Category: Seen, Heard, Said

It’s Time, Once Again…

For my favorite web searches that lead to my blog…

1. how to put on a protective cup for fencing
2. constantly irritated depressed bitchy
3. tired of feeling sad and unmotivated, just want to eat and sleep
4. massage sitz bones
5. coffee mugs with pile of poop in bottom of cup
6. children floating poop
7. groggy irritable tense impatient
8. funny commercial treadmill routine

I mean, what the – ?

Lauren Sandler’s, Righteous, Illustrates that Hatchet Jobs Sell Books

Dear friends of mine agreed to be interviewed last year by Lauren Sandler for a book she was writing – the just released, Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement. The interview was with Ted Dietz, mainly, but following the interview Ted and his wife, Sarah, my best friend of fifteen years, invited Lauren and her husband over for dinner…

…TO BE NICE.

What was just released this week is a gross twisting of fact and reality, and a sad distortion of the lives of two women – my friend, Sarah, and another gal I know, Judy. These are lovely, strong, educated women who have made the choice to be married, to raise children, and to stay home with their children while they are young.

Their lives and the choices they have made are currently being mocked and scrutinized and debated on the reputable salon.com, and in blogs across the internet. Lauren has portrayed both these women as shallow, trapped, sell-outs who left behind great careers and a fabulous life of partying because they bought into the brainwashing tactics of a tennis shoe wearing, cool aide drinking pastor.

You can read an excerpt of the book here at salon.com. If you know Ted and Sarah as I do, you will be disgusted at how they are portrayed. If you don’t know Ted and Sarah, please know that what is printed is not fact, but rather an attempt to shove a size 10 foot of reality into the size 8 shoe of Lauren’s agenda.

When Bryan and I were talking last night, and I was flying off the handle with expletives and threats of dismemberment, he reminded me of Jeffrey Overstreet’s hilarious story on his Looking Closer blog – the one where he was contacted for an interview on whether he thought the media was anti-religious. As he was preparing his response, one that called out the media’s tendency to cover the most arresting stories, which also tend to be the extreme voices in religion – the Jerry Fallwell types who blame terrorist acts on homosexuals – the media source called him back to cancel, determining that Jeffrey’s voice was not extreme enough for the interview.

“I can’t think of a punchline good enough to end this story,” he said in conclusion.

Ted and Sarah are balanced, salt of the earth people. What they lacked in extremity, Lauren fashioned with words in a James Frey Million Little Pieces sort of way. But hey, a little augmented reality never hurt anybody, right?

It certainly sells books.

Har! Har! Har!

I’m working on another video project these days so I have nothing to say at the moment. But I will leave you with this riotous quote for today. It comes from this post over at Mommy Needs a Cocktail.

“When given an opportunity, a woman will lie about her weight. And I have only two men in my life right now–Ben and Jerry. And they love me unconditionally and want me to be happy.”

Things I’ve Discovered (the linky post)

Pierce PettisPierce Pettis
Pierce has headlined the last couple of years at the music festival/camping trip we take annually in the San Juan Islands. If you feel like sipping a glass of wine on a cloudy day, check out some of his music. His voice is soothing, he’s a great storyteller, and his combination of interesting guitar chords is amazing. Every year at the festival he teaches a workshop on alternate guitar tunings. He’s also a hilarious rambler between songs, which I captured in this short video at the festival.

One Change
I met Mollie, the editor of One Change, at BlogHer. The tagline of her site is “Making One Change at a Time,” and I instantly knew I had to bookmark the site. It’s all about making changes to live a greener, more organic, more environmentally friendly life. I liked her One Change mentality because I was just recently having a discussion with a friend about how ridiculous I felt paying $5 for a gallon of organic milk when nothing else I bought was organic. In my mind I felt my commitment to organic living had to be all or nothing, or else I was a hypocrite. Even though she is totally hard core about her lifestyle, I don’t sense any judgement in the tone of her writing, even when it comes to the waste and excess of conferences. I especially liked her article on Mowing Your Lawn because Bryan and I get into at least one fight each summer over the reel mower we own (I love it, he hates it). She also has a great article on reducing waste by becoming more content – a thoughtful and convicting piece about what our stuff does to us, both personally and as a People.

