You're Not A Whore If You Do It For Free

"I'm hoping to get published someday." I said to the grocery clerk scanning my produce.

"Oh? Well, have you entered writing contests?" She didn't even look at me. She's scanning and scanning and can have whole conversations without taking her eyes off the register screen. Amazing.
"Well, yes." I said.

"And how is that working out for you?"  She just double scanned my cilantro and is now clicking away on the screen taking that second charge off.

"Well, I haven't won anything yet."

"Have you got a writer's agent?"  

"Uh, no, you .. it's sorta a chicken and egg thing-- you get an agent after someone wants to publish you, but you can't get published without an agent." 

She looks at me, nonplussed. She blows a bubble with her gum.  I read her badge. Audrey: Employee since 2009.  She looks like she was born in 2007; how does she know everything about being a writer?

"And have you sent your stuff to magazines?" 

"Uh, no." I reply. She raises a beautifully sculpted eyebrow. You know the kind-- the kind only 15-year old girls have time to do, and that's only because they wake up at 5 to start getting ready for school at 9. Of course, even when I was 15, I didn't do that.  But, I wasn't "cool" and for the record, I do remember getting up to do my bangs every morning. It was the 80s. Meh.

"What about a blog? Do you have a blog?"  I'm starting to get annoyed. Why is she telling me all this stuff that I could be doing if I actually wanted to get published? I just wanted her to hear that I'm going to get published one day and then have her oooh and aaaah all about it so I could go home and continue to not do anything to help myself. Duh. 

Or, on the flipside, I'd like her to hear I want to be published and then have her say, "My parents are publishers at a giant publishing house, and they have me working here so I might meet their next big thing. You, my dear, are that next. Big. Thing."  

But either way, she's mentioned blogging and now ... now she's done it. She's hit something with the blog question, a nerve if you will, and now that she's done scanning all my coupons, I'm gonna give it to her straight. 

"Well, here's the thing about a blog-- I feel like it's giving my stuff away for free. Like it's as though I'm pretending I'm some 16-year old prom date trying to be cool, when I'm actually a 30-year old professional dance teacher that came to prom to show the boy she always loved that she's awesome, and that boy happens to be a teacher at the school where the prom is."  

"What?"

"I don't know. I'm just not into giving shit away for free. That's all. A person needs to be paid for the stuff they're doing. You're getting paid, right?"

"Yeah." 

"Well, you pay the girl that gets you booze every Friday, right?"

The girl looks from side to side and tries to decide whether I'm a narc or not. 

"Yeaah."

"Well, everyone does stuff for money. That's how come I can buy these groceries, with or without the amazing amount of coupons I use."  

"Right. So? Fifty-three, forty-nine. Debit?"

"Yep. Well, like if you write a blog, it's just putting your writing out there, into the world, into time and space, for free. There's no one that has to pay you for what you're writing."

"Ok. But doesn't it get you exposure and shit?"  Oh! Exposure, eh?  

"I don't think so. I mean, if I'm a reader, there's no way I'm sitting in front of the computer thinking, "Geez! I wish I could read all these same stories but pay for them instead and have some stupid heavy book to lug around with me every time I move."  Nope. And it's not like publishers just put "super funny blog about motherhood that I would make money publishing" in the google search. Nope. People read blogs, think they're funny and that's that."

"Oh.  Do you need help bagging?"  Audrey's looking more sympathetic.

The woman behind me is getting irritated with all the chatter. "Oh you two! Who wants to be a writer anyway? You only make, like, 11 cents for every copy of your book you sell. You'd have to be the next Atwood to make more than a few bucks anyway. Now bag your stuff and let me get home to watch "Grey's Anatomy.""

I grab my stuff, and my kids (who I think have squirrelled away some Kinder Eggs in their pockets while Mommy was distracted), and head back to the car.  We have dinner, Daddy puts stuff away or puts the kids to bed, I can't quite remember how the rest of that night played out because I'm flabbergasted that I've never stopped to think about how little money I'd make as an author. No wonder Stephen King writes blockbusters. And the Clancy guy and who's the one that writes those Chicken Soup books? 

You have to be the Jennifer Lopez of writing if you hope to feed your family. You can't just be the Daniel Day Lewis artiste who makes movies for their merit and to broaden an acting horizon. Unless you are the ... say, Tom Hanks or Ron Howard of literature, who makes stuff and gets a great reputation, does some super popular stuff whenever a kid goes to college but otherwise sticks to legit works. Yeah. I could be the Tom Hanks of writing. Yeah. That sounds kinda cool. 

Gaga's head is attached to your gold lamé covered boob tassels. No credit, no money, nothing but "exposure" that doesn't make anyone watching think, "Hey, I've GOT to pay that body double to come do Swan Lake at the Sydney Opera House.  

Nope. I've said it once, I'll say it again, I'll never write a blog. 

Oh. 

