Wow! My first-ever blog post! Thank you for joining me on this little journey. While I’m a full-time Realtor, I’ve been a hobby writer for a long time, simply sharing my own stories about life in brief fits and spurts on Facebook. Every time I put my stories out there, people ask me why I haven’t written a book. It sounds easy enough and maybe when someone is able to write things you enjoy reading, you think they shouldn’t have a problem with it- it should come easy to them, right? But book-writing requires a magnificent imagination and a lot of patience, and I suffer a shortage from both. If I’m being honest with myself, my writing is like a small chihuahua who suffers from ADHD and drinks a lot of espresso. Short story writing is probably in my best interest. Again, with the honesty, I’ll be shocked, and yet pleasantly surprised, if I publish a book before I die. On the other hand, if I’m published after I die, I won’t be shocked at all. Because I’ll be dead.
For me, writing is like an old boyfriend you keep handy in case something else doesn’t work out with someone else. It really likes you, so it hangs around and waits for you to call it. You bat it around like a kitten with ball of yarn for a while, and then you discard it because it’s not convenient or it’s boring or it’s not a viable cash flow and you have needs. But it doesn’t get over you and it never goes away. It’s grateful for the time you spend with it and it misses you when you’re not there. Essentially, you become accustomed to using it when you’re bored with other things. The people around you think you should actually marry it, because it’s perfect for you, but you’re not sure because deep down you love it and you don’t want your relationship with it to fail.
But here we are…I’ve decided to take the plunge and marry it. As long as writing understands that we have an open marriage and my other lover is real estate. So far, they seem to be flexible with one another, although real estate can sometimes be very greedy with my time and then writing gets all jealous and naggy because I’m not spending enough time with it.
It was my husband Scott who said, “why don’t you write a blog?” That sounded innocent enough. So I started doing some research and thought maybe this could work! Maybe I could find a way to successfully integrate writing into my life without having to drop everything else! I don’t want to bore you with all the start-up specifics, but…well…here we go.
First, I just have to tell you, starting a blog is really an intense process. I had no idea. I had this assumption that you simply find a format online somewhere, choose your own platform and start writing. I could not be more wrong about that. It begins with the daunting task of finding a name for your blog. The best option is to use .com, because it’s the most popular. But you have to find a name (called a domain name) to end with .com that has not been taken already. I next had to decide what I wanted to describe…me or my writing. It’s exciting at first because it’s a new endeavor and you start coming up with all of these grand ideas for .com names. You plug them into a site to see if the domain name is taken and you find that every name that suits you is already registered by someone else! I hope whoever has all those original website names I came up with is doing them great justice.
So what do you do when you have already reached the point of moderate frustration in the very first baby steps of your new undertaking? You call your best of friends and put them to the task of assisting you in creating your domain name. You have high expectations of them- they should be dropping all other seemingly important duties, like work and rearing children, to assist you in this endeavor. They comply, only because they already know how bossy you are, and giving in is just easier. For days, you and your word posse blurt out random ideas, while you plug each one into the domain search engine to see if it already exists. It’s mentally exhausting. And emotionally, I might add, because you realize that maybe in this big, big world, you’re not so special, since everyone is coming up with names for themselves that describe YOU.
First conversation with Friend Jules went like this:
Deb: I need a blog name.
Jules: Funnyshit.com. Because you write some funny shit.
Deb: Two things- should I be describing my writing or me? And two, you know I have to tell my mom and my mom-in-law the name of my blog, right? Do I really want to tell them that my blog name is Funnyshit.com?
Between Jules, Megan and myself, we forged onward to find something slightly more appropriate, but just as accurate.
“How about French Bread? I’m crusty on the outside and soft and warm on the inside.” No, that’s taken.
“How about Frayed.com? It’s a trim that can be decorative or a worn out edge on an old piece of material. That describes you perfectly!” Also taken.
“How about Life Animated, because you bring life to plain, everyday stories.” Really? Yes. Taken.
How about “Stop Wrestling Before You Break Something”- it’s just something I say a lot as the mom of boys. And it doesn’t matter how old they are. For that matter, I could use, “Please Don’t Break Your Brother’s Neck” or “What’s That Smell” or “Please Take Your Protective Cup Off the Dining Room Table.” I mean, if we’re trying to describe ME, these are the things that I have heard myself say out loud and frequently over the course of 19 years.
In the end, my favorite possibility for a domain name was “Unpolished”. Maybe that’s because it describes not only me, but also the stories my life permits me to tell. I am not a polished gal. Example. There’s a lady that I work with at my real estate office- picture this- she is tall and blonde and beautiful. She is perfectly manicured and lovely. She wears heels in which I would undoubtedly fall and break my neck. I’m sure her closet looks like a Talbots store and I’m guessing she smells like what I think Julia Roberts would smell like. Now, erase the picture I just created and imagine the complete opposite. That’s me. I am not her. Not in any way, shape or form and I am not kidding.
