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.

Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round

I am, shall we say, well upholstered. Thick, curvy, plump. All those euphemisms for fat. So I champion the cause of big girls being faaaaaaahbulous. It's not easy in a thin-obsessed world to be hot and heavy, but we do what we can.

So I was happy to find that my reviewee today, Mindy, is brave and honest enough to share her weight loss journey online. It's something I know I'd never be able to do, and I admire her very, very much for seeing herself as she is, wanting to love herself, and taking steps to be a better Mindy. You can be beautiful at any size, and it's awesome to see Mindy try to embrace that instead of hiding and being ashamed. Dealing with mental health issues on top of self-esteem issues ain't easy, and it's a hell of a thing to open all that up for the world to see.

Mindy's design is cute, cheerful, and hopeful, like she is. It's nicely organized and uncluttered if very girly, but girly is fine by me. And I really like the personal artsy touches.

But here comes the hard part.

Mindy has only blogging since May, so I cut her a little slack on the rambling, unfocused, bland posts. It takes a while, sometimes, to find your voice, to settle into what blogging means to you. But we're coming up on 6 months and there hasn't been a lot of forward motion.

There are way too many grammar and spelling snafus. She recognizes that she makes these mistakes, so that's something, but it did interrupt the reading process for me. There's a little thing called a comma -- use it: "I love the show I have the movie and the sound track I've even been to a couple showings of it back in the states." This is murder on my eyes and I just want to hit something. Please. For the love of Strunk and White, pay attention to what you put up on the screen. "I" should be capped, so should the beginning of a sentence, and the apostrophe is a time-honored tradition when possessing or conjuncting.

Look. We all make mistakes. Lord knows I do, too. But just try. Reread. Run the spell check. Edit yourself. You're putting these words out there for the world to see. This isn't your bedside doodle book. There's an audience, and you need to respect them by not wasting their time. Before you post anything, consider whether we care, whether you can make it interesting, whether there's a story to tell, whether it's readable and relatable and interestingable (I made that word up, but I'm allowed) or at the very least certifiable (we like crazy). If not, then email someone instead of posting. I'm not saying shut up -- just make it mean something.

There are glimpses of the inner deviant, flares of personality, but they are few. Mostly, it's "I did this, then I did this, and I pushed this boundary." Pushing boundaries is great, and it's so commendable that you're getting out and living your life and getting fit and taking care of yourself and making connections. But there's no voice, no rhythm, no hook. You are a sweet, sweet person with goals and dreams and hurdles to jump and bridges to cross and experiences to feel. I genuinely like you, and I'm not uninterested in learning about your journey, but you make it hard by not giving us any flavor, any flair. Florida Girl, who I love, is your buddy, and I bet she could tell us what an engaging person you are, but you're not putting it on the screen so well.

I get that you're not a writer, and for you blogging is more about the process of confession and connection than it is about composition. But as we've said again and again here at Ask, unless you've got a seriously compelling story to tell or a whiplash personality or a shit storm of a life, your writing better be engrossing or you're doomed to the shallow end of the blogging pool, bobbing around with swimmies on your arms and soaking in the piss of that kid who eats his boogers and smells like sprouts all the time. That may be overstating it, but I do like the metaphor. My point is you just end up one of squillions, mediocre. And, you know, that's fine. We don't all get to be Michael Phelps. (I just killed that whole swimming thing, didn't I?).

Mindy, do not be discouraged. Just do better. I want you to keep blogging because I know it's good for the soul. And for someone with social phobias to let it all hang out and to bring her blog to our attention takes balls the size of Buicks. Ultimately, I like you. I think you're nice and good and admirable and talented. Just don't settle for mediocre. And for extra pressure, I'll be watching. Step it up.







P.S. You're an American, use the damn Z key! (But that's hypocritical of me because when I write, I cross my sevens.)

P.P.S. Your art is adorable, and I love seeing it.

Passing Notes

Ever since I was a teen, chugging vodka and pink lemonade (Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking with that one. Don't ask me how many times I woke up in a pool of sick. Pink sick.), firing up plastic bottle bongs, and giving blowjobs in dugouts, I've been afraid of the cops. To this day, if I see one in my rearview, I get all panicky. And I'm (usually) not doing anything wrong! It doesn't help that in college I was totally made an example of by overzealous cops busting my birthday party for "fighting" --- it wasn't fighting, y'all. That beating sound they heard was me clobbering a pinata full of blow pops and condoms. And since when are Jello wrestling pits not allowed? I ask you.

Anyway, my point is that cop avoidance is still entrenched deep within my (mostly) law-abiding heart. I mean, honestly. I won't even cut through a parking lot, people. I always use my turn signal, I rarely speed, and I once ratted on a shoplifter. So I'm a little loosey-goosey with the intoxicating substances. Does that make me a criminal? Oh. Right. I guess it does.

Which brings me to today's reviewee: MJ, who is engaged to a cop.

