It's like your Aunt Edna's ass. It goes on forever and it's just as frightening.

I'm 33-years-old, and I don't have kids. I've never really wanted them, even when I was younger, when I just assumed I'd have them in the natural course of events, because it's what you do. Like buying a house and paying taxes and getting a Kitchen Aid and going to Home Depot on Saturday mornings. I don't think I have that baby craving gene. Puppy cravings, yes. I have four dogs. But kids? I don't know, man. They straight up terrify me. It's this whole other person, dependent entirely upon you, just waiting for you to fuck up their world and ruin everything and become the person they vilify in the analyst's chair every week for $500 a pop.

At my age, though, most of my friends have children. And if they don't, they're on their way, doing the charting and vitamins and temperature checks and cervix mucus and all that jazz. And I? Am flummoxed. I try. I listen and nod and ask questions and offer never to babysit. But I'm way, way, way out of my league with the whole kids thing.

But my dogs are freaking adorable.

Sarah, the Pessimistic Bitch, is among those trying to conceive and she uses her blog to chart her experiences with infertility. It is an interesting and frustrating set of circumstances, so the drama is there.

The design is clean, uncluttered, and white. Lots of ALL CAPS going on, which is slightly annoying. Otherwise, the writing area is appropriate, as is line spacing and font size. It's not too terribly cluttered, although the little traffic thing always freaks me out -- there I am! Ack! Why do we need this? Overall, it's blah but benign. She could stand to snazz it up some with a nifty banner or some color or some personality. And maybe use Pessimistic Bitch somewhere other than just the URL. I'm assuming that's the blog title, after all.

Sarah, good job rolling up the archives, but do it by months, not weeks. And add years to the dates. It's confusing as hell otherwise. And your about info should be up where we can find it, not hanging out down there at the bottom of the page. Better yet, put it on a separate page. Tabs are your friend.

There are acres of acronyms, the definitions of which I haven't a clue. Link this somewhere prominent or create a new post with definitions for those of us without baby making on the brain.

The writing comes in fits and starts in the beginning, jumping several months, which is natural. I did the same when I started. But there's no commentary about this lapse, and that's unsettling. She just jumps right back into her narrative. How about some transition? Some back story? The story so far in the sidebar is fine, but, Sarah, since your blog is, essentially, about your progress toward pregnancy, some more background is in order. Put it on its own page.

Sarah has some funny stuff (and heartbreaking stuff) to share that is absolutely ruined by rookie writing mistakes. She's got good material, a nice voice, and a fun personality, but the blog is haphazardly written and overlong. Some of it is a total mess. I am going to go on a one-woman crusade to teach the American people how to use apostrophes. Also, paragraphs really should not go on for yards. What we have here is an engaging person with an interesting story to tell who is a lazy writer, doesn't edit, and has a propensity for rambling.

She has really nice breasticles, though.

Look, Sarah. I like you. Even though I can't relate at all to the baby thing, your story and your struggle and your self pulled me in. Imagine how much more invested a reader would be if you paid attention to grammar and spelling and didn't just fling words up there on the page as they came to you. It's possible the grammar snafus got to me this time, because I'm feeling my inner (and outer) editor hardcore. I'm itching to take my red pen (razor fine point) to your blog and eviscerate it, the crimson ink mingling with your blog's pink, wriggly vitals (whoa -- I just went somewhere scary).

I want the best for you and your family. I want you to get pregnant. And I want to follow your journey. But I don't want to do it if you're not going to take the time to make your words count, to sharpen your sentences, and polish your paragraphs. I know you love him, we all do: take a page from Xbox. Look at his crisp, succinct, evocative, crafted words. The stream of consciousness writing, irregular capitalization, random spacing, lack of punctuation, and laissez-faire attitude in general toward English usage and conventions is a glaring and distracting counterpoint to your genuinely engaging voice.

So, you get this:








with a promise for stars if you add some interest to your design and start paying attention to your writing.

===

And speaking of bumping people's ratings up, Preston gets stars from me for writing a funny analysis of my review and blinging up his blog.

You people are BASTARD PEOPLE!

If Corky St. Clair had a blog, this would be it. Preston is involved in community theater, has some quirky collections, and loves Disney and his martinis. He has an ex with Cher tattoos, people. He has a crush on the Free Credit Report guy (Which, by the way, that damn song is now in my head for eternity. Blast you!). This is some hardcore Broadway gay. Which means I have to like him, if only a little. Even his name is gay! Preston. I ask you. It's fabulous. No. It's faaaahbulous.

But there are some issues. The template, for one. Bo-ring. Also, I don't think I get it. Blue Skies? I read your whole blog -- you really are that cheerful, aren't you? It is blue skies and sunny days and Barry Manilow up in this shit.

Anyway, the template. Switch your main body to a light background with dark text because what you've got now hurts the eyes. And bump up the font size. There's way, way too much clutter in the sidebar. Get rid of the blinking shit and badges. Find a template with tabs and put them on another page if you must retain them. Although I'll tell you now that those communities people join to try to boost readership and commenting are often more trouble than they're worth. And who wants to be a joiner, anyway?

Move your blogroll to a separate page because holy crap it's huge. Roll up your archives and move them up toward the top of your sidebar. And why would someone want to translate your page? Get rid of that. If people need a site translated, they know where to go. And shrink your search field and put it in the sidebar. It's taking up valuable writing property. Or better yet, just lose it. Blogger already has a search function right there at the top.

