This post originally appeared in 2011. Yeah, yeah, I know, “Lazy, much, Mrs. O? I’ve been at an AP conference for 8 hours a day since Monday, so give me a break. Please to enjoy.
When I was in high school, all the cool/popular/wealthy kids took Latin as their second language. I don’t think it was because of an inherent love of antiquity so much as it was about Latin Convention.
In the spring, all the Latin students went to Latin Convention where they dressed in togas, played games and competed in smart people shit. They got to stay overnight away from their parents, meet kids from schools all over the country, and stay in a hotel – which I’m sure was the real appeal. I’m not sure if crowns of laurel were mandatory.
I didn’t take Latin. I took French. I am a francophile and have been since my tweens. It’s a beautiful language and unlike SOME languages, it isn’t dead (side-eye, Latin).
The popular/cool/wealthy kids talked about Latin Convention all year. When they got back, they passed their photos to each other surreptitiously during class (this was before the Facebook era, when “sharing” a picture meant handing a piece of photo paper with an image on it to someone). Many times, I had to pass shots of frolicking classmates from one to another while my teacher was looking away. All the while, I felt left out and missing out. The yearbook had pages of pictures of all the best and brightest (and coolest and most aloof) making lifetime memories at this weekend-long event. When I signed yearbooks, I inevitably viewed others’ scrawls wherein they wrote about their “awesome time at Latin Convention.”
I was never part of the crowd.
This weekend, in San Diego, which is a mere 90 minute drive from where I live, there is a “Blog Her” conference and I am not there. Everyone who’s anyone on the internet (who can afford it) is there. It’s kind of like Latin Convention all over again. I feel like I’m not “one of them.” I’m nobody. I don’t exist on the blogsphere and I will always be a discontented high school teacher, squinting at bad essays, dreaming of being a writer. Out there, the cool kids, the successful talented kids are all together having a good time. I’m supervising the tree trimming through the window while I walk my six week-old around the house and beg my two year-old to take her nap. Maybe I’ll pick up some clippings and make myself a crown of laurel.
Yet, earlier this week I was reading a blog I follow and became annoyed at the “woe is I” envy of the writer for a more popular blogger. Projection, I guess. Because envy is what I feel right now.
Maybe this year just isn’t my year. Yeah, I’ll go with that.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
Name Dropper
I grew up on the sets of television shows, starstruck as hell. My friends at school didn’t allow me to talk about it. They treated me like a stuck-up bitch whenever I mentioned my dad’s profession. I’ll never forget the writers’ strike in the early 80s for so many reasons, but in particular, this one little sixth grade bitch gleefully announcing to other kids “Her dad got FIRED!”
My insistence that my dad had not been fired only made the story seem more true. I seemed defensive and desperate in my denials. The fact was, my dad was unemployed and that was hilarious and awesome to the entire 6th grade.
I was devastated to no longer be able to hang around famous actors or sit at my dad’s desk and pretend I was writing scripts. My peers laughing at me and celebrating my pain made it oh so much worse. I didn’t confide any of this in my parents. The strike meant nearly two years that my dad couldn’t work as a writer. It helped to end my folks’ already shaky marriage. And those shits at school thought it was funny.
The person I did feel comfortable confiding in was my teacher, Mrs. W. There were two sixth grade classes at my elementary school, the cool one and mine. This is how I remember the teacher of the other class:
But in my own teacher, I saw a confidante. A friend. When she pulled me aside to see why I was sobbing, I explained that my dad’s show had been cancelled and there was something called a strike preventing him from getting another job. She dried my tears, but sighed heavily.
“Well, you brag too much about your dad’s job and it makes the other students dislike you.” I remember arguing that I was proud of my dad and I loved going to the weekly tapings, but I never bragged! I didn’t think I was better than anyone else. I just felt happy. Until that conversation, that is.
In high school, I did some acting work. Just a bit part on my dad’s show. I had to audition and not get called back several times before I finally earned three lines in an episode with a bunch of guest stars. I was not a good actress, but that hardly stopped one from being on television in the eighties. I wasn’t allowed to talk about it among my friends because it meant I was “stuck up.” When the episode aired, none of my friends said shit to me about it, not even my best buddy.
Scouring through my usual blogroll of people I hate, I read a post by my least favorite Mommy Blogger where she was hanging out with a couple other even more famous Mommy Bloggers and posting selfies of the group of them. The Real Housewives of WordPress dot Com.
Not that any of them is slumming at WordPress. Each of these duchesses of the internets has her hosted blog with agents, publicists, and hangers-on. Dozens of commenters typing excessive punctuation populate those sites.
Look at them, I thought to myself. All trying to get some more clicks off of each other. Do I do that? Would I do that? Why are we all even in this “Mommy Blogger” world anyway? Do we just want to get where Glennon is? It doesn’t seem to be making her happy.
I read her article and liked what she had to say about how they keep moving the finish line. I can relate, because for me, I was all, “Yay! I got out of my pajamas!” and then my husband was like “Are you going to maybe do a load of laundry or something?” and I just collapsed in a crying heap screaming “Why even try?!” so Glennon and I are in exactly the same place in our lives right now.
She’s taking 40 days off of the internet. I almost heard the thunderous “BOOM!” as other bloggers rushed into that vacuum. Millions of people read this blog, so that’s a lot of readers who will need to go elsewhere. I’m sure that her publicity people have worked it out with at least one other writer’s publicity people for her to be that elsewhere. None of this stuff happens by accident. None of it. I learned that much from hanging around my dad’s business all of these decades.
Name-dropping Glennon of Momastery and mentioning her 40 day blog-cation will probably get people some clicks. And then what? My dad told me a long time ago that nepotism only gets you in the door. You have to have something worth sticking around for.
Now, Dad was talking about what he could do for me. Name association, or name-dropping, or hanging out with famous people can sometimes work out, but those associations can hurt as much as they help. Kim Kardashian was famous for hanging around Paris Hilton. The former just happened to have the kind of “momager” who knew how to take her daughter’s ripped-off idea of doing a sex tape and turning it into a mountain of gold for herself and the whole family.
For every Gwyneth Paltrow or Angelina (Voight) Jolie, there’s a Jaden Smith, Daniel Baldwin, and Michael Lohan. Kim got famous for tagging along with Paris, but that also worked out for Naomi Watts (Nicole Kidman) and Toby McGuire (some guy named Leo).
Those of us name-dropping Momastery or hashtagging Glennon in hope of making bread out of stones can’t really be blamed, can we? As far as taking my dad’s advice though, I just hope that I’m more Robin Thicke and less Khloe Kardashian.
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