The Seven Worst Things About Being an Adult

This post is a response to the prompt on Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop: Please list the 7 Worst things about being an adult.

1. Maturity. The single worst thing about being an adult is the fact that, after you have waited your whole childhood to get to eat, listen to and wear what you want, it turns out you can't do any of this after all. I had my first son at twenty-two and immediately found myself in the awkward position of being held up as a model for one entire human being to base his notions of normalcy upon. No cold pizza for breakfast. No Megadeth in the nursery. No hooker boots. No, no, no. It was worse than childhood because at least then I could dress up as a fairy princess. Maturity also demands that I refrain from yelling "fuckface" at people driving on the freeway, that I wait to watch Game of Thrones only after my children are in bed, and that I search diligently for the clean version of my favorite Disturbed songs, which means that basically all the lyrics are gone. It's an untenable amount of work and all so that my own children can go off to college and live on mac and cheese while listening to Eminem. 


2. Pickled eggs, art museums and Bach. There are various things you are supposed to like as an adult which I do not. I suppose this means I am a hick. Any meat which has been "gently simmered" in "a reduction" of anything is actually not good. Eggs should never be pickled. That is quite obviously wrong. Also, I hate art museums. I do like art. I like it one piece at a time, like a proper girl. I do not wish to be forced into an orgy of art, my senses inundated with that which is meant to contemplated piecemeal. In that kind of situation, I become so traumatized, I have to dissociate and wander aimlessly about, shutting out the visual assault and humming pleasant, meaningless remarks about the beauty of the pointillists. Classical music is intended to be played in department stores where you can ignore it. Please do not make me sit and watch the people playing it. This is as useless as watching the sound of rain. Somehow, my lack of appreciation for what people call "the finer things" makes me a sub-standard adult. This was never an issue when I was a teenager. Those were the days.


3. One-eyed Alien Duck Kachinas. This is actually a problem of being a parent, which is a frequent hazard of adulthood. Two or three times a day, a child approaches me with great delight and presses into my hands the ghastly visage of a dragon, a superhero cat or a "one-eyed alien duck Kachina." I am naturally expected to treasure each and every one of these pieces and not to secret them into the garbage when no one is looking. Last month, I sent my seven year-old to an art camp and he returned home with twelve three-dimensional robots made of bits of junk connected with hot glue. The next week, he went to Camp Invention and returned home with a patented device–of which he had made three demos–designed to deter our cat from pissing in the house by  attracting him to relieve himself on a chunk of Styrofoam and bubble wrap. So far, several robots have succumbed to what appears to be spinal degeneration and the cat has ignored his toilet, but we have kept them all. We have to.


4. Plague. Almost every nasty chronic condition that I read about is most commonly discovered in women in their thirties. Nature, I suppose, senses that our eggs are getting moldy and is trying to kill us off. Thyroid disease. Fibromyalgia. Chronic Fatigue. Various cancers. The longer you're alive, the less Nature wants you to feel wonderful. Right at the time most of us need to be most productive, great numbers of us are struck down by a condition that makes us want to languish on the couch, moaning and ordering meals in bed. Who needs to make dinner? Why us, of course.


5. Sexual Peak. This period of my life is supposed to be characterized by a wanton lust and ensuing orgasmic Heaven. That may be true biologically speaking, but honestly, it is rather cruel that this is happening when I never have time to enjoy it. I fall asleep at 9. My physical interest in sex peaks during the afternoon when my husband is at work and I have to make dinner. By the time my teenager is in bed, all I care about is my novel and Rozerem. Sexual peak, indeed. Wasted.


