Things About Being Famous

 

I am almost there. I can pretty much taste it. It’s a very short matter of time before I close the gap between myself and Jayden K. Smith and become the world famous writer you all knew I would be. I have spent an unreasonable amount of time, sandwiched between reading “You Are a Badass” (highly recommend) and writing stories about Billy Ray Cyrus (don’t worry, he’s not really changing his name), obsessing over how to get people to share my writing on the viral scale that Jayden K. Smith’s hacking threat spread. Maybe if I was more threatening. Maybe if I had hacking skills. Maybe if I had a name like JAYDEN. Then I would be famous by now. I thought about shotgunning out a blog link out to every single contact I have on Facebook. (In case you didn’t know how pseudo-popular I am, that’s about 628 people, give or take the ones that will unfriend me after my most recent blog post wherein I didn’t capitalize The Lord’s Name.) (I apologize.)

If I shotgunned out a blog link with a minor threat of 14 years of bad luck or puppies dying tragically if the material goes unread, or worse - UNSHARED (gasp!), and at least three of my “friends” succumbed to my manipulation by sharing, and another six shared it accidentally because they are Of a Certain Age and don’t know what the Facebook buttons are for, I would increase my audience by at least 13%. That’s a lot when your audience is currently 6.5 people, and at some point, someone’s great Aunt Ruth is gonna share that piece of vital literature with her entire social network and her interweb savvy great-grand-niece would be some super cool literary agent or publishing house employee, or even the editor of a Small and Insignificant Magazine, but she would read me, and WANT me, and I would be FAMOUS. Two steps from a book deal, y’all.

I am dreaming here. I can see it now. In between worrying that Google Docs is going to suddenly realize that I have used up ALL of their internet space with my constant rambling and shut me down, and wondering if I bought a sophisticated pair of booties to wear with skinny jeans if people would take me more seriously, I am conjuring up a picture of where I am headed, and it’s frighteningly exciting.

Ever since I watched Romancing The Stone, I knew I was destined to be an eccentric writer with a messy bun and stacks of random literary starts scattered around my airy, high-rise big city apartment like so many tiny plants, just waiting for the exact right amount of sunlight and moisture to germinate into flourishing specimens of literary AWESOME. Except I would have more dogs than Kathleen Turner.

Of all of the GREAT IDEAS and CREATIVE VISIONS that come to me in my dreams (no, really, they do, but they’re kind of weird), I have yet to settle into the focus that is really the thing that will get me where I want to go. I, in predictable fashion, am all over the place like a ping pong ball in a zero gravity capsule, floating indiscriminately in and out of lost food particles and droplets of drool. I need a weighted vest to hold me down to my couch and brain blinders to keep my mind tracking down one path. THE PATH. I have proven that generating material is no issue at this point, cranking out thousands of useless words every day with no specific mission other than PAY THE BILLS. But it’s time to direct all of that wanton energy into something good. Good enough to get big. Big enough to open doors for All The Things (see video below).

But then I am gonna need things like trendy photographic head shots for my professional portfolio and business cards. I have business cards right now but I am mildly embarrassed to give them out, maybe because they don’t have a trendy head shot on them. Or maybe because I don’t like my phone number. Or maybe because handing out business cards makes me feel too much like a grown up. But only grown ups make the Big Bucks so I guess it’s time to embrace the business card suck.

Anyway, that’s a lot of rambling to basically express my displeasure at how much work it takes to become famous. Not that I am against work, but… If you know of any shortcuts (i.e. literary agents looking for the Next Big Thing, etc), I am all ears. (And feel free to share me with your great Aunt Ruth.)

Things About Getting In Trouble

Of all of the things in my life that I am good at, Getting In Trouble is hands down my specialty.

It started when I was a nice little girl and all of the things that seemed like Really Good Ideas at the time ended up being exactly what my mother was not hoping for in a nice little girl. Like being mean to my even nicer little sister. Or cutting my bald-until-four-years-old cousin's hair off when she was five. Or sending fan mail to Christian Bale after I saw Newsies. Or running away on a black and hot pink ten speed bicycle to the payphone at Ronnie D's where I called my aunt and she sent me packing right back home on that hot mess of a bike.

It continued into my adult(ish) years in a religious community where my shirts were too tight, my house was too messy, my music was too sensual and I was an unsubmitted nightmare of a wife and mother and churchmember. It continued when I got the ambulance stuck in 2 feet of snow out meadow creek road, and when I qualified for a payment plan on a computer so I could start going to college against The Will Of The Lord. It went on when I got a divorce, then a boyfriend, then another divorce, and it hasn't showed any signs of slowing down.

Anyway, if somebody could make a living out of getting in trouble I feel like I could NAIL the interview for that job. Recently I have curbed my trouble-garnishing habits to less socially irresponsible things than boyfriends and bad credit. I have learned to invest my mischievous energy into Saying All Of the Wrong Things and probably soliciting certain death at the hand of either a terrorist, a republican, or my mother (they might have to leg wrestle for the privilege).

I recently wrote a blog post about Fear, and being the attention seeker that I have ALWAYS been, I used a bunch of tags like "terror, terrorist.." etc. The next day I had 900 hits on my blog from Israel. The country. I should be more concerned, especially after the  Boxcutter Incident, but knowing I have a brother who works for the NSA makes me feel reasonably safe that I would have a few mintues of warning if an attack was imminent, to make my way across the border into Canada and the polite safety of our Northern Neighbors.

As if beckoning international attention wasn't enough, with all of this political bruhaha smothering the food and beer posts right off of my Facebook feed, I might have inadvertently posted something not conservative enough, or much too conservative, which inevitably leads to a comment fight between my dad and my Most Liberal Friend, a smattering of  snarky comments from an assortment of cousins, and makes me want to delete my entire online life which would spell the end of my attempt at fame. You can take your pick of gun rights, #coplivesmatter, #idiocracy ala Donald Trump, Kim Davis, Syrian Refugees or Planned Parenthood, but there's a 102% chance that I will be on the exact wrong side of the fence from everyone. Not that I mind really, because it is a maddening world.

To top it all off, my friend Beth Woolsey, of Five Kids Is A Lot Of Kids fame, generously ran one of my old blog posts about Wetting The Bed, because if you're going to be exposed to a whole new audience of readers, it might as well be about one of the most shameful experiences of your life, right? Anyway, my poor Mom, God Love Her, can't understand why bed wetting needs to be mentioned ever at all. Here I go reverting back to doing All The Wrong Things Again. I have to say that she's come a long way in that she's able to love me unconditionally through my Poor Life Choices these days (really Mom, I appreciate your tolerance for reals). Plus I imagine she doesn't want to leg wrestle an Israeli or a Republican for the privilege of attacking me. (Now I will probably be in trouble for saying I was in trouble when I wasn't really in trouble at all. Story of my life.)

I would say that I am making a resolution to quit getting into trouble so often, but we would all know how grossly shallow that promise would be. And it's not like I ever run into mischief INTENTIONALLY. Well, not usually. But for the time being I will try to keep my misbehavior limited to using my cell phone in class, liking inappropriate memes on Facebook, and eating too much cheesy bread (don't tell my challenge group).