The content is innocuous. It's impersonal and surface. We don't get to know a lot about Preston's motivations or fears or hopes or demons. He's not a bad writer. The Ts are crossed and the commas are in the right places, and he's conversational if infomercially. There's poetry (yes, poetry), recipes, lots of article-ish posts, and some seriously yawn-worthy discussion on sunflowers. He does some very PG-rated humor and there's a moderately amusing story about hemorrhoids.

Preston's sweet like pie and a good person and I think he likely has an interesting story to tell, but it seems to me he's caught up in the whole everyone has a blog so I should, too, thing. To me his blog seems to be very much about us -- about the reader and what we might like to see or read or hear or know about -- and not very much about him. There's a balance to be found, between knowing what makes for interesting reading and using blogging as a means of expression. Right now it feels like Preston wants us all to like him, he wants to put on a good show, but by doing that he only lets us see the mask.

He hasn't been blogging long, and maybe he's still trying to figure out his motivation for blogging, his direction. And I suspect that he's allowed people in his personal and professional life to view his blog, so that could easily put a damper on genuine self-expression.

Ultimately, this is a puff piece. It's one guy's repository of benign observations and online community building. The writing is adequate if not particularly engrossing, but neither is it off-putting. It's... nice. And that, as I know all too well, is the kiss of death.

So, Preston, take off the mask. Give us more than one-dimension. I like you. I think you're unique and fun and probably a great friend to have around. But what you're giving now is the same as any number of blogs out there. Nice, fine, vanilla. Bland. I want bloody hot, like your martinis. When you figure out why you're blogging, when you drop the mask and let us see some method, resubmit. I'm sure then you'll get some stars.

Churchill's black dog meets Buddha

Depression with a capital D is a bitch. It's a bitch on wheels with a sidecar of black, dark, deep, abiding, ceaseless, grimy, angry fear when you're depressed, fat, seemingly friendless, gaining on middle age, unemployed with few prospects, single with few prospects, and without health insurance when your closest companion is four-legged and incapable of speech.

And Katherine at Beyond My Slab should know, because she's all of these.

You'd think her blog would be an unmitigated downer, an endless stream of woe is me. And it is. Sort of. But by dint of Katherine's voice, this slow crawl toward despair is -- or at least it was for me -- impossible to stop reading.

The bright design is nice, and it flies in the face of the palpable doldrums rolling of the site (an effort, perhaps, to put on a brave face), but I could do without the highlighter yellow. Katherine, consider tabs for an About page, and move the favorite books, movies, etc., there. Think about limiting the number of posts per page, too, to cut down on scrolling. Figure out how to make your archives into a drop-down list. And I suggest a larger font size -- the one you've got makes my head hurt.

She's prolific, having blogged for two years and participated in Blog365 at some point, and I read the entire thing. This says something. It could be the dogs. I'm not going to lie, this blog is chock full of them. Dogs, dogs, dogs, and more dogs. Which is fine by me 'cause I have four of them, but cat lovers may despair.

But it's not just her fuzzy, noble companion, Buddha. She's got this quiet sense of humor. And she's kind of zen when she's not letting misery pull her down. And she's interesting. Quirky in the best ways. She likes old movies and Pratchett. She's a little pickled, and I like her version of denial. And she has these really weird dreams that I'm so glad she documents. I mean, who has sex dreams about Jacques Cousteau? I ask you. It reminds me of my sex dreams about Father Mulcahy.

The blog is really well-written, but it wasn't until this post that I figured out how old Katharine is. There's a really slow reveal going on here, with bits and pieces taunting me. But there's also a willingness to let it all out there, to show her warts, that I can't help but like.

Sure, there's some boring stuff and memes, but there's a nice mix of short and long, meaningful and fluffy posts. And with this litany of daily accomplishments, one gets the feeling that it's holding her together, keeping her focused, and so it's kind of fascinating. It gets a little Eeyore-ish, sure, but she writes it so well I don't much mind. There's a whole lot of sadness going on, but it's nicely written, so cleanly expressed. There ends up being a really scary time around the fall/winter of 2007, and it's continued recently. Honestly, it worries me. I want to hug her.

Katherine. You wrote recently of wanting to chuck it all in and delete your blog Don't. Please. Ok, so maybe you're not popular and swimming in comments. Neither am I, frankly, on my personal blog. But keep at it. What you're doing here is valuable, to yourself and to your readers. And I think you should have more. I don't know why you don't, except maybe people turn away from the drag, don't know how to respond to what's going on in your life. All I'm saying is I like you. I like your blog. I wish things were going better for you right now. I wish you'd get a great job, find a big burly man to love, nurture some rewarding friendships, and start writing the kind of stuff that isn't such a downer. Because I know you've got it in you, and I want to hear all about it.

If you weren't doing all the things you're supposed to do when you're depressed and jobless -- getting out of the house, getting exercise, volunteering, going on interviews, joining book clubs, putting on a brave face -- I'd want to hit you upside your head for being so blue. But you are doing those things, and so I want to support you in your efforts to make a better life.

So here. Three stars eagerly, unreservedly given, and not because I hurt for you, because I want to hope for you. It's because I like what you have to say and the way you say it.