The last post.....

On this site. Forever. Want to know why? Because I moved. HERE!!!!! I am a big girl blogger now. I have a real um...I think it's called a domain? I is legal. Ha.

Please, come see my new crib. Update me in your readers and all that jazz. Email stays the same, so don't worry about that. Might take a few days, er weeks for me to understand how to use everything over there, but I won't be posting here anymore. It's been real blogger. I heart you for everything. But I'm moving to the big leagues.

Hugs, Issa

http://issascrazyworld.com/

The time has come, the walrus said...

to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships and sealing wax; Of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings. --Lewis Carroll

I have become a somewhat of a piece of fruit to the gnats of the troll world. Each day it seems there is someone else wanting to tell me how horrible a person I am.

Just this week alone, I've had three rather unpleasant trolls invading my space here. The first two were on the post that I read at the keynote. I guess my "stats" about the homeless were lies in their eyes...although funny enough, I don't remember giving stats. Mostly, I was talking about my uncle. I was informed that since a homeless guy killed someone recently, I basically am a liar. Interestingly enough, a friend of mine was kind enough to tell me that a man killed his wife in their home in the past week. Shit happens. (Heck people, OJ Simpson killed his ex-wife and her husband in BRENTWOOD no less, surrounded by mansions and he got away with it.) People are not all good. Not all homeless people are mentally ill. But see, I never said they were, I said a lot of them are. Which is true. Sorry that it wasn't technical enough, nor informative enough in regards to the homeless, but this isn't a newspaper. I am not getting paid to write. These are my stories based on my life.

The third, a comment last night, was on my post from May, when I told you all about my miscarriage in April. I am not sure why people love to attack on that post, but they sure as hell do. I'll quote this one, because it's highly informative:

"This is such crap! Morning sickness DOES NOT start until you are two months or more pregnant. You are a crazy attention seeker. Get help before you start to affect innocent children. I feel sorry for those around you."

Somehow this one kind of makes me laugh. Really, no pregnant woman EVER gets sick before month two? I beg to differ. But what do I know? I've only been pregnant now, five times. Ladies? Care to share how early you felt sick? Yes there are people out there who don't, I've had a pregnancy like that. Yes there are people who are four months before they know they are pregnant. But me? I know my body pretty dam well. Sorry if that doesn't seem right to you.

I am an attention seeker? Really? Hmmm. As I look back, I see that I didn't post for nearly two months. Yes, there are posts on this site, from April and May, but the majority of them were written by my friends, not by me. I said something...and trust me, I almost didn't say a word...because this is my space for one, but also because I wanted to explain my absence from the blog/twitter world. Maybe having a blog that is open to the public means I am an attention seeker in some way. But that means all of us are in some way. Maybe though, it's human nature to find a community of like minded people who want to support each other. Ever think of that? That the people who comment here are my friends?

However, and this is my main point in writing this at all. This is my site. My blog. My space. See, my name is written on the top there?

I am tired. Tired of defending myself. Tired of getting emails sent to my phone at 11pm from trolls. Tired of trying to find a way to make it where I don't accept anonymous comments. Blogger just doesn't make it that easy. I know I should ignore. You all say that. I get it. Intellectually at least. But I'm not that type of a person. It sits with me, days after I've deleted it. Frankly it sucks. If it continues, I will go a different route with comments. I just don't know what that means yet.

This is now a troll free zone. You are not welcome here. You have been deleted and you will continue to be deleted. However every time someone is an asshat troll here, I am keeping the IP address. If this continues, I will start publishing them. Just for kicks. Because this is my site. My space. My sanctuary.

Today is just not my day

I've had a few good weeks. Weeks without depression, weeks without tears. Weeks where getting out of bed was easy. Weeks where I didn't have to try to feel okay, it came naturally. (Or as naturally as it will ever come, when I'm on medication.)

I've felt it creeping back, that fuckhead depression. Didn't miss it. It could have stayed gone for ever, as far as I was concerned. I hoped it would. But no, it doesn't seem to listen very well. It's very inconsiderate like that.

I could blame it on the letdown of being back at home after a fun filled week. I could blame it on my baby girl going to kindergarten soon. I could probably blame it on the two year anniversary of losing a piece my heart and a bit of my mind.

But it's not really any of that. Mostly it's just today.

Today is one of those days. A day where getting out of bed took too much effort. A day where I don't care if I speak to anyone at all. A day where I am glad that my kids are with a cousin, because I don't have it in me to deal with them. If they were here, I'd deal. No question about it. But they're not today, so I'm allowed to just deal with myself. I don't have to pretend.

I keep hoping one day that this will all go away. That I can go back to being the girl who I used to be. The girl with no real problems, who'd experienced heartache, but not at the level in which I have now.

I don't think she exists anymore though.