6. Dandelions. When you are a child, dandelions are lovely. Upon seeing a lawn covered with dandelions, you encounter a world of wishes yet to be granted. You try drinking dandelion milk. You knit dandelions into chains. You give them happily as teacher gifts. Dandelions are one of the things you can love about life. But, in your thirties, dandelions are an ethical quandary. Shall I spray these dandelions with poison, thereby killing songbirds, poisoning the groundwater and joining the forces of Voldemort? Shall I harvest all of them and cook the greens, only to have my children look at me with horror as I explain the health benefits of weeds? Shall I pluck each dandelion carefully and place the seed heads in a plastic bag like Grandma did before Round-Up was invented? Or shall I simply pretend that they don't bother me–try to recapture the joy of dandelion-studded innocence, blowing seed heads with my children while suppressing the thought that I have just spread noxious plague about my whole front lawn? Adulthood ruins dandelions utterly.


7. Farts. Everything makes me fart. I cannot eat dairy or gluten or fruit. I have to watch my intake of whole grains. I am a rotting corpse whose intestines cannot absorb the simplest nutrients. My children look at me, pity in their eyes.
   
   "What can you eat, Mom?"
   
   And, so it is, slowly, that we decay–intestines first and then vital organs as we slump toward old age, all of us gathered for coffee together, the counter speckled with soy milk, rice milk , almond milk.
   
   "Please pass the gluten free millet cookies," we say.
   
   I can only hear the sound of dirt being thrown onto my grave.

Two Days Ago: The Chicken From Fae

Today's post is a response to the GBE2 prompt: Two Days Ago.


Two days ago, Andrea had opened the cabinet looking for peppermint tea and found the chicken.

Since then, she had wondered aloud how the chicken possibly could have found her way into that cabinet and from whence she had come.

"From whence?," her teenage son Faramir repeated incredulously. "Is that even a term?"

Andrea sniffed. Her son, like most teenagers, was an asshole. She had decided the best policy was to ignore this. The chicken in the cabinet was small and pert with red feathers and bright eyes. She cocked her head often with apparent curiosity and would utter a low, pleasant chuckling croon. At first, Andrea had set the chicken outside in her fenced backyard and given her a bowl of dry Corn Flakes and some water. Later, upon doing a bit of internet research, she removed the Corn Flakes and substituted shelled corn and some rolled oats. The chicken appeared sad and anorexic. Andrea went outside and encouraged her to eat, bringing her own breakfast sandwich to have alongside her in order to model the proper behavior. The chicken snatched a bit of egg from Andrea's hand and began bouncing up and down on the patio, pleading for more. They ended up sharing the egg sandwich.

"Cannibal.," Andrea told the chicken.

There was obviously no way that the chicken could have come into the house and ended up in a kitchen cabinet, so Andrea didn't bother to waste much effort exploring the possible logical explanations for this. Upon some contemplation, she concluded that the chicken was placed there by the Fae as an act of their usual inexplicable whimsy. She called the chicken Titania and looked into hiring her friend to build it a coop. While researching coop design that afternoon, she stumbled across a pattern for chicken diapers and decided that this was the way to go. She promptly got out the sewing machine, sewed several diapers and inserted them with feminine pads. Thus, Titania was to be installed in the house full-time. The next morning she laid an egg in the cushions of Andrea's couch, which Andrea fried up and shared with Titania.

"You are completely bat shit, Mom.," said Faramir. "I swear if Child Protective Services knew about this, they'd give me to Dad."

While speaking, he sweetly stroked Titania's feathers and she closed her eyes and cooed a deep, satisfied coo.

I am sad to report that in her enthusiasm for the love and care of Titania and Faramir, Andrea forget to offer thanks to the Fae that gifted her the cabinet chicken. It is, of course, never a good idea to ignore the Fae. They tend to be like snotty old aunties about this and like same aunties, will exact vengeance.

On the second day–today, upon returning home from work, Andrea found Titania home alone and Faramir nowhere to be found. She called the school, his friends, his father and the police. He was nowhere. Finally, in searching his room, she came upon a sprinkling of fairy dust, like the cast of scales of tiny iridescent serpents and realized what had happened. One note was left by Faramir's pillow, scrawled in a hand at once childlike and inhuman:


"Sacrifice the chicken and we will give you back your son."


Note: This post is a tribute to my mother, who writes things like this, only much, much better. Today she got into my head through our shared DNA, took possession and told this story. I screwed it up because it had to be translated into Tara. You should really read her. Her blog is "B" Stings.