But it’s not just my appearance. My personality is rough around the edges (I know! Another good domain name! No, it’s taken). I’m slightly tarnished (oh! Good one! Sorry, being used). Even my parenting skills aren’t polished. My language and my behavior are slightly irreverent. I have a sense of humor that rivals that of a 12-year-old boy (I giggle when I hear the word Uranus- literally- I just giggled while I typed that), I speak sarcasm fluently and sometimes, things fall out of my mouth before I have the opportunity to edit them. I can be brutally honest and painfully direct. In person, the look on my face often reflects what I’m thinking inside. These facial expressions are apparently something over which I have no control and which can have dire consequences, often requiring further explanation or public apology. I’m not graceful in the least bit. But therein lies my point. I’m unpolished. But, wait! Before you get all judgy, I’m not a total human failure. With many things, when you polish the surface, you’ll find there’s something shiny underneath. I’m passionate about things I love and believe in and I try to be kind. And even though I might occasionally say I don’t like people, I really do love most of them and have an intense desire to make other people’s lives easier. So, there I am. I just laid out my unpolished self to the world. Not gonna lie, that was slightly painful. But it’s all true.
Of course, “Unpolished” was taken as a domain name (shocking), so I had to play with it a little. My Life, Unpolished seemed to be the right fit and the important people in my life all agreed.
If I thought finding a domain name was near-impossible, it was nothing in comparison to the technological debacle that happened shortly thereafter. I tried following instructions from other bloggers who posted a lot of blog entries. But I’m going to admit something that few people know about me. I hate to read. (I apologize for that audible noise you just heard in the background as you read that last line- that was my retired, high school English-teaching parents letting out a shriek of terror, followed by wails of disappointment). Although I have some favorite authors and I read their stuff in my free time, reading is just not something I enjoy much. And in my work, although it’s necessary, reading is far down on the list of things about my job I like doing. Regardless, even if I had doctorate degree in English Lit, there are few people who can understand this technology stuff. It’s written by a generation of people who emerged from the womb with cell phones in hand, asking the doctors what the hospital Wifi password is and if their network is secure. This generation can’t have a conversation with a human being but they have the ability to create words and apps and programs that can suck the will to live from anyone over 40.
I read a few posts on blog-writing, but then turned to the endless how-to videos online. I quickly found out that they have no idea how to put their instructions into terms that the average technologically-challenged Joe can understand. The words they’re using aren’t familiar to me and they talk so fast, I have to keep replaying the videos, over and over, in order to take notes. I feel exactly like I did in my first and only accounting class in college, where I received the lowest grade I ever received in four years, trying to earn my BA. I’m starting to question whether this blog thing is a good idea or not, but I did manage to salvage a few directions…
After you’ve chosen a domain name, you sign up for a host (some company to host your blog) and then some software (for something I can’t remember) and then you have to manage email addresses so you need a company for that too. This is where I should add that when you hire said company to manage email for you and then you call the support line and ask no less than twenty questions, the guy on the other end gets a little HUFFY and starts letting out big sighs, which I will assume are similar to a pressure valve release and if he doesn’t do it, he’s going to blow a gasket and hang up on me.
And oh! Did we mention you’ll want to be a member of every single social media outlet on the planet, regardless of whether you know how to use it or not? At this point, I’m in full-on sweat mode. My hands are clammy and I’m feeling lightheaded. My breath is shallow, the room is spinning, I’m grabbing my chest and I’m seconds away from calling 911 because I’m sure I’m having a heart attack or a stroke or something. I try to calm down and keep watching video tutorials but they’re telling me to click here on widgits! Well, where are they?! And open the whooziewhatsit! Where’s that?! And post the bibbity bobbity! How?! Click the doohickey! Find the whatchamacallit! Don’t forget to install the whoopsiedaisy and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! What just happened?! My brain just broke! It broke, I tell you! Smoke is pouring from my laptop, my room is up in flames and at this point, I don’t even care. I’m walking out on this dumpster fire and I’m not even calling the fire department. It’s too much. I feel like I just aged 30 years trying to figure this shizzle out and all I wanted to do was tell you some stories, which have completely escaped my mind at this point, because I replaced them all with a bunch of robotic gibberish information technology garbage and terms I’ll never understand. I suddenly feel old and I want to go out on my front porch, wave my cane and yell at the neighbor kids to “get off my lawn!” before heading back inside for my daily dose of prunes. I first send my IT Director-of-a-husband a very colorful text about how his idea of my writing a blog is a really bad one.
Then, I lie down and take a nap. Because when you’re old, you sleep a lot and this is where I am now. When I wake up, I’m going to buy some elastic pants from the Blair catalog and God help me if those kids are back on my lawn.
When I wake from my nap, though, I find this sweet little text from my husband; its notification is just sitting there, on my home screen, all quiet and calm-like, as if it knew I had worn myself out and was just patiently waiting for me to wake up and read it.
“Heyyyy…I can help. I will look at it this weekend. We will keep it simple. If it goes somewhere, great. If it doesn’t, that is fine too. Basically, you write and I will focus on the site. I love u. U r amazing at what u do.”
Do I have a great husband or what? Well. He was the one the with the crazy idea in the first place, but it’s clear to me now that I’m not in this alone and reinforcements are on the way. There’s a wave of relief that comes with that thought. I feared briefly that maybe this marriage between me and writing just wasn’t meant to be and I almost called it off, but all it took was adding my husband to my already weird, three-way marriage between myself, writing and real estate.
When Scott returned from his work trip, he immediately went to work for me to make it happen. He said, “you write.” So I did. I wrote. And I hope you’ll stick with me as I continue to do it. Welcome to My Life, Unpolished.