Immoral Matriarch: Catechizer

So you want to take over the internet?

You want to have lots of subscribers and lots of comments and make lots of money and have lots of reviews shoved at you and that’s your main goal in life - to be on top of whatever blogging sector you’ve placed yourself in and topple the current kings and queens and have everyone know your blog alias and want to be just like you and ask you for advice and envy your Technorati ranking and put your buttons in their sidebar and your name on their blogroll just so they feel like they are touching your elusive greatness and follow you on twitter *hoping* with all their might that you’ll follow them back but you won’t because you are too concerned with being able to keep track of and reply to the tweets of companies and the other ‘a-listers’ and it still boils your blood that some of them still don’t acknowledge your presence?

You suck.

Seriously.

Hard.

I’ve been on a quest to find new blogs to read. Not that I don’t have enough already, but I just want some new blood in my reader. And much to my dismay, two out of every five blogs that I visit are so obviously only concerned with popularity that I want to vomit. I wonder if there’s anymore sincerity or originality in the blogosphere to be found, or if I’ve discovered it all already. If anyone blogs just to blog anymore, rather than to topple Dooce.

I read people bitching about others selling out to advertisers. Holy hell, shut your trap and stop your fingers. I run ads. I’m totally an ad whore. But tell me - honestly - have you seen a change in my voice since you began to see those wide skyscrapers over there in my sidebar? In my opinion - no. I like writing, and I like money and I’ll be damned if anyone will tell me that I can’t have both, but if someone was to tell me that I absolutely had to choose, I think I’ve made it pretty clear over this past year what I’d respond.

The real epidemic in blogging right now is that it’s becoming like high school. People want too badly to be more than what they are, instead of accepting themselves first. They twist and turn their characters into caricatures and still expect you to take them seriously. And you know they know it, being as everyone around them, in their comments and on their blogrolls, is doing the same exact thing they are and using them for the exact same reason. No one is sincere, they’re all a bunch of poseurs and fakes and I don’t see how you can thrive in an environment like that. Why you’d want to.

I couldn’t. I don’t.

I prefer uniqueness and diversity. I prefer honesty and real shit.

I’ve always said that. As long as I can see YOU - we’re good. Be yourself, with no ulterior motives.

Part of me really wants to be a cunt and direct you to some examples, but that’s not my style. I prefer to live and let live, but I guess it’s on my mind because I can’t escape it unless I remain in my current blog bubble, never expanding, and I really don’t want to. So I’m speaking on it.

I cannot fathom having my reader full to the top of the same people, in essence, over and over, the only difference between all of them being their hair color or the number of offspring they have.

I mean, there is plenty of shit that annoys me in the world, and the blog world is no different.

But this is different. It’s getting worse and worse, the more that blogging becomes ‘the next big thing’. Remember how reality TV used to be full of gems like the original Real Worlds and COPS? And now, even though everyone knows it sucks, it’s guaranteed to be watched by someone so we have shit like The Hills and the recent Real Worlds? I mean, it’s not real anymore, but created or doctored or embellished until it is only ‘based on a true story’ (if that) in an effort to become popular and ride the current wave and get as much attention as humanly possible.

Not only that, but we have quality shows like Pushing Daises and Journeyman being canceled because people are too concerned with trends and popularity and bandwagon jumping and whatever the hell else and ignoring true genius.

Just like reality tv - good, original, well written and honest blogs are getting lost amongst the (self)manufactured hype. And the reality of that is that it sucks. I have a plan though. I’ll clue you in later.

Right now, I’m going to celebrate my one year blog anniversary with a bottle of scotch and pack of Marlboro Lights. Or a chicken tender and a block of sharp cheddar. Actually, since immoralmatriarch.com didn’t come to be until April 28th, 2008, I don’t know if I can celebrate this today. Should I wait until the date I moved from blogspot? Regardless - chicken and cheese it is…

It’s the End of the Year

At the end of every year, I always say “Wow! That went by really fast!” and I really feel that way. I’m twenty four years old. My daughters are three and five - I don’t have actual babies for the first time in a very long time. I’ve made a lot of friends, I’ve lost a few, I’ve set myself on a path that I belong on. I’ve changed, and I’ve stayed the same. I can look back on my blog and see that, and I enjoy it.

Here are my favorite posts (of mine) from each month of this past year. This is blatantly stolen from Heather B..

January - “Immoral Matriwha’?”

February - Highly Combustible

March  - My Life. Hollywood Style.

April -White is Alright?

May - I GUESS I’m a Mommy Blogger

June - 200 lbs, yes.

July - eBallers

August - “…and this is my partner, Ovaltine Jenkins.”

September - My Decision, Dammit

October - Rest Peacefully Gabriel Josh Wolrab

November - And tears stream down my face…

December - I can do it better myself…

So what are your own personal favorites of the year? Leave links in the comments: I’d like to read them.

Fear is a Misemployment of Time

I honestly believe that, although it doesn’t stop me from fearing.

J. and I weren’t getting along over the weekend. We weren’t talking. Or rather; he was trying to talk to me but I wasn’t talking back. In the middle of the night, as I reflected on our petty issue, I drove around and ended up at the pier.