A Meme, a duck and a philosophical inquisition.

I have come down with a meme! What's a meme? It's a cross between blog mono and a high school slam book. Due to this condition, I must now tell you eleven random facts, answer eleven questions posed by a dear lady, spread the virus across America and pose eleven questions to those who who will have caught it. The questions are supposed to be light and funny, like the ones I will answer. Naturally, I chose to screw this up for my own amusement.

In keeping with the proper spirit of this thing, you may listen to this song while you read. It all goes down easier that way.

Part I. Eleven facts:

1. I hate games and spend half my life trying to figure out how to politely avoid being asked to play them.
2. My dog is named after Professor Xavier of the X-Men. This is ironic because he's an idiot.
3. The first concert I ever went to of my own choosing was Madonna at Oakland Coliseum. The second was Primus at the Warfield.
4. I once got picked up by the police for stealing coins out of a mall fountain to buy cigarettes.
5. When I told my mom over the phone that she had better speak to this man, the policeman said, "I'm not a man. I'm an officer."
6. I once owned a blue vinyl mini-skirt which could be completely unzipped from top to bottom in back. I wish I still had that skirt.
7. I love mythology. I think it just explains everything, don't you?
8. I am still kind of in love with Wesley from The Princess Bride.
9. I am ten times as crass and lewd as I make apparent on this blog.
10. I was once the operations manager of a construction business.
11. I can't eat fruit.

Part II. Eleven Answers to Tangled Lou's Questions:

1. If there were 5 birds in your yard, which one would you eat? And why?

I am pretty sure that this question was directed at me, since, at one point there were five birds in my yard and I did end up eating one. I chose the one who was injured. Now, we just got a new chicken, so I have five birds in my yard again. For death, I would choose the the misogynist crested prick who keeps pulling all the feathers out of one female duck's neck. You can take him home with you instead.

2. What's the best thing that happened to you when you were 7 years old?

I realized I was the messiah from another planet. This gave my life a totally new direction.

3. If the mob was going to take one of your fingers to recover a debt, which finger would you give them? Why? (Or would you do that thing where you flip the table and grab the giant meat cleaver from Vito?)

Did you see Bound? Any strategy I devised would be based on deception, sex and female collaboration. They can't have a finger without a fight.

4. If you were to throw a drink in someone's face, what drink would it be and why would you do it?

My mom once tossed ice tea in some lady's face after she gave her unsolicited parenting advice at a fair. I threw Gatorade at my husband once, before he was my husband. The best reason to do this is always moral outrage and anything refreshing will do.

5. Someone gives you a gorgeous mink coat for a gift, would you wear it? Why or why not?

As well wear shrunken heads on a necklace.

6. You are trapped in an elevator with the following people: Elton John, Kathy Griffin, Jimmy Carter and John Malkovich. What do you do? Would you take pictures with your cell phone?

(Sigh.) I never take pictures when I should. I would probably try to get John Malkovich by himself so we could talk. 

7. Who did you want to be when you were 13? Are you that person? Why or why not?

When I was 13, I wanted to be a psychologist. I am not a psychologist. I realized that I don't want to listen to people talk about their problems and try to help them. I just want to examine them and make observations. I was, however, a writer at 13 and I still am.

8. If you found a finger in your burrito, would you set it aside and keep eating? Why or why not?

I will pick out insects, worms and pieces of mold, but probably not human digits.

9. If your navel dispensed the condiment of your choice, what would it be? Why?

Pesto.

10. Are you a ferret person?

Of course. Who doesn't love a ferret? Mike won't let me have one, for some reason.

11. You are given an award for something you are very proud of. You get up to make your acceptance speech and they hand you a box of teeth. Does it throw you off? What do you do? Would you proudly display it on your mantel? 

It would throw me off momentarily, but I'd probably just put them in my mouth, smile and then later set them on a dresser next to my son's one-eyed Alien Duck Kachina.