Well, this isn't a like, real blog. Blogs are like, online journals, where this is more like a bunch of highly crafted stories. This is much closer to art than a slutty blog. 

Oh. 

Well, maybe there is some merit to exposure. 

I mean, uh, Bieber put his stuff out there for free on Youtube and now he's pretending to kiss Selena Gomez or someone else young and beautiful. Maybe there is something to be said if you actually, really have talent and actually, really have the drive to make it. I mean, what if Ellen Degeneres is reading my blog and waiting for the right moment to have me on her show (any time is good, by the way, Ellen, baby. I'll clear my schedule for you.). 

Ok. I'll start a blog. It'll be about like, being a mom, since that's what I know best (lately) and we'll see what pops up in the search engines. In the meantime, if you happen to know a publisher wanting to make piles and piles of money, send this along.  Well, maybe not this link. It's not my best work. Well, I mean, unless you think it's amazing, then yes, it's my best work. Gosh, I'm talking like a Hollywood starlet already! Blogging is great!

** in the meantime, before the royalty cheques come rolling in, feel free to click the Pay-Your-Pal logo and support my whoring ways. 

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Life Is Like a Baltic Amber Teething Necklace, You Never Know What You're Gonna Get

Kiddo #2, now completely and utterly mobile, has begun leaving trails of snot, saliva and fluids I dare not consider lest I wretch all over the computer, all over the house. Before, when he was just crawling, the slime was left in pools on the floor.  These pools were like invisible banana peels; if you hit one while walking with, say, a tray of crystal vases, there was a very high probability that you, the tray and all that glass were going to end up sliding down the hallway and crashing into a wall with sound effects that Super Grover would envy.

Now that he's walking, the trail is at hip level, and dripping. I think it must be like living in a bee hive in July; the whole world around you seems to be melty and slippery, but you are powerless to stop it.  What a buzz kill.

Anyway, he's been teething since he was like, 3 months old, despite his resounding lack of teeth.  Not wanting to medicate my child 24-7, I began searching for Hyland's Teething Tabs. I used these puppies on my daughter and MAN were they awesome. Put one of the little tabs on her tongue (they were about the size of a pencil lead and dissolved on contact, literally) and she'd go from screaming, bawling, hysterical to sleeping happily in seconds. Homoeopathic medicine! Woo hoo!

And, because they worked so well, they were taken off the market. Frickin' great.   So I asked around to see what friends were using instead and it is Camillia-- another homoeopathic remedy for teething. This one, not yet banned (haha) uses Chamomile tea extracts (I think? I can't remember now and am too tired and lazy to look it up again, even though I am clearly at the computer typing this.) to make baby feel better.

The Camillia worked for a few teeth, but pretty much lost its effectiveness after month 9.  So I tried a natural company out of Winnipeg that makes all their own products (what else have they got to do once the Winter hits?). The Teething Gel worked wonderfully, but it's not super portable because the cap kinda opens in your purse. I still use it at night for teething, but, I hesitated to bring it places because I'd end up smelling like cloves and cinnamon (like I said, it's great and natural). 

So I was investigating some alternatives when I happened upon Amber Teething Necklaces.  These things are made from Amber found in Russia (Baltic Amber) and because they're not a stone but made of resin, they heat up when they're against your skin and something magic happens that soothes inflammation and can really reduce drooling.  Look it up if you're excited about it, but when I read that, I nearly reached through my computer to hand over my wallet for a necklace, right then and there. 

Then, as though fate had been watching, the very next day I was at the park and two little boys were wearing those dang necklaces! I talked to his (visibly) hippie parents about the amber -- the mother got them online but swears they helped their first son a ton and the second son hasn't ever been without the necklace so it must be working, too.  Plus, she has a bad knee and when she wears one (as a bracelet) the swelling in her knee is gone.  I thought the website was great, and this testimonial was almost enough to make me open up an Amber Necklace shop.  Almost. 

(The mother's dreadlocks were phenomenal, by the way. I always thought I wanted dreadlocks, but I couldn't ever commit to shaving my head once I was bored of them, so I never did it.)

I found a few places that sell them online, but I wasn't really willing to wait for shipping from out West, out East or from America. I wanted my baby to stop making my home an aquarium, now.

So, I posted "Hey, who knows where I can find an Amber Teething Necklace?" on Facebook.  A few friends replied that they knew where I could get one a couple of hours from home, but I didn't want to spend more on driving there than I would on shipping.  

Instead, I headed out to the cute, posh baby store.  I asked the cute, posh baby store owner if she had the necklaces. 

Without blinking she said, "Why not try the Vitamin Store?"

It seemed like a possible, plausible place to find them-- that's where I'd originally found the Hyland's Teething Tabs with Kiddo #1, so why not?  

I drove over, parked beside a Hummer (which is odd for my little town-- although it made me feel less like a gas-guzzling carnivore so I didn't complain) and walked inside. 

