The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie

I can’t remember where I read it, but a blogger wondered if you were to meet certain popular bloggers in person, if they would be anything like their online personas.

I would.

That is, if my self perception is accurate.

In real life, I am quick with a joke. I think I play even better in person because I have people to bounce off of. I kill in the teachers’ lounge.

Some mommy bloggers make their lives seem ideal. They bake, they craft, they wipe noses, they homeschool, they split the atom. Their husbands are supermen who never do any wrong.

I don’t do that shit. I don’t pretend to do that shit. I cuss a lot. And my dad doesn’t read my blog, so he doesn’t give a crap what kind of language I use. It isn’t that my dad doesn’t love me. He text messages me on my birthday or thereabouts just like any loving father. But this is a chick blog. What sixty-something straight man reads chick blogs?

And my husband is not a superman, but I think he’s a better than average husband and dad. If you met him, you would not be stunned to discover he is nothing like I described. Ask him about math or physics and he’ll talk forever. Do NOT get him going on the subject of how we’re running out of potable water or the crisis of the pig poop lagoons, because he will depress the hell out of you and scare you half to death.

I would make you laugh and probably offend you a little. I wouldn’t listen to you enough. I might even interrupt you to say something I am thinking. That’s why I talk so much on this blog and you talk so little.

You would meet my kids and find them adorable, like all children. My oldest, Viva, would completely amaze you with her ability to talk like a four year-old even though she is two. I don’t exaggerate that. Everyone who meets her remarks on it. I am proud, but I don’t take credit. I didn’t sit her down and teach her to talk. You would ask me if you can hold my two month old bundle of chub, Pringles. I happily would hand her over to you, but you would find within a minute or so that she isn’t a “pass around” kind of baby.

If you met me, you would discover I live in a rental house with very old furniture and nothing on the walls except cobwebs. The toilets are clean, though. The place isn’t a “shithole” like Odie claims. It just looks like a family with two kids lives in it. And they don’t open their mail.

My persona is very similar to my personality. Except my friend Lori would tell you I’m nicer. That I’m a sap. I can’t teach poetry in my class because I cry. “I have something in my eye” only works about the first ten times. I have a tough exterior and a soft center. I have this Lori person totally fleeced.

I hope that my blog portrays a clever woman who has exceptional grammar. Someone who loves nothing more than to make people laugh. Someone who sees her flaws and wants to be more. Wants to be better.

You’d like me, if you met me. I’d be exactly who you were expecting. You just wish I’d let YOU say something for a damn change.

WordPress is kind enough to tell me what Google searches lead people to me. Yesterday, someone Googled “does the Mrs Odie blog make any money?” No.

Many of my incoming searches are “Kelle Hampton annoying” and “Kelle Hampton haters.” Every day, I think about deleting that post from last August, where I said I thought she was fake and spoiled. People read it every day. For some reason, hundreds of people have read it in the last three days.

I know Jessica of “The 24 Year Age Gap” deleted her KH post because she wasn’t interested in the kind of attention it got (sidebar: congratulations on your wedding, girl! Can’t wait until you post about it!). When I wrote my blog entries, I was just a blogger with about a few dozen followers, mostly friends. This was my opinion about something all my mommy group friends were sharing endlessly on message boards. I got so tired of opening discussion threads and seeing “You MUST read this! It’s the most moving birth story EVER EVER EVER!” with a link to KH’s blog post about the birth of her daughter with Down Syndrome. I have a tendency to go in the other direction when something gets hugely popular. I almost didn’t even read The Help because I got so tired of being told I “must” read it. (But I did read it and it was a good book). Despised Duran Duran.

I vented about my dislike of the blog everyone thought was so fantastic. I did that around this time last year. It got a big response, so I engaged with those readers for a while, continued writing about the subject, then got bored with it and stopped. I’ve written almost every week for a year and barely mentioned What’s-her-name, but when people Google how annoying she is, then read my blog entry, they react like it was written today.

So much has happened in my life in the last year. I got pregnant and had another baby. I went back to work as a high school teacher. I lived through high drama in my immediate family. I made new friends and lost touch with old ones. I’ve written over a hundred little doo-dads here.

And I probably wouldn’t give the Hampton clan a second thought, except there’s that blog entry from last year that keeps popping up in people’s Google searches. Okay, maybe there are SIX entries. Like I said, I wrote about it for a while and then lost interest.

I am not one of those bloggers whose website is a parody site, like “Pie Near Woman” (clever title spoofing Pioneer Woman) or “McMama Without Pity” or “Get Off My Internets.” All of them are hilarious and definitely my type of humor, but the writers have to stay deeply immersed in the lives of the people they are ragging on. I want to write about my own thoughts and my own life. I think it’s rich enough to sustain my blog.

Are the people who find this blog by Googling her actually becoming my readers? If they like it, they probably want more of it and are disappointed that there isn’t any more after that little cluster from last year. If they hate it, then the conclusion is obvious.

Odie thinks I shouldn’t censor myself just because people disagree with me and give me flack for my opinion. He thinks my opinion is valid (full disclosure: he is my husband and generally strokes my ego in hopes of getting sex).

I find myself whining to myself: I’ve moved on; why can’t everyone else? Maybe the only way to really “move on” is to hit the delete button.

While I think about it, those posts are temporarily password protected.

**Edit: on second thought, I’m not going to censor myself. I wrote what I felt at the time and this is my blog. If you don’t like it, take the advice so many of you who love K-Hizzle give me “Don’t read it.” Some people on a discussion thread about me wondered “who has time” to “obsess” about another blogger and write about her. “Get a life!” Who has time to post all day on a mommy discussion group thread about how I should get a life? Oh, YOU DO. It takes only a few hours a week to do what I do.

It is hard to find time to write, though. It feels like selfish time. I have two tiny children, a husband, two cats, a dog and a neglected house. I have Flourish: The Housewife Project to see to, so this is the last thing I’ll say for now.