As I got out of the car, my heart was pounding just about out of my chest. I am timorous of the ocean at night. I mean really: it freaks me out. It’s so dark. It’s so loud. It’s impossible to tell where the sky and ocean meet. It seems as if that tide, innocently lapping away at the shore is really the palm of some massive behemoth, waiting to catch you and drag into those never-ending depths. That ceaseless darkness.

I watched it for almost half an hour, my heart never calming. I thought about Jason and I. All that we’d been through and all that we’ll go through in the future. I realized that it was fear that kept me from opening back up to him. From talking to him.

I’m still apprehensive that it won’t work. That one day he’ll decide forthwith that he’s done. That I’ll end up right back where I was the last time I wrote a blog about him, and my feelings about us.

Our relationship is as disquieting as the ocean at night.
Unpredictable and capricious.
It’s water-logged me before.
I don’t want it to happen again.
So what can I do?

Well, I’d guess I should stop fearing it as a start. My fear is what keeps me from allowing it to reach beyond what it has been and shifting into what it should be. What it could be.

I guess I’ll have to start swimming in the ocean at night.

(I wrote that just over 1 year ago. I did overcome my fear, and what I’d been afraid of came to pass. I guess I should have gone with my gut eh?)

Fuck Yo Santa!

“What’s Santa bringing you for Christmas?” asked the woman behind the checkout counter at Baby Gap.
“He’s not real.” answered Bella.
The woman’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “WHAT?” she exclaimed like the child had just called her a smelly armpit face.
“He’s not real.” Bella repeated.
“Yes he is!!” she said, looking at me. I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to convey my message of ‘watch what you say next’ without saying it aloud. She caught my drift and added “He lives in our hearts, in the hearts of everyone!”
Bella looked at me and I smiled. “She means everyone buys gifts for everyone to make everyone happy, so we’re all Santa Clause.”

“Yes! Yes! That’s what I mean! The spirit of Christmas!” said the lady, stuffing the clothing in the bag. “Happy Holidays!” she said as we left.

—–
“Hey! Are you going to see Santa?” asked our waitress in Chili’s.
“He’s not real.” said Bella, stuffing a nacho chip in her mouth.
“Yes he is!! He’s at the mall right now!”
“That’s just a guy pretending to be Santa.”
“But why would someone do that?”
“Because he’s helping the grownups that tell stories to their kids.”
“Oh. Well…” mumbled the waitress, obviously surprised. “Ok.” She frowned at me and I hugged Bella closer to my side without realizing it, as if my body was attempting to reassure this woman that I actually did love my children, and I wasn’t pure evil.

All over television there is Santa. The shows that deal with non believers always end in them being proved wrong and realizing “OMG! HE IS REAL!” Not one show we’ve watched can avoid it, or tells the truth. The only Christmas episode I’ve enjoyed is A Huey Freeman Christmas, from The Boondocks. Why I like it can be summed up here (NSFW):

The whole entire world is feeding into this farce and it is ridiculously annoying. You want to lie to your kids - fine - have a blast. I don’t care at all.

But why does the entire world have to participate? Why should my kid be looked at like a purple eyed alien for being the beautiful, honest person that she is, and why should I be made to feel like I’m depriving the girls of some great thing by not bullshitting them? It’s crazy.

Isabella’s 5. Santa has serious appeal to her right now. She’s almost disappointed in the fact that she knows he’s not real. So we had a discussion.

“Do you want me to tell you stories?”
“No.”
“Well if I said that Santa was real, it’d be a story. I’d be lying to you.”
“I wouldn’t like it if you lied to me. You shouldn’t lie to people.”
“Well I won’t, so I won’t say Santa is real.”

Why can’t the rest of the gotdamn universe appreciate that?

“So, did he ever come back?”

Morrison?

Why yes, yes he did.

And I married him.

That was the only outcall I ever did, for him or otherwise, the only man I ever did more than jack off for money. That was my…Pretty Woman story. The wealthy guy, the hooker, the inappropriate meeting, etc etc. We fell in love and it was amazing.

Six years later, we still are in love, but not so amazing. Oh, and because we met the way we did, I’ll go ahead and say that sex had nothing to do with our failings. No cheating, no desire to relive the old days, no hostility or questioning.

I think about it like you don’t know what happened between Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in the future, so…yeah. Maybe they lived happily ever after, and maybe we will too. Who knows. I doubt both very much though.

And, I didn’t do it because I had to. I didn’t have to jack dick period. I left home at 17 voluntarily, and maintained a good relationship with my grandparents the entire time (they had/have no idea of course) and I could have gone back home whenever.

Everything I did I wanted to. Not in the beginning, no, but eventually I enjoyed it. It may sound strange to some of you, but I don’t regret a day, and being that I made it out without ever being arrested for solicitation it’s all good.

If I didn’t have children, there’s a chance I’d still be a sex worker right now, although I doubt it. I’d really had my fill by the time I left it behind. By choice. I don’t judge, the johns or the providers - as long as they are adults making consensual and fully aware decisions.

In my opinion, forgoing morality as our society defines it, prostitution is no different than marriage, or dating, or most other things that involve fucking and any form of compensation be a drink or a ring or whatever.

So, it annoys the fuck out of me when people feel sorry for me, or ‘wish things had gone differently’ for me. Don’t. Those comments irk the shit out of me. Even more than “OMG YOU WHORE!!!11!” would. Stop it.