Spell with Flickr
I don’t know what this is, exactly, or how it works, but it’s pretty fun to play around with! Just type in a word or phrase and it generates some pretty cool images. Here’s my name. Every time you refresh the screen the letters change.

Rusty S H O U T-time

Illustration Friday
I found this site through Secret Agent Josephine, and it’s really cool if you like to browse art, or if you’re an artist looking for somewhere to show your work. Each week a different theme is chosen, and artists then submit their works of art interpreting that theme. I had considered submitting a photo or two, but it looks like they limit submissions to illustrations. Hense the illustrationfriday title, I suppose. I’m slow to catch on, but I get there eventually.

Too Much Information

I just took a break from cleaning to catch up on a few blog reads. The short break turned into a long break, and now I have many rabbit-trail links open that I really don’t have time to follow up on now.

Sigh.

It’s ironic to me that as much as I HATE reading stuff on the computer (I used to print out all my emails and documents to read them), I LOVE reading blogs and following links and finding new people and interesting resources. But after awhile I find myself going cross-eyed and skimming too quickly.

I’ve tried using a “readthis” tag in my del.isio.us account, but the problem there is I forget to open that website to read what I’ve tagged! Also, I have a lot of blogs and sites running through my Bloglines feed reader, but many of them are stacked to the max with entries waiting to be read. I just can’t keep up.

Do you read lots of blogs? Do you like to follow links? How do you filter through which blogs you continue to follow and which ones you just check out a couple times?

Linked below are some of the rabbit trail links I didn’t have time to read, but maybe posting them here will remind me to look into them later.

Beatiful Pain: Women in Rock

Raising support for a cause

The Shape of a Mother

Is marriage or children your highest priority?

Echo-friendly cleaning products

Bartering Gone Crazy!

Thanks to a link I followed from Maryam’s website, I just spent an hour reading about One Red Paperclip. In one year and fifteen trades, Kyle MacDonald bartered his way up from a red paperclip to a house.

That’s damn crazy.

I think my favorite part of the whole story is when he said on Canandian television that he’d never do a trade in Yahk, B.C., but then someone made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, only it had to be traded – you guessed it – IN YAHK. Poor Kyle. What to do? Fortunately, he found himself a loophole:

[…]You see, Jeff Cooper sent me some photos of Yahk and I’d discovered a technicality. There was a sign from Yahk that read: YAHK – UNINCORPORATED I figured that since Yahk wasn’t incorporated as a city or town or village or hamlet pretty much opened up a giant grey area as to where Yahk actually begins and ends. I could theoretically say that I’m in Yahk right now, and so can you. Yahk is everywhere and nowhere at once, so I was free to go there because it doesn’t really exist. Admittedly, an easy way out, but nevertheless, a loophole. I thought about my loophole proudly. It’s not everyday you discover a loophole. There was a way to go to Yahk after all.[…]

Anyhow, I know a few Craig’s List addicts who might be inspired to attempt something like this, right?

Congratulations, Kyle!

Things That Are Taken Way… Too… Far….

Standing in line at the grocery store last week I saw this magazine: Lose a Pound a Day on the Da Vinci Code Diet! I almost went into a tirade right there in the middle of Fred Meyer because of the rediculousness of it. A weekly magazine should really reduce the frequency of publication if they are THAT hard up for material.

Woman's World1

Upon closer inspection I see the subtitle: Hidden Inside The Best Seller – The Secret Scientific Formula That Unlocks Fat!

I mean, IS THAT REALLY NECESSARY? And do they think anyone will see this and go, “OH MY GOSH! I *TOTALLY* *KNEW* IT!” And buy ten copies for themselves and all their friends?

I hate to be a Negative Nelly, but I’m just so tired of the hype.

Woman's World2