Part III. The Victims:

I took my own sweet time and everyone who I know has been tagged already. How 'bout this? If you want to answer these damn questions, feel free. Or pick your faves. Smart people, come play!  Except...

Mike at All Things Reasonable...you're it! Or forget about coming to bed tonight.
Jessica at Jessica Banks Schools You...I have nothing over you, but it's worth a shot, right?


Part IV. The Questions:

O.K. Here are my questions. Put on your damn thinking caps, peeps.

1. Should we use some measure of guilt to encourage good behavior or do we really need to rely on intrinsic, unpressured desire to do good? Why or why not?

2. Should people with disabilities be taught as much as possible to function like typical people, or should the world be taught to see the value in difference? Or both? How?

3. Why are we still so divided by race after all this time?

4. When people talk about a belief or lack of belief in God, are we even talking about the same thing, or is God a chameleon?

5. What is grace? (as in God's grace, not as in physical grace)

6. Do we see gender too much or too little in our culture? Or just in the wrong way?

7. How do you know you aren't a total ass? (Don't take this personally. It's meant as an ontological query.)

8. What is worth giving your life to, besides your loved ones?

9. What does your family say about you that you think isn't true?

10. Can we truly love a person we don't understand?

11. Do you have any idea who might want my crested white drake?

Have fun. Here's your slam book. Pass it on.

See you over at Word Nerd's!

 

 What if you woke one morning to find that the household cat had killed and eaten your blog?

Today I'm guest blogging over at Word Nerd Speaks for the inimitable Elizabeth Grace, so if you want to see what craziness I've cooked up on the topic of blog-eating cats, please pop over there. And, on the off chance you aren't already a fan, please check out her other work while you're at it. Beth is a great writer and also the creator of GBE2, which is a group of 270 bloggers who respond weekly to the open ended prompts that Beth creates. It's a wonderful community.

See you over at Beth's!

Kreativ!

This past week, I got something I have wanted: The Kreativ Blogger Award. I especially like this one because there is something vaguely subversive about it. I am not sure why. It's the "K," I think.  Wonderful Nellie of Buttons are Not Currency passed it on to me. I say wonderful because Nellie's support and enthusiasm for my writing means a great deal to me. It is, I think, not cheap. Her compliments do not smack of Hallmark cards or yearbook signatures. They are genuine, like her own talent and voice. To be appreciated by such people is a reason, I think, to keep getting my ass up at 5 AM, to slam nineteen adjectives into each sentences and hit "publish" every day. Don't you think?

This award comes, of course, with instructions. An allen wrench and several screws. They are as follows:

1. Thank and link back to the person who presented you with the award.
2. Answer the ten questions below.
3. Share ten random facts about yourself.
4. Nominate seven worthy blogs for the Kreativ Blogger Award.

I will proceed to try to put this thing together. I have thanked and linked to Nellie, although now it looks like it only did it because I had to, which makes it a cheap gesture–a single, not very fragrant rose surrounded by ghastly baby's breath which smells like an old foot. Here, have it anyway, Nellie. I'll send chocolates by email.

I will now answer (or evade) these questions:

1. What is your favorite song?

I have always been troubled by the need to pick a favorite of anything. Doing this is like committing to marry one color for the rest of your life, knowing that in the end you will be adulterous with any number of hues. Terribly dreary. I will tell you one of my favorite songs: "Cemetary Gates" by Pantera. Listening to this song is like letting out a cathartic scream to the beating of war drums while falling in love.

2. What is your favorite dessert?
I can't eat refined sugar, so this is not a fair question. My answer would have to either hearken back to my days of cakes and puddings or be based on the vicarious experience of watching others eat sugar–which is vastly overrated–or be a lie involving fruit. So, I plead the fifth.

3. What ticks you off?
The list of things that tick me off is longer than it should be, since I have never chosen to follow the advice of Deepak Chopra on anything. If I have to choose one, my husband says that I am ticked off by things that other people do, which aren't the done the way I usually do them. I pointed out that this is only because people can't do these things correctly. Otherwise, it would all be fine with  me. Viva la difference.

