Editor’s Note: This blog entry was written in August of 2010. So, if you found it through a Google search, read it and lose your shit, know that you are losing your shit over something that is old news. -MO2
Despite what you may have heard or read, this is not a “hater blog.” Nor is it a blog about Kelle Hampton.
I shuddered writing the word “hater.” It’s a word that falls into the realm of bad English that has become mainstream. Hate is a verb, and even though in English we add -er (or sometimes -or) to the end of a word to mean “a person who,” that doesn’t make all such usage acceptable.
The last two days have been a whirlwind for my little blog. My hits quadrupled in a single day, and stayed high. I was extremely excited. Then I looked at my “Blog Stats” where it tells you what internet searches led people to your blog. I had something like 100 people searching “mrs odie.” I was like, “Whaaaa???” Then, scrolling down, I saw “hate Kelle Hampton” and “Kelle Hampton annoying.” And finally, “Mrs Odie hates Kelle Hampton.” I felt a big lump in my stomach. “Uh oh. The minions have found me out. They’re going to come after me.” And boy, did they.
It turns out, someone went to the super-loving, holding hands and singing Kumbaya comment community on http://enjoyingthesmallthings.blogspot.com and QUOTED my blog. Then, this person gave the link. The comments that come after that end up sounding like I myself posted the quote and the link (I didn’t. I WOULDN’T! I have so much contempt for the people who go on her site, make some syrupy comment about how BEAUTIFUL she is, then leave a link to their blogs — but feel free to link your blog here! I don’t mind!). It also reads like I’m the one who wrote all the nasty comments that followed. I didn’t. Even her father, “POPPA,” the guy who left her mom and the kids because he realized he was gay, said some smack about me. What a sad, lonely, small person I must be, he opined. He used some choice metaphors (“People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch” – As Good as it Gets), but the message was clear. “Leave my little girl alone!”
I totally understand the sentiment. After receiving some nasty emails saying some unkind things about my 16 month old daughter, I imagine I know exactly how he felt having the writing of his 31-year-old adult daughter criticised. Because surely it’s exactly the same thing.
My acerbic wit is not for everyone. I’ve had to temper my caustic comments in my real life because they often get misunderstood. When Oscar Wilde did it or Dorothy Parker did it, it was hilarious. Popular humorists like Chelsea Handler, Joel McHale, and Daniel Tosh (of Tosh.O) generate many of their biggest laughs from parody and satire. They also get their share of criticism (especially Chelsea after her Angelina Jolie rant — a rant I agree with 100%). Now, I know from reading her biography that many people secretly hated Dorothy Parker, and more openly hated her. Ernest Hemingway despised her, but the man loved bullfighting and killed himself with a shotgun (instead of the more popular writers’ suicide tool: alcohol), so I must question his judgment in all things. I have always been an “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me” sort of gal. It gets me laughs. So in my blog, which is generally read by a small handful of my friends and acquaintances, I get to take that bitch out for a walk and give her a long leash.
What did I just say about metaphors and crotches?
In any event, there is more to me than the shit I say about Kelle Hampton’s blog. The blog was brought to my attention by a person in an online mommy group I belonged to. When I first read it, I admit it, I drank the Kool-Aid. I cried and thought, “How sad, how tragic, how beautiful!” The more I read it and thought about it, though, the more it irked me. The more the writing style SCREAMED out for parody. And I couldn’t resist. So if my writing offends you or poisons the little butterflies of your soul, or stops your leprechans from sliding down rainbows into puddles of fluffy bunnies, then rip up your ticket to my sour symphony and follow the confetti trail back from whence you came.
And if you like it, then come sit by me.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
Blooming like a mofo
(just briefly, while Baby V is watching “Yo Gabba Gabba” [thank you Christian, Parker, Tyler, Emma, and my sister’s prom date whose name escapes me just now, for creating toddler crack] )
I hate Oprah. She never lets anyone else TALK. She has guests on her show and then SHE does all the talking. But I’m not here to talk about Oprah. I was watching a rerun of her show a week or so ago because the guide told me Geneen Roth was on. She wrote the book I’m currently reading, so I decided to pop over to ABC and see what Oprah had to say for her.
What SHE had to SAY. Whoopsie.
Sometimes tv changes your life, girls. Watch more tv!
Geneen Roth said something to the effect of how we cannot “loathe ourselves into changing.” It has never worked. It will never work.
Ding!
In the spirit of my Bloom Project, I have decided to change my thinking. Every time I start to think a self-loathing comment, I change it to, “I am getting so skinny! The weight is pouring off of me! I am so happy and grateful!” Or when I look at my flabby arms in the mirror (thanks, thigh and tummy liposuction, grrrr), I think, “My arms are so tight and toned! They look amazing!” I also use other thoughts, I will not call them “positive affirmations,” which are equally sunny and positive.
The last time Mama Odie visited, we got into a brief discussion of philosophy. She always brings out the optimist in me because I love to be contrary and she is the darkest, gloomiest, most “the sky is falling!” person I have EVER met. Love you, Mama Odie, but you are.
Her statement that struck me was “belief doesn’t change anything,” to which Odie and I simultaneously exclaimed, “BELIEF CHANGES EVERYTHING!” And it does.
I bloom, I bloom, I bloom.
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