Extra! Extra! Scandal-ridden DMD drops out of political race

I think the whole world is well aware that the United States is in the middle of a rather bombastic to campaign to elect its next president, but some of you may be unaware that Canada is also in the middle of a federal election campaign.

While Canadian politics lack some of the drama found in the U.S., I have observed one particular phenomenon with great interest, sadness and regret: former bloggers are dropping out of the race like flies.

Apparently it really IS true that what you post on your blog today can prevent you from becoming Prime Minister tomorrow.

This is bad news folks, very bad news.

This means that in the event that my quest for complete cultural domination necessitates a run for political office, I could be royally screwed. Once the press and my political opponents start perusing my archives, the true picture of DMD is going to emerge and it's not going to be pretty.

I mean, right off the hop, the media will trumpet the fact that I have already declared myself unsuitable for political office.

And then it's gonna go downhill from there.

First the pundits will look into my take on social issues.

The right wing will dismiss me as a sniveling Liberal, admitting as I have to, plotting a revolution against the establishment and questioning authority at every turn.

The left wing is going to peg me as a raging fascist who would force kids to cut their damn hair and legislate against parents trying too hard to be hip. Also? I have no compassion for America's sweetheart mom and therefore no heart.

Once they start digging up the dirt in my personal life, I'm going to be all but finished. Where do I start?

I have proudly admitted that I am a big, fat liar who lusts after men - boys, really - young enough to be my son. Also, I am addicted to tabloid sleaze and continually enjoy an inner dialogue about how everyone I encounter is stupid and ugly.

I'll be lucky someone doesn't spirit Graham away after news of my parenting skills - or lack thereof - are made public. Let's see: I hit my child and exploit him for money. I park him in front of the television, expose him to my grotesque nakedness and harbour deep-seated fears that I might harm him. I didn't even bother to take him out for Halloween last year for Gawd's sake!

The idea that I may have inadvertently torpedoed my political career is really upsetting. I mean, for you, more than for me. Now, in all likelihood, the free world will never know rule under Don Mills Diva.

And that's a shame, it really is.

And you know what?

I blame it all on Graham.

Help a sister out?

Yo, bloggers!

Why do you blog? How do you blog? And how do on-line relationships and blogging fit into your real-life world?

I know you’ve all got lots to say about this because, well, don’t we all? It’s a life-changing thing, blogging is, and one of my most favorite bloggers, who also happens to be a researcher at the University of Waterloo, has set up a survey of blogging practices that you really should participate in.

I’ll let her take it from here:

“Have you ever been freaked out when a casual acquaintance from ‘real life’ found your blog? Or when your Sitemeter showed a steady stream of Google pervs visiting your site? Do you wonder about whether to put up photos of your children or your friends on your blog, for fear of your privacy? Many of us have experienced these unsettling moments, and questioned or even changed our writing styles and our habits as a result.

What strategies do you use to reach the audience you want, while maintaining your own privacy? Most bloggers use some kind of anonymization or privacy strategy, a ‘screen name’ being the most simple and obvious.”

Please help her out and contribute to the study of something important to us all by clicking here. You can also contact Aimee directly at ahm@uwaterloo.ca for more information. She is going to BlogHer in San Francisco and she’d love to interview you in person: if you’re going send her an email at the address above.

And also?

Yo, eaters!

It’s BBQ month over at Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews and I just posted LeeAnne's latest unique recipe for grilled haloumi cheese. It’s perfect if you’re lactose intolerant or vegetarian or if you just plain love tasty cheese. Check it out!

The blog as veil: a cautionary tale

How well do you know me?

And is it Kelly you know or is it the Don Mills Diva?

Are they the same person or is one an alter-ego, a character, constructed to appeal to, or provoke a reaction from, my readers?

Would it surprise you to hear me confess that the latter question is one I have asked myself on more than one occasion?

There are so many, many things about blogging that fascinate me and foremost among them is the notion that a blog might provide a space in which a person can construct an alternate identity.

That’s probably why I have spent the last several days obsessively reading Catherine Sanderson’s book Petite Anglaise to the detriment of pretty much everything else in my life.

Petite Anglaise is also the name of a blog that Sanderson has written since 2005 to document her life as an English ex-pat working and raising her toddler daughter in Paris. In Petite Anglaise the book, she provides an unflinching account of the events that lead her to leave her child’s father for one of her blog’s commenters and how the increasing popularity of her blog started to inform the way she viewed herself and ultimately conducted her life.