4. When you're upset what do you do?
When I am upset, I brood dangerously, like a mountain lion that is thinking about going after a house cat. I call this "taking space."

5.Which is/was your favorite pet?
I like my duck, Nibbles. This duck talks incessantly and sounds either like a squeaky toy or a goose. The boy ducks don't want to have sex with her because she's little and scrappy and dorky, so instead they go after her sister with the giant chest and the blank look in her eyes, piling onto her in the kiddie pool, while Nibbles exhales repeatedly like a chew toy and bobs her head. She eats out of my hand.

6. Which do you prefer to wear, black or white?
I am not competent to wear or own white garments. At one time, I owned nothing but black clothes because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to match my outfits otherwise. Now, I compromise by mixing black with color. So, yes, I like black.

7. What is your biggest fear?
I'm afraid that someone will call me on the phone and tell me that, in order to save the lives of starving children, I need to do a public presentation on Algebra followed by singing the National Anthem. I'd feel terrible about the dead kids.

8. What is your attitude mostly?
My attitude mostly is that of a person shooting a documentary about my own life. I watch myself with interest to see what the Hell I will be doing next and periodically forget to make any proactive motions, since I am so engaged in watching the unfolding action.

9 What is perfection?
This concept, to me, is stupid. I am always surprised that philosophers were drawn to it, like dragonflies that have tried to lay eggs in the La Brea tar pits. It is nothing but a source of suffering, and as imaginary as a purple unicorn.

10.What is your guilty pleasure?
Judgement. I fall into the potato chip bag of picking apart other people's psyches, under the guise of pretending to understand them, and emerge bloated and covered with acne, feeling like an ass, but I can't get over the salty temptation to do it again.


Random Facts: 

1. I am the Lorax. I speak for the spiders. Don't kill any spiders in my presence. I find this irrationally irritating. If they bother you, take some deep breaths or, you know, take them outside. The world is their house. We're interlopers.
2. I can make almost any small child walk at a fast clip to keep up with me. I create a sense of terrible urgency at all times, as if we are all narrowly escaping the detonation of a bomb, and then we all arrive ten minutes early and have to sit in the car. I am never late to anything.
3. While I was growing up, my father had an LP of Ethiopian armpit music. To clarify, this is music made by people's armpits. I may have been affected by this fact.
4. I am a terrible girl. I do not like shopping and despise chick flicks. I hate romantic stories and gestures of all kinds, and my ideas of the erotic are distinctly male. I am bored with other people's babies. I secretly wonder if rather than being from Mars or Venus, I'm from Pluto.
5. I am growing purple carrots, purple kohlrabi and purple tomatoes and bush beans in my yard. It's like Harold drew all the produce with his crayon. Or like the whole yard is some sort of display of lesbian solidarity.
6. I'm fond of catching frogs. 
7. I can't fold maps.
8. I react to sugary cereal as if it was marshmallow-heart-asbestos. I will allow my kids to eat dessert like everyone else, but stick it in a cereal bowl and that, my friend, proves you aren't even trying.
9. I am delighted beyond belief by the discovery of a ladybug.
10. I normally imagine my sons either as turning out like Albert Schweitzer or like Charles Manson. Mediocrity, it seems, is the hardest fate to envision.

The Bloggers:

