Guest Post #4

Guest poster number 4 is here to amuse you today. This is Jen W from Serenity Now! I have a mad crush on her little boy Jack and her daughter Megan cracks me up. Jen W is one of the people I've met in blog land that I have virtual coffee with during my virtual mornings. So big thanks to Jen for coming over to babysit today, even though I know she hates to look at my feet. She's another one that I've picked.


So when Carolyn…Online asked me to stop by this week while she's out of town, I thought:

Oh I LOVE Carolyn. How sweet that she would ask me to write something.

But then I thought…

Hmmm, I'm kind of annoyed at Carolyn, actually. I mean, if she has the audacity to just up and leave on vacation like that, well then that means that I have one less thing to read every day. And I enjoy reading Carolyn…Online with my morning coffee. So, what am I supposed to do with that???

Which then evolved into…

God I hate Carolyn. I got her email request to guest post when I was a few drinks into my vacation on the Vineyard. And instead of my normal reaction which probably would have been something like, "I'm not worthy." I had a little bit of liquid courage so I was all, "Sure no problem- would lurve to!" But then I sobered up and remembered she asked me to be one of her guests this week and that's like, a LOT of pressure. I don't like pressure like that- it gives me writer's block. And if you could see me saying writer's block, the word writer would have air quotes around it because I don't really even consider myself a writer. I'm just a mom who is too lazy to write down stories properly in a baby book so I use the computer instead. This pressure is on par with the same feeling I get when I'm in a meeting at work and people are all like, "Oh, let's do some brainstorming on that." And then every decent idea I've ever had for anything just dumps right out of my head. Or later in that same meeting when we spend 30 minutes talking about if we should use the word "leverage" or "enable" to describe software benefits and I find myself saying things like, "That's a good question, I wonder which word would have a better impact." That is what I say out loud because I have a pretty decent filter but if someone was a mind reader they would really hear my inside voice saying, "Who really gives a shit? Is anyone going to read this document anyway?" But with this guest post, I know people read Carolyn…Online so word choice here matters and I really do want to make sure I pick the right one.

And while I'm totally digressing, I'm going to mention one more thing. Every morning when I come to visit Carolyn…Online, the same thought runs through my head. I look at her header and try to avoid looking at the feet because I have this thing about feet (ALL feet but that's my problem and I deal with it even though if you compare her family's feet to others out there they are quite a nice set) and I read her header and I think, "I wonder how Carolyn pronounces her name."

And then I have this inner battle in my head. I mean, it's spelled like Caro- Lynn and my middle name is Lynn so I think it would be pronounced Caro-Lynn. But the …Online makes me think that from a rhyming perspective, she would pronounce her name like Caro-Line because that would just be cute and catchy to have her blog title rhyme like that- Caro-line…Online. So before I read her posts, I wonder that and then think about the fact that I feel like I know Carolyn so it's weird that I don't even know how to pronounce her name.

A few weeks back when all the bloggers in the universe were talking about going to BlogHer, or like me and Carolyn talking about the fact that we were not going to BlogHer, Carolyn made a comment on a post and mentioned that she had this thought of her, Ms. Picket, me and Starts With An X all sharing a room at BlogHer. This was all hypothetical of course since none of us were going, or even really considering going. But it got me thinking. I'm always up for a girl's trip and wouldn't it be funny if next year we did decide to do something like that and maybe we should really consider it. Then I thought, that could be kind of awkward… on a number of levels. Among the potential awkward moments I envisioned were the following:

1) Meeting Carolyn face to face for the first time. Since I don't know how to actually pronounce her name I think our first meeting would involve me kind of giving her a bit of a nudge on the arm and saying something stupid like, "Hey… (uncomfortable pause as I struggle to weigh the pros and cons of taking a shot at her name and picking the wrong pronunciation)…you!" Then I would listen closely and hope that Ms. Picket or Starts With An X would say her name correctly and then for the rest of the trip I would over use Carolyn's name. So much so that it would become annoying and they would never read my blog ever again after we got home from BlogHer.

2) I'm guessing that by this time, I would know Ms. Picket's actual name but knowing how much cooler she is than me (having lived the rock star life and all), I'd feel totally inadequate and out of respect and reverence, I'd still continue to call her Ms. Picket throughout the trip. So much so that it would become annoying and they would never read my blog ever again after we got home from BlogHer.

3) Lastly, I assume that the trip would involve drinking. I usually have a pretty good filter when I'm sober but given an alcohol fueled girl's trip my filter would certainly be less effective. At the end of a long night, I could envision us coming home, falling into our respective hotel beds and me turning to Starts With An X as she was falling into bed saying something like, "X marks the spot!" And then I would laugh so hard that I would wet my pants (because having two kids, I have a little bit of a bladder "issue"). By night two or three, my repeated "X marks the spot!" comment would wear thin. So much so that it would become annoying and they would never read my blog ever again after we got home from BlogHer.