Read more about Petite Anglaise and my musing on the blog as veil over at Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews. You can also leave a comment over there and enter to win your very own copy of the book. I'll even ship it to you - now git!

Get the coon in the shot damnit!

Then get it back to its wrangler, dismantle the tripod and lights and get the kid in hair and makeup. Quick, big daddy, pack his tambourine and cap and throw him in the car: the Shiners are booked at the hotel down the street and he's not gonna stay this cute forever. Mama's got some s'ploiting to do!

Lovers, haters, cretins and zombified pimps

I’ve always been ahead of my time when it comes to writing.

And it has always made people mad.

Or maybe jealous, I’m not sure.

To wit, I was a 13-year-old eighth grader when I became the youngest-ever columnist at the Haliburton County Echo. I earned 25 cents per column inch writing the Norland Natter and covering the events, news and gossip in the small village where I lived.

And kids used to tease me.

“Nooorlaand Naaatter” I remember one boy in particular chanting. “You think you’re sooo special writing the Nooorland Naaatter!”

I didn’t care.

He didn’t get it. I knew that writing in a real newspaper was an accomplishment, something of which to be proud. Something that one day I was going to be glad I got in on early.

And besides, he was just a big bully.

These days I write a blog that I like to think of as a lifestyle column. I call it Don Mills Diva and I write it on the internet.

And the big bullies are still there, tearing me down for having the audacity to think of myself or my writing as sooo special.

Many of you know that I was one of the bloggers interviewed for Tuesday’s Globe and Mail article on the ethics of mommy blogging. Many of you have already contacted me to express your shock and outrage over the multitude of nasty comments posted to the on-line version of the article.

It’s okay: it really is.

It doesn’t bother me because I know I’m ahead of my time.

I do wonder if Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry have ever been accused of being cretins or zombified pimps. I doubt it. But I imagine that maybe when they first started writing about their family life in the public sphere people were scandalized that they dared to – as a brilliant, fellow, zombified pimp put it – lift the veil on the intricacies and intimacies of family life.

In my admittedly small way, I’m trying to do what those writers do. I have talked before about emulating their style, about using my daily experiences only as a jumping off point for essays and musings.

We've all had moments when we look at our children or our parents or our aging face in the mirror and feel inexplicably moved by the passage of time and the richness of our individual experience. This site is about giving a voice to those moments, about finding beauty and poignancy in the mundane.

I’m just doing it on the internet instead of in traditional media because it seems to me that all the most compelling writers these days are fleeing traditional media for the internet.

And I’ve done the newspaper thing – I’ve done it on and off for 25 years.

I wrote the Norland Natter until the week I left for university and, incidentally, or perhaps not so incidentally, my mother kept every one of my columns, carefully clipped and labeled, in a scrapbook she whipped out at the slightest provocation, to my great embarrassment and secret delight.

Yup, my mother did what every damn, wonderful mother since the beginning of time has done: she made me blush with the unabashed pride she took in my accomplishments and in me.

And that, too, is what I’m doing here for my son. Here, on the internet.

And to those who taunted that my son will need therapy to overcome his shame over my exploitation here, I say this:

Mental illness drives kids to therapy. Drug and alcohol abuse – their own or that of their parents – drives kids to therapy. Childhood rape, incest, abuse, neglect, instability and pain drives kids to therapy.

Exploitation? I don’t have the stomach to discuss the ways that children suffer exploitation on the internet. It sure as hell ain’t on this site.

Proud, loving and enthusiastic mothers, even ones who “over share” are not exploitive and they are not the reason why kids end up in therapy.

I am a proud, loving and enthusiastic mother. I am, and always will be Graham’s biggest, and most embarrassing, booster.

What is Don Mills Diva, what are any mommy or daddy blogs, if not love letters to our children? (Thank you k-girl for the term)

This site is my love letter to Graham, my gift to him.

And I imagine one day when he is a strapping young man or even an old and grey one, he will delight in opening this gift, reading through these archives and seeing his family history unfold before him.

He will read the letter I wrote to him the week before he was born. He will read of his parents’ great abiding love for each other and his mother’s affection for his grandmother. He will read of his Oma’s survival under the Nazis and his grandfather’s love of bush planes. He will read of the tears, the awe, the struggles, the wonder, the pain, the beauty and the joy that, daily, his presence brought to my life.