1. Kelly of Southern Fried Children. I hope you already know this, but Kelly is one of those writers who will simultaneously delight you and cause you to seethe with jealousy for her talent. She is a storyteller with the perfect balance of crassness, compassion, ridicule and love to wind you in for the length of every tale.
2. Tangled Lou of Periphery. Tangled Lou is something of a flesh and blood muse for me and, I think, for many. In case one of you doesn't already know her, she's brilliant. Her mastery of metaphor puts almost everyone else to shame and proves again that the best writing is that which must be chewed slowly.
3. Mike Adams of All Things Reasonable...except the ones I forgot. Quite apart from being my husband, Mike is also one of the smartest people I know. His writing is full of ideas and questions that most people don't think to ask and the raw truth of being alive.
4. Jessica of Jessica Banks Schools You. Jessica's is a blog for smart people. She offers the honest experience of her own parenting of a child on the spectrum alongside topics like religious literacy and treats each with equal art and candor.
5. Masked Mom. Masked Mom is just fun to read. She gets the laugh of recognition, smile of pure enjoyment. Her writing is short and spare, but never leaves anything out.
6. Amy of From the Mom Cave. Amy writes on her experience of raising two kids with special needs. Despite the obvious challenges she faces, though, what she writes never makes me pity her. It allows me to feel the kindred love that all mothers share, filtered through our different experiences, and grants me the profound gift of seeing through her eyes. 
7. Jane of Jane in her Infinite Wisdom. Jane's blog is fun. She sets me right down in the middle of a life so different from mine and acquaints me with all of its characters. "What if I had never married?," I have to wonder. Her blog makes the single life look like so much fun.

If I have named you, you must now take up the allen wrench and follow the rules. You are dubbed Kreativ! Happy Tuesday.

If only I still had Bret Michaels' autograph scrawled onto a yellowed napkin covered with mildew, I could have been GREAT.

...and here is the last post I am giving you from my archives this week because today, boys and girls, school is out! Back at ya with fresh writing in a minute. In the meantime, please enjoy this very silly old post, originally published on December 19, 2011.


Today's #ReverbBroads11 prompt: Who would you most like to meet and why? via Dana at  Simply Walking.

Once I met Bret Michaels.

I was thirteen at the time, and I wasn't even absolutely sure who it was I had been talking to until I walked off with his autograph, but it was Bret Michaels of Poison. He signed his name on my Hard Rock Cafe napkin. Later I permanently misplaced it in the slag heap that was my room.

I also had Wil Wheaton's autograph, from when he was like fourteen. My dad got it for me. Lost that, too.

And somehow for me these incidents are still missed opportunities. If only I still had Bret Michaels' autograph scrawled onto a yellowed napkin covered with mildew, I could have been GREAT. 

On another occasion, when I was a waitress at the Good Earth Restaurant and Bakery in Larkspur, California, James Hetfield of Metallica came in and ate breakfast.  And who got to wait on him? Some red-headed chick who was all, "Who's James Hetfield?"

How I found out about this was when she came to the espresso bar afterward looking for clarification on who it was that she had just waited on. But he had already left. Lead singer of the best metal band in American history. Never. Even. Saw. Him.

Oh, I'm sorry what was your question? Who would I most like to meet (present tense)? I see. Here's my list:

1. Jenny Lawson. Top person. I have a girl crush on her. We both have a terrible great sense of humor, we both write, we both suffer from rheumatic conditions. We should be best friends. We're not quite there yet. Right now, I'm like that fat girl with glasses in high school who writes poetry, and she's that like that hot jock on the varsity team. But I think she may notice me soon. If not, I may break down and crank call her.


2. David Sedaris. He and I can talk about both our past drug abuse and our adventures hitchhiking. It will be mutually beneficial. Loads of laughs. And he can give me advice on my son's speech therapy.


3. The Myth Busters. I am too stupid to understand most of what they do, but I really want to know how I can get a job doing bad-assed shit for fun. It may be problematic that I don't know how to do any bad-assed shit, but I do want to get close enough to borrow clothes from Kari Byron...


4. My dead maternal grandfather. I want him to debate my husband, the UU Socrates. And I want him to reflect, from beyond the grave, on his shortcomings as a family member by contrast to his tremendous strength as a minister. I also want to hear his side of the story. 


5. Jesus. I have a lot of stuff to ask Jesus, and I really want to hear his opinion on a lot of things. Everyone is so sure Jesus is on their side in all the arguments. Let him speak for himself. Maybe he would surprise you. Perhaps he's a Ron Paul supporter, for instance. I just want to know.

In fact, this sounds like the guest list for a hell of a Sunday morning coffee klatch at my place. I'll put on the espresso. By the way, it'd totally be OK if James Hetfield wanted to come, too..