I am, even now, afraid to type. If my desk had a rearview I'd be checking it and sitting up straight, trying to look innocent.

To compound this, I think I've covered the fact that I'm a member of the liberal elite. Or a dirty hippy. Whichever you prefer. MJ might have been better served with Love Bites as a reviewer, hawkish hippy hater with a law enforcement history that she is. But them's the breaks, MJ. You're stuck with me. I'll try not to waft my patchouli too near you.*

The design first, because that's the easy part. The tadpoles are freaking me out. There's a boring (but easy on the eyes) gray background, and the template is relatively uncluttered and pain-free. Yahoo for tabs! You might consider rolling up your labels, though.

So, yes, I disagree with her politics. A lot. But she's at least thoughtful and not overly polemic (Although fuck you, whore, I am not immature. Pardon me while I take my toys and go home.), so I can respect that. Ish.

MJ is a Christian, but irreverent, so I don't have to worry about her hitting my pagan ass with her Bible because she's full of Christ's love.

We don't need innuendos for fucking around here, people. She tries to keep her blog PG-13, I guess, which my foul-mouthed, porn loving self just doesn't get.

There are some seriously boring (and uninspired) posts, like she's emailing her girlfriends or writing in her diary. These were the early days of her blog, though, so maybe she was just getting her bearings. Wrong. (Ok, wait. At least she recognizes it.) MJ also does a lot of LOLcats posting, which I HATE. And memes. Lots of 'em.

And oh look, she links to my pal Laurie! Goody.

It seems to me like MJ has just recently got her groove with this whole blogging thing. She's ditched a lot of the "sorry for not blogging, I'm so busy and boring" posts, which is a plus, but she still leans a lot on LOLcats and memes and links to other sites. I don't mind the links to other sites so much because I enjoy finding other places to goof off, but you run the risk of making your blog a linklog. There's a lot of community-building going on, and I can't decide if that annoys me or not (I'm pretty sure it does). On one hand I can see the benefit. Like minds and all that. But on the other it feels like it makes the blog inauthentic. Or impersonal. Or I'm not sure.

She knows she's not a writer. And though the writing isn't particularly nuanced or polished, it is mostly well-constructed and intelligent, and she has a bright and individual voice. I didn't find much to relate to, what with the whole I'm 10 years older and vulgar and a law-breaker and a heathen and a pacifist, but I can see where others might. And her Note to Idiots stuff is amusing, and I like her little "note to self" stuff at the end of each post. With the wrong person, that could be overdone and silly, but for you I think it works.

But... there's no depth. And there's no darkness. We don't see more than one or two sides of MJ. Either that's orchestrated intentionally and she doesn't want to share, or MJ is cheerfully snarky and upbeat and thankful and in love all the time.

I read the entire blog, and while I didn't hate the time I spent there (aside from a few politically motivated outbursts on my part), I mostly didn't get it. But what's weird about that is I kind of wanted to. So there's something here, something that MJ is putting out, that's drawn me in just enough to wonder... but not enough to keep me. I think I want more authenticity, more warts, more meat. MJ, I want you to not post so much flotsam and jetsam from the internet and get real. As it is your blog is fairly innocuous (except when you downtrod us poor, defenseless, do-gooder liberals). And bland. Like white bread. Or Play Dough, except less salty.

Honestly, this one stumped me. It trumps my hardest review ever. Because I kept looking for something really good. Something that would clarify my gut reaction of liking you (and I do). Something that would illustrate why, despite our differences, I want to enjoy your blog. I just never quite got there. Maybe it's because I haven't figured you out yet, not even close. And maybe you should do something to let me. Or maybe not. I'm conflicted. Obviously.








*I don't actually wear patchouli, I promise.

Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns.

Most of you know I'm a commie pinko liberal chardonnay swilling arugula chomping egghead elitist feminist. That said, I don't agree with all the molly coddling going on these days where points don't matter and we're all winners and everyone gets a trophy for being mediocre and attendance counts for 90% of your grade. Just showing up doesn't cut it.

In the high school of the blog world, Jess is one of the kids sitting in the back row, nodding off during lectures and drawing pictures of boobs. He shows up for class, but makes no effort. He doesn't do homework and scribbles verbal diarrhea on his pop quizzes. And he's not even providing a useful cultural service, like fuck up or class clown or skank or frighteningly scary dude with dead eyes and a collection of serial killer memorabilia.

The template is completely devoid of personality, with baby poop green and short bus yellow accents. The little overeater fat guy in the banner is cute and appropriate, but the rest of the design is bland with text that is entirely too small. I will say that at the very least it's not cluttered. Yet. But the blog is only a couple of months old, so give it time. And as for the name of the blog, Jess, does your problem have a life? Or is life your problem? The apostrophe usage is utterly confusing.