And the love. Oh my yes, the love.

And secure in that love, I believe that one day Graham will be damn proud that his mother was ahead of her time.

Addiction, blogging and the slippery slope

I am a bit addicted to blogging.

Like most writers, I constantly mine my own life for writing material. I admit I am flirting with addiction because sometimes, in the midst of an everyday crisis or a funny moment or even a poignant one, I think, This is going to make a really good blog post.

But I don’t think I really have a problem.

I think Lenore Skenazy has a problem.

Lenore Skenazy is the writer for the New York Sun who was all over the media last week after she wrote this piece about her decision to let her nine-year-old son navigate his way home on the New York City subway by himself.

She thinks parents are way too over protective and that they need to let their children be more independent and I don’t disagree, though I do think leaving a nine-year-old child alone to fend for himself anywhere is nuts.

But that’s not what really grabbed me about her story and the resultant controversy.

What bothered me all week is the worry that Ms Skenazy slid all the way to the bottom of a slippery slope that could one day trip me up as well.

I have never put Graham in an unsafe situation because I think it would make for interesting reading and I never will. But I think all writers who document their experiences for public consumption run the risk of falling prey to the desire to give people something truly gripping to read.

I think Ms Skenazy feels passionately that children today are over-parented and she knows that this is a hot-button issue for many people. I think she is a savvy journalist who carefully considered how she could make a compelling statement that would focus a lot of media attention on the subject, spark controversy and ensure that her views would reach a large audience.

I think she gambled with her son’s safety because she knew it would make a hell of a story.

Last weekend Rob and I talked about taking Graham to the zoo this summer. I’m looking forward to it and during the discussion I heard myself say, "It’ll be great. I’ll take so many pictures - it’ll make such a cute blog post."

Not until Rob gave me a look did I realize that without even thinking I had considered whether an activity we all enjoy would also translate into something my readers could consume. In just a split second, I considered whether a normal family activity was worthy of documentation and thought about how I would do it.

Many times, I admit, I have thought about how much great material is sure to be generated as Graham grows and struggles to grapple with the world around him. And then I feel just a little guilty that I so obviously mine his life for writing material just as I have always mined my own.

I will not be letting Graham ride the subway in New York City or anywhere else when he is nine years old, no matter how many people would show up to read about it.

But I have pulled out a camera to capture a temper tantrum rather than deal with it straight away. I did get in a few shots of his discomfort in some designer overalls that I loved but knew didn’t fit him. And I am the one who took pains to point out what may one day make him a target for bullies.

And these things I fear, my friends, may well put me on the edge of the slippery slope that Ms Skenazy slithered down earlier this month.

The post where I lose all my readers

I love my blog.

I love your blog.

But I also really love my family and my work and my friends and my home and well… something’s gotta give.

I started blogging because I have always felt compelled to write: I did not know about the incredible community I would find in the blogosphere and how truly happy and grateful I would feel upon finding acceptance there.

The problem is I have been running myself slightly ragged trying to reciprocate all the wonderful love and support you have shown me.

And so….

Going forward you may notice that I am not commenting on your blogs as often as I have in the past. It doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate you and that I am not reading - I will be reading - it just means that there are only enough hours in the day and I am finding it increasingly hard to carve out the time to actually write.

And I have to try and keep the writing as my priority.

Uh…I mean…after these guys.

I really hope you are not offended. When I do find myself with some spare hours I will be out there commenting my little heart out and trolling new blogs like a mad woman (oh how I love doing that!) and…uh…maybe actually picking up around the old homestead.

And speaking of housekeeping: it has been ages since I updated my blogroll down there in the left hand column. If you are not on it and you would like to be, please leave me a comment with your url and I’ll get things up to speed this weekend.

Thanks. Please keep reading and stay sexy.

Somebody stop me!

It's official, I'm insane.

Don Mills Diva is playing nice with other bloggers and participating in National Blog Posting Month 2007. In order to earn my net cred I have to post every single day in the month of November.

Thirty days, 30 posts. God help me. And God help you poor readers who are going to suffer through this odyssey with me.

I'm going to need all the encouragment I can get so check back every day, keep cheering, keep commenting and if I post something you like, e-mail it to a friend.

And yeah, I'm counting this as a post. But I promise they won't all be this lame!