Dear Dr. Blogheimer,

Today's post is a parody as assigned by the amazing, talented Elizabeth Grace of Word Nerd Speaks for the GBE2 Blogging Group.

Dear Dr. Blogheimer,

I am writing to share with you that I have been trying to follow your helpful advice in promoting my blog. Thank you very much for the numerous articles and seminars that you have offered on this topic. I especially enjoyed the $2,000 weekend retreat on How to Generate Income Blogging. Since attending, I have attempted to do everything just as you described, but have met a few roadblocks. I wonder if you'd answer a few clarifying questions for a loyal fan.

1. What sorts of things should I tweet to my followers? It is been my understanding that a solid stream of content is best, so I have tried to tweet every hour or so with details of what I am eating for lunch and dinner and links to the same "evergreen" post I wrote two years ago on how to tell if your cat has diarrhea. This does not seem to have generated as much response as I was hoping. In fact, I seem to have lost some of the followers I had before. Which brings up another question. Most of the new followers I have seem to be very young women with surprisingly few clothes and a lot of wet cats. Perhaps they are pet enthusiasts living in tropical climes? Often, to be helpful, these same send direct messages to me with links, which I appreciate. However, when I open these, I often find later that a virus has been installed on my computer. I cannot explain this pattern. Can you advise?


2. I am using Facebook to promote my blog, but I am having trouble keeping my family from ruining the fan page experience. My sister keeps writing things on my Facebook wall such as "Nice post, you big fat loser!" I wonder: is this a typical problem? Also, my mother has begun reading all of my posts and then using comments on Facebook to reference embarrassing things I did as a child. (i.e. "This piece you wrote on goldfish euthanasia reminds me strongly of the fact that, when you were two, you would wet the bed every night and then undress and sleepwalk naked through the house." I am concerned that this kind of thing will undermine the establishment my brand. Any thoughts?


3. I have been using Pinterest avidly, as you suggested. I pin images of cat diarrhea with quotes from my post on that subject and a link back to my blog. So far, no dice. What am I doing wrong?


4. I see that I now have a Klout score of 21 and am considered influential on the topics of diarrhea, cats, bed-wetting and sibling rivalry. But how can I leverage this expertise to get paid speaking engagements?


5. I am having a hard time finding guest blogging platforms interested in publishing my work. I have contacted all of the top-notch ones, such as The Bloggess and Dooce, but they don't return my emails. I have an excellent piece on an experience I had while clipping my dog's nails, which I am shopping around, but I can't seem to break into the market. How do you recommend I keep the faith through this trying time?


6. You have spoken frequently about the importance of using links in my work and referencing the work of other bloggers, public figures and journalists. I have attempted to link daily to certain people, in order to capture their attention. One of these is Dan Quayle, whom I find a way to work into posts as often as I can. My thinking is that he is not so followed in the media right now that this would be beneath his notice, and yet he remains a man of some importance. I would love your advice on how to up my game here. Here are some examples of my work so far:

"And this is why it is hugely important to check every inch of your dog for scabies. Just as Dan Quayle checked every inch of his desk every day of his vice-presidency for matters of importance. Thoroughness is crucial."

" In summary, my cat and I thoroughly enjoyed watching The [2011] Muppets. The only improvement I could imagine to this work of genius would have been a cameo by Dan Quayle. Or if I had been able to go to see the movie with Dan Quayle. Either of those." 

7. I think I may have accidentally joined a pornography message board. I thought it was a group for bloggers posting on cat bathing. My mistake. I guess I should be more careful in future.

In conclusion, although right now, my page views are in free-fall and my husband is filing for divorce and custody of our nine cats, due to what he is calling my "obsession" with the unpaid work of blogging, I continue to feel hopeful. Given everything you taught me and the good money I spent on your excellent seminars, I think things can't help but turn around soon.

Yours sincerely,

Katrina Katermand

Blogger at "Your Wet Pooty Tat"