin’ it hot.
And the devil jumped upon a hickory stump and said: “Boy let me tell you what:
“I bet you didn’t know it, but I’m a fiddle player too.
“And if you’d care to take a dare, I’ll make a bet with you.
“Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the devil his due:
“I bet a fiddle of gold against your soul, ‘cos I think I’m better than you.”
The boy said: “My name’s Johnny and it might be a sin,
“But I’ll take your bet, your gonna regret, ‘cos I’m the best that’s ever been.”
Now I won’t ask how many of you started singing and or dancing along to that song because everyone knows that a true dad blogger is a sucker for such things. Just as most of us as are suckers for lists. If it wasn’t so damn late and I didn’t feel so damn lazy I would link to Dadcentric and Backpacking Dad’s lists- you know that ones about the best and sexiest dad bloggers.
Those were solid responses to the Top 25 dad blogger contest being run by Circle of Moms. You know the same contest where they had to announce that someone or “ones” had used technology to rig the voting. Yep, someone was so intent at winning a meaningless popularity contest they tried to cheat their way to victory. I guess that they must be Patriot fans, you know that whole spygate thing.
Anyway I signed up for the same contest and for a short time even had a badge/link on my sidebar. I did it because I figured that it couldn’t hurt to find another way to try and promote the blog. Figured that more exposure would be good and that I could use that to continue to build things around here.
And then I got tired of giving up that much space to a contest like that. Got tired of it because I heard through the grapevine that a few bloggers were talking crap about me. They hadn’t heard of me and assumed that I was new. Got irritated because I have been blogging  for far longer- not to mention that their oldest kid is in diapers and I have one heading towards middle school.
So I decided that unless we could meet in person and use a ruler to prove who has a bigger penis there was no point in engaging in a silly pissing contest. Did I mention that in high school they called me tripod? It is because I carried a camera everywhere. Really, get your damn minds out of the gutter.
But what it really did was serve as a reminder of a bunch of things:
1) Life is really freaking complicated right now. If I removed all boundaries from my blogging I would write a tale that would make heads spin. Some of you would cry and offer help and others would try to rouse the rest of the villagers and burn down my castle. Complicated contradictions I tell you.
2) These complicated contradictions are wearing me out. There are moments where I feel like I have an anaconda coiled around my waist, a tiger taking swipes at my head and a horde of angry gnomes attacking me. And then there are times where I laugh because my left hand has the snake by the throat and the sword in my right hand is handily holding off the tiger and gnomes.
3) I love blogging and the stupidity of caring about this sort of nonsense destroys that love. My best writing comes from not giving a damn about the readers. My best writing comes from sharing stories about parenting and telling tales that could be part of the books that I want to write. My best writing comes from sharing my tragedies and triumphs without regard for anything but the truth as I see it.
That truth as I see it is important. The people who are part of some of these stories might disagree with what I have written. Their recollection might differ from mine and I am ok with that. This is not a scholarly work or a historical document that is going to change the world if it is inaccurate in places. It is a blog. It is a collections of thoughts, feelings and ideas.
Two days ago I told my son that I don’t care what most people think of me. I told him that there is a short list of people who have influence upon my self esteem. If you aren’t on that list than I am unlikely to be interested in whether you like or dislike me. It doesn’t mean that I don’t prefer that people like me. Life is better that way. People who like you are more likely to work with you and that is important.
But I am not going to change my style or engage in shenanigans that aren’t things I would do anyway. I am still going to write about beating up Santa and turning the Easter Bunny into rabbit stew. I am still going to share stories about hard questions that my daughter/son ask and write fiction. I am going to ramble and post more frequently than six bloggers put together because that is how I like to do it.
And with that I am going to end this walk through the weeds.
I wanted to do that last year. Remove all the boundaries. But I couldn’t. Not because I was worried the MIL or my distant relatives would see it and say “oh her kids are as bad as she was” or that a child-less, teenager-less, family court judge would use it to pass judgement on me, but because I tested those waters, and a blogger i called friend, turned it around on me, and in her need to slam together a quick post about motherhood of teenagers, though she didn’t have one herself, used my posts against me to paint me as an awful mother. and one thing i’m not, i’m not MY mother. my teens had their issues last year, we’re all better for it now, a closer family, but my teens were in junior high, discovering love and easily influenced and because of this, my life became a living hell for 18 months. I wanted to share that. I wanted to let that horror out. I wanted to tell other parents how I worked the system to keep my kids when city officials were looking for anyway possible to load up on case loads to justify their paychecks. I wanted to share how we won that case. Won it. So other parents wouldn’t suffer the confusion and uncertainty that I did. But after that “bloggy friend” pulled that, I refused and I don’t think I ever can again. Don’t think I can trust to write about me again.
So I’ll blog to help my fellow bloggers and hopefully help myself continue to be a WAHM and I’ll comment on great blogs that are raw and truthful, like this one and enjoy the writing that I’ll never be able to do myself again.
Don’t hate me for saying this but it’s refreshing to see that the dad bloggers have the same kind of bullshit shenanigans (a great word, by the way—thanks for using it) going on that the moms do. To state the obvious, it apparently doesn’t matter if you’re a dad or a mom…we all fall prey to the same nonsense in one capacity or another. And for what it’s worth, you’re definitely on my list of top 10 dad bloggers 🙂
Well, thank you for the vote of confidence it is always appreciated. The joy of people is that we all have our foibles, faults and insecurities. It is nice to be recognized and appreciated. I won’t lie and say that I don’t get irritated sometimes by other blogs being more popular mine, because I do.
