Stolen Meme

I stole this meme from Beck, Stacy, and Ellesappelle. I loved their answers so thought I'd bore you with mine.

1. Go back to first or early post. How would you describe your voice back in those early days?Who were you writing to? What was your sense of audience (if any) back then?
The first post that is still on my blog is a goofy picture of me. That is very me. To post something goofy of myself to set the tone and let you know what to expect. The first posts I actually had on this blog were the beginning of a path of weight loss I was going to undertake. I am a 41 yr old mom of two who has a sedentary job and I have expanded accordingly. I cannot stand feeling unhealthy. I cannot stand the myriad of physical problems (and mine were minor) that begin when you get fat. I once read something in a doctor's office that started out something like "At five foot two and 150 pounds, Mary was obese." I nearly fell off my chair with indignant rage. I was 5'3" at the time and probably around 180 lbs. And I have never even approached obesity. I was overweight, surely. But I hate crap like that that makes a 150 pound woman feel obese! Please! I would LOVE to be 150 again. It was a good weight for me. I have big bones and muscle like there's no tomorrow. I don't look as freakish as it sounds. But 150 looks good on some women (ie - ME!). Wow. I have totally digressed here. But I started this blog as a way to hold myself accountable to an audience of my family and friends. To not just TALK about losing weight but to track my success and failure in a semi-public arena. I had no delusions that anyone beyond them would read it. And I wrote accordingly. I was very candid about my disgust with my weight and my desire to change it. I was very realistic in knowing it would be a roller coaster of a trip.

2. Do you remember when you received your first comment?
I don't really. And I have deleted all the original weight-tracking crap. So I have no idea who the first comment was. It was probably my cousin Kendra or my wonderful pal Trish. Or my birth-mom April. Or one of my other cousins Diane or Katrina. I'm not sure. I remember feeling dopey for kvetching about being fat on the internet.

3. Can you point to a stage where you began to feel that your blog might be part of a conversation? Where you might be part of a larger community of interacting writers?
This blog's direction all changed in August of 2006 when The Boy was diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome. My fat be damned. I had more important things to vent. And I figured the word Tourette's might bring some other people in my situation along to read. So I started writing to the other parents who might have just found out their child had TS. I stayed true to that until my divorce began. Oh lucky you!!

It stayed pretty much just with my close family & friends (the few I shared the link with). The first time I ventured off my own site, or that of Trish, was when she sent us all to Darlene's site when Mark was almost killed. That was the first time I commented on a stranger's site. I was nervous to do it. But felt compelled to support Darlene. And man, I'm so glad I did!

I think the first outsider who ventured over and left a comment was...hmmm...It might have been Stacy. I remember whoever it was found me through Trish's site. Since then, I got more brave and commented out to people I found on other's people's sites. If I found them funny or interesting or touching, I commented. And now I'm part of this wacky bunch of amazing women bloggers! Who'd a thunk it?

I remember being very hesitant to comment on anyone's blogs - especially those Illustrious Lofty Writers I was checking out through Trish's blog. But you've all been really wonderful to me even though I read Asimov and Eddings and haven't read many of the books on the Illustrious Lofty Writers' Reading List. (hee hee)

4. Do you think that this sense of audience or community might have affected the way you began to write?
Absolutely. I initially wrote in a very non-identifying way. Using really "God-ish" words is not my style. Sharing how I deal with God is not my style either. That's all very new. I was hesitant to put that out where people who knew me (the former girl with a truck-driver's vocabulary and former female bouncer and former rock singer, etc) might see it and think, What? SHE'S a Christian?! HA! But it's how I was approaching The Boy's Tourette's. I am going to doctors. But I am not letting them have the final say. I have recently learned to pray big. I have let God be The Boy's primary physician. And He has guided me to the most amazing array of psychiatrists, pediatricians and play therapists you've ever met! I eventually lost my inhibitions about posting my "God-ish" lingo. You all made it very safe feeling to be the real me here. So I talk how I am. And I talk how I think. And it's not always perfect. It's real. So I don't really worry about what I say now (except not to slam the idiot formerly known as my husband by name due to the pending divorce and how lawyers love to find things like that on the internet to use against you).

So that's it. My blogging meme. And I'd just like to give a quick shout out to a relatively new blog-reader that I know reads this often. This is for my baby sister Brooke:
Buh-gaaaaaawwwwwwwwwk. WERT! Ber-dikah-dikah-dikah-DER! Lerdits.

Thank you all and have a wonderful Friday.