There's a smell to wellness and vitamin stores that is similar to my spice rack at home, but with a more ... earthy scent to it. You know what I mean if you've ever been in one. It doesn't smell like a Dr's or a Supermarket, but somewhere in between.  At any rate, I asked the vitamin store owner if she had the necklaces. 

Without blinking, she said she'd never heard of them.  Then she wanted to talk to me about my water filter needs and bee pollen. It was strange, but I really wanted a lead on the necklaces so I listened. Then, when she reached behind the counter to get a flier about the filters, I said, "Where do you think I might find those necklaces here in our county?" 

She said, "Well, you could try the Crystal Healer's."  

She told me where to find the store. I thanked her but then she wanted to sell me Oregano pills before they're taken off the market, too, so I said, "Hey, guy with the Hummer-- you left your car running."  

I've never seen a wellness store employee tackle a guy carrying a 5 gallon jug of water before. It was pretty awesome, really.  As I stepped over the struggling pair, all I could hear was "Carbon footprint! Fossil fuels!" and "... just trying to get ... filtered water..." and "Detox the earth!" 

It was nice, though, to know that my house wasn't the only aquarium. 5 gallons of purified, filtered water in a vitamin store makes quite a sloshy mess. 

I put Kiddo #2 back in his car seat (with an cloth diaper on the verge of explosion-- but I hadn't expected to be gone for 2 hours so I hadn't brought a change with me) and hoped there weren't 5 gallons of pee in his diaper. 

Now, some people, after witnessing the chaos at the Wellness Store, might have called it a day.  Some people, after realizing that Kiddo #2 was seconds from a cloth diaper explosion and that there wasn't a diaper to change him into, might have just given up and gone home.  Some people would have just driven to the park, looked up an Amber Teething Necklace website on her phone and ordered one of them then.

But those people aren't me. (although I did go to the park and try to order a necklace from America, but PayPal was acting up and the smell of dirty diaper was suffocating, so I stopped the transaction and drove over to the Cyrstal Healer's with hope in my heart and urine in my nostrils.)

I pulled up and noticed an amazing assortment of random wood carvings and stone creatures.  I got out with my baby who was wet, but happy (how?) and went to the door. The Open sign wasn't on and neither were the lights, but I could hear someone rustling about in the back room so I entered. If it had been overcast or closer to Halloween, I might have convinced myself that the sounds were werewolves in the back room, but it was September and sunshiny, so I went in.

Smelling different than the wellness store-- much more ... organic ...-- I called out towards the rustling a firm, "Oo-oo-ooh?"  Yes. I really made that old-European-lady sound, in the dark. 

The craziest guy came out, but not what I was expecting. 

I was expecting some stereo-typical lanky, hippie guy in tie-dye shirt with long hair, possibly with a bandanna and peace signs, hemp necklace and whatever other thing a cartoon hippie would have.  Truth be told, I was also kinda expecting a woman-- a woman with crazy hair and a long skirt.  

What I got was a middle aged, super clean-cut, plump guy wearing loafers and dockers and a button down shirt.  He giggled a lot when he spoke, which reminded me more of the Pilsbury Dough Boy than Shaggy.  Seriously, this is the guy I would have picked out for investment fraud or tax evasion, not as a crystal healer.

Whatever. Clearly we shouldn't judge a book by its cover. So, I said, hopefully, "Do you have Amber Teething Necklaces?"   

He said, without blinking, that he'd never heard of it. Seriously, if I hadn't stopped at the park to find a website that sells them, I would have taken this as A Sign From Russia that I am not to own a Baltic Amber necklace for my son's teething issues.

We chit chatted about the healing properties of several crystals, and he talked to me about Amber with queen bees captured inside it. Finally, when I could stand the wet jeans of my son on my arm no longer, I told him I'd look online and see if I could find it there.  He told me he'd talk to his amber dealer, too, but I think we both knew our friendship was ending there.

So, after a full morning of tooting around, I returned home and ordered a necklace from a place in Cambridge, which is a few hours away. In fact, if I had just driven there instead of driving all over my wee city, I would have had the necklace that same day and only used a bit more gas.  But I think only the Wellness store clerk is keeping score.  Rather, I'm unsure how exactly to figure out my carbon footprint, and like before, I am too lazy to bother looking it up even though I'm clearly at the computer and have easy access to google.  

The necklace arrived today and looks really cute on Kiddo #2. It appears to have cut back on his drooling already, but only time will tell of its efficacy. I'm hopeful. Mostly, though, I'm just glad this exists for real. Because as each person I was referred to got progressively more ... out of my personal comfort zone, I started to wonder if I was the crazy one. After all, I was the nutter asking for something even these guys didn't  know about.  

To get automatic updates via email, enter yours in the box under the Gerbera daisy and click submit. If you landed here looking for Tangled-themed party info, click on the archive for June 12th, 2011. Thanks!