But I really don’t have that happen much. I try not to take it all too seriously, got more important stuff on my plate.
This is great advice, especially as I think about dusting cobwebs off my personal site. You’ve been on a solid roll for a while now – a must read absolutely. Not sure if that means more than getting some votes by a bot-program or not, but I enjoy coming back and reading. Thanks for sharing.
That is the sort of testimonial that money can’t buy and I mean that sincerely. Blogging has its ups and downs- not all that different than anything else. But if you enjoy what you are doing it is much more fun and in sincerely more valuable to the readers.
This was exactly the advice Sweet Juniper gave me this weekend.
Also, trolling the 9th ward wasn’t as glamorous as it sounded on twitter
Sweet Juniper- I thought that the guys weren’t talking about her in mixed company. You do realize that 17 people read this blog. 😉
Meh, I never took it seriously to begin with. Two kinds of awards I have an issue with: the ones they make you pay for and those they ask you to drum up votes for. I saw it from the beginning as a way to potentially have new people find my blog. Mission accomplished.
It’s like I always say (and Jack Burton agrees): it’s only the interwebz.
I love awards that they make you pay for. There is something inherently twisted about that and since I love sick/twisted how could I not want that for me. 😉
There are awards you have to pay for (aside from the ones where you have to pay with your dignity by shilling as hard as possible)? I had no idea.
Yep, some awards come from a big fat donation. Good times.
awesome post and that sounds great and all but the main list I wanna be on is the list of people my son and wife love the most
That is the most important list to be on.
Well, said. Thanks for reminding me to remove that button. Like you I started off thinking “what could it hurt:, but really became disgusted more and more by it as time went on. Yeah, a part of me started off wanting to be on that stupid fucking list, but I found watching it unfold a pretty good lesson in what I didn’t want to become as a blogger.
Since I am consistently working on building the blog and increasing exposure I made a point to sign up on that. I think that I hit it mid way through. I was vaguely curious to see how it would go.
I never expected to win but I won’t lie and say that I didn’t hope to get enough votes to be noticed. But the first thing that I noticed was how some of these blogs that I had never heard of had thousands of votes and relatively few posts.
So I figured that I was dealing with some social media superstars and just sat back and watched it all implode.
It is much more fun when I don’t take this stuff seriously so…
Agreed. I also think there have been too many posts about what’s wrong with dad blogging in the past few months, though. The voting rigging for that stupid Circle of Moms list, however? Utterly ridiculous.
The only problem with dad blogging is that we don’t do enough of it. We define ourselves. We provide the value, the reason, the support and the effort in and that is enough or it should be.
Unfortunately most of the bloggers out there (men and women) still have their feelings hurt from back during the playground days and are trying, yet again, to be the first picked.
I’ve seen so many bloggers embarrass themselves for the sake of a follower or comment that I’m nauseous (did I mention I’ve been doing this for about 6 months?)
I can see why so many people give up after 90 days.
And while I’m on it, I’d appreciate for parent bloggers to actually bring value to the conversation instead of complaining that little Suzie couldn’t sleep last night, that her husband isn’t going to get sex for a month because he left the toilet seat up again or using 4-letter words every other sentence.
It is really fun to read those posts about the stupid husband. Every time I read those I think about constructing a blog that is nothing but excerpts from posts about the stupid man. And of course I would link to the writer so that all who visited could see what these women think of the man they chose to spend their lives with.
A-fucking-men!
Blogging as a whole is generally so much better and more enjoyable when people get their egos out of the way. Pimping and gaming the system to win a blog popularity contest? Are you kidding me? That’s just freaking sad.
I’m discovered several years ago what you mentioned in this post; my best writing is when I don’t give a fuck about who is reading or anyone else. It’s truly liberating. Write what you want. Write when you want. That’s the beauty of blogging.
Keep it up, man.
I haven’t ever seen one of these contests not deteriorate into name calling and or other childish behavior.
Um ahem??
Ok, yours is the exception. 🙂
The best thing about DadCentric’s Best Dadblogger Ever contest – this year’s variation of my traditional April Fool’s post – was that there were more than a few guys who didn’t realize that it was a joke.
It was a joke??????
Damn you, Avant! Damn you to hell!
That list came out while I was in Seattle- one of a few men in a sea full of mommybloggers. I swam among them and enjoyed my anonymity and lack of notoriety.
Had there been a room full of daddy bloggers I would have been stopped every five feet. Men would have asked for my autograph and or shook my hand- but not the mommy bloggers. They didn’t know me. It was refreshing to be a normal guy again.
Carry on my wayward brother.
Eye of The Tiger- that is my motto. Keep fighting to beat that rival. I usually doing that by letting my prior adversary train me.
Jealousies in the blogosphere…………….no way…………….it’s only human to care but Ms @ginidietrich told me you need to have thick skin in this world and I believe everything she says……….:)
Complicated is usually not good so hope you get past that.
I saw some of my regulars ‘pimping’ you out here so I thought I’d stop by and glad I did.
Thanks for sharing and I’ll make sure to come back.
Bill,
So glad that you came by. Don’t make a big deal out of this, but @ginidietrich is jealous of the weather here and wishes for a Bollywood dance bit in her honor.
Sadly the blogosphere is filled with folks who suffer from petty jealousies, insecurities and severe halitosis. Fortunately the nature of this interactions protects some of us from those problems. It is best to try not to take things too seriously- something that I am not always good at.