Speaking of syntax errors, this blog is an editor's nightmare, thus it is my nightmare. It's full of random capitalizations, run on sentences (and not the cute kind, like mine), spelling atrocities, and a complete disregard for the differences between your and you're. I am itching to take a red pen to your blog and mark that shit up.

Look, Jess is a nice guy. Seriously. He's a loving son and fiance. His family and friends mean a lot to him. And I gotta give it up to him for losing over 100 lbs. He seems like a genuinely good person. But there's nothing here. He posts frequently enough, but there's no personality, no connection, no insight, and ultimately, I'm sorry to say, no talent for writing. You don't have to be a great writer, or even a good writer, to blog. But if you're not, you better have something to say, even if you can't say it well. You better have a story to tell or a life full of train wrecks or a unique voice or a personality that transcends grammatical snafus or a big dick to take pictures of, because otherwise you're just there, taking up space and wasting time.

Apparently, Jess has gone this route before with us and come out with a shiny new "I fucking love you." I don't know what he did then to garner such an award, but now he's walking away with a bag full of flaming fingers.






Jess, you've got some work to do. Tighten up your writing, refrain from posting about how you're not posting, stop with the asinine jokes reminiscent of Dane Cook on his worst day, and for shit's sake give us a little personality! Right now you're just showing up and expecting credit. Do the work, get involved, lay it out there, tell a story, tell us who you are and why we should care and make it worth our while to read. Otherwise you might as well be posting updates on your MySpace page.

John Bender: [after Claire flips him off] Oh, obscene finger gestures from such a pristine girl.

Florida girls stick together. Maybe it's the suntan lotion.

I'm going to go on record here that I like myself. Oh, there are times when I hate myself -- last night, staring down the empty carton of frozen yogurt comes to mind. But, generally speaking, I think I'm pretty awesome. You do, too.

It follows, then, that I like people like me. And I also like people who like me. It's this whole mutual appreciation thing that I'm sure you adhere to, too, when you're not being misanthropic and supercilious. Or maybe you just are misanthropic and supercilious, in which case you like misanthropes who sneer a lot. But whatever. My point is, common ground goes a long way. All the way to Australia, it seems.

I am a Florida girl who's lived abroad with ties to Texas who is liberal, dislikes exercise, loves Publix, and finds solace in blog connections, and so is Florida Girl in Sydney.

The design is clean and uncluttered, though a bit bland. I like the white background and the pink accents (yes, I'm a girl). I'm undecided about the "about me" stuff in the sidebar. It's brief, so I don't really mind, but it might do to have a separate page, much like the blogroll (points for you). The tags could be solidified more: I'm not sure I know the difference between "American in Sydney" and "Expat Drama." As usual, I think the design could benefit from tabs.

This is the blog of a woman living abroad, trying to make the best of it, and logging her experiences. There are some interesting Australianisms. I like the whole "holy shit we're in Australia and I'm trying to like it but it's not all dolphins and cheery accents" vibe. Her introspection and ambivalence and honesty are humanizing and touching.

There are parts that seem like handy helpful tips to other Americans living in Australia, which, though slightly interesting, aren't really for your everyday stateside reader. But I recognize, too, that this is a good way for the Florida Girl to document her Aussie life, whether or not it's particularly riveting. And, as much as I like her, there are some parts that I, as a nonfamily member without kids who prefers pictures of puppies, skip. Though she started the blog last year, it's only been in the last few months that she's seemed to really take ownership of the blog, investing more of herself.

But aside from these few blips, where Laura tends to go on about things that most of us probably don't care about, she's funny and charming and interesting. It's a mommy blog, for sure, but that's not all it is, and it's not of the Stepford Mom variety that we all know and loathe. Laura is lazy, irresponsible, and morally bankrupt, and I like that in a person. And homie don't fuck around with the Disney cutlery, and I got her back on that one. I wish I still had mine.

Ultimately, I really like Laura. I admit to a certain bias: I've been reading her blog for a little while now, and she reads mine. Laura has improved her blogging lately and seems to be hitting her stride. She's getting a bit more personal, a bit more real. We're getting a little more of her personality in that last couple of months, and she's tightened up and told her story with her own voice, a voice I like to listen to.

In my world, there are three types of blogs I like: those that are written by true writers, who capture my imagination and thrill me with their word play; those that are written by people I connect with, who have a personality and humor that meshes with my own; and those that are written by who cares who, as long as they have lots of nudity. Laura's is the second kind, the kind where you stumble upon a friend.

In the interest of dissuading claims of cronyism, and because I think Laura has a bit more work to do to make it to "I fucking love you" land (though I do), I'm giving you:





Keep writing, keep in the direction you're going, build up your repertoire of good stuff, tighten up your writing like you have been, and get a little more seasoned and you'd earn that coveted "I fucking love you" seal of approval.

Side note: Christ on a crutch, I'm going to need therapy. These spiders are from hell. And I live in a damn swamp.