I've opened twitter about ten times, but I haven't said a thing. I have read what others have written, but not found anything to respond too. I try, because I think if I can start a conversation about nothing, maybe I will start to feel better. But I don't.

I want to tell you how funny my girls are. How big Harrison is getting. About my SIL's wedding next week. I'd rather be telling you how much I miss my conference peeps. How lonely it feels to go and get coffee alone every morning. But I just can't today.

Today sucks. Today I just want to hide. Today, I may just hide. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Follow Friday, #1 - The Norwidians

Any of you who use Twitter have seen all of the follow Friday tweets. They happen every week. People have tried being all original (Matthew from Childsplayx2 being the best at it.) in their reason for tweeting people, however, most of us (and I include me in this) tend to mention the same people over and over again. I've finally stopped doing it, because I always feel like I am leaving people out.

Just now, while over at My Life With Them, I saw that Ali had done a Follow Friday on her blog. The girl is a genius, so I am going to steal her idea. I miss blogs. I have been so involved in Twitter lately, that I've forgotten how much someones blog can connect you to them. My goal for this year is to go back to blogging.

I can't promise I'll do it every week. but I'm going to try to tell you all about someone whose blog I love, as often as I can remember. Maybe you'll find new people to read.

This week, my Follow Friday is Kirsten from The Norwidians. Have you visited her blog? If you haven't you are missing out. Besides being an amazing writer (truly, the woman puts me to shame some days), she has beautiful kids and she lives in a pink house right now. They are remodeling their house, so it's kinda like watching HGTV, but without the commercials. How can you beat that? Oh and she has a Porta Potty at her real house. Which I'm sorry, is as gross as it is cool.

Kirsten has three gorgeous children, twin seven year old girls and a four year old son. She doesn't like the word squee, but after a weekend with me, I think it'll grow on her. She doesn't like the ocean, which I can't understand but can learn to live with. And? She's crazy enough to think that I was gonna let her drink hotel coffee. Friends don't let friends drink crap coffee.

Here's the real reason you should all follow Kirsten though; she's an amazing friend. I had the joy of meeting her last week and I was not shocked to learn that she is as funny, sweet and caring in real life as she is on her blog. She was part of my personal security team and one of the people who made sure I had a a blast all weekend. I laughed more last weekend than I have in months. I really wished that I lived closer to her so we could hang out often...not just because she swears that she'd make me dinner.

There is sits, mocking me

Yesterday in the mail, I received this little goodie in the mail:



For those of you who have never seen it...most of you I'd guess, it's a book of restaurants in West Los Angeles, whose food gets delivered by LAbite. Good restaurants: Cheesecake Factory, CPK, ChinChins....oh how I miss you ChinChins. LAbite is a service that you call into and order, they call the restaurant, pick it up and deliver it. To your house. In generally 45 minutes to an hour. To your house. Without you having to go out, or make dinner. Or take rowdy, grouchy, whiny toddlers out in public at night. Delivery. *sob*

Do you see the problem though? I haven't lived in LA for two years. I have lived in Denver for two years, where the best you can get is pizza delivery.

I miss LAbite. We used to order from them 3-4 nights a week. Yes, we had problems. That is a whole other post. It was one of the things I missed within the first week of living here. You mean I can't have food delivered? From good restaurants? Any day of the week? Did we move to Mongolia? You are telling me that I have to like buy food and cook and crap? Sheet.

Yesterday I got this in the mail. Is it a sign? Some freaking joke from the food snobs of the world? Two years and I am used to living here. Two years and I have finally stopped crying for LA. Two years and I no longer throw it in my husbands face that he made me move, each time we argue. But I'd kill for LAbite to come here. It's sitting her mocking me. Dam mail. This is why I never get the mail. Because it mocks me.

*This post is not paid for by LAbite. I am just a person who loved never having to cook. A person who still never cooks, but eats a ton more cereal now. The end.

My BlogHer09 experience

When I was a kid I was shy. Not shy like most people claim, the oh yeah I was kinda shy sometimes in groups of people, type of shy. No, I was the hide behind people so I'd not have to meet anyone, shy. The stand directly behind my aunt in my mom's wedding, so no one is looking at me, shy. The vomit on the substitute teacher in first grade, because I didn't think I could just get up and run off, type of shy. The not ask my dad and step-mom to buy me tampons on vacation out of embarrassment and instead spend four days with loads of TP in my underwear, type of shy. The only reason I had friends growing up was because I knew them my entire life. They insulated me in a way. I never needed to make friends, never needed to talk to new people, because I always had five built in best friends. I was outgoing with them, but they were like my siblings almost, for as well as I know them.

A lot of you know I freaked out about going to this conference. I've been blogging off and on since 2005. I didn't go to the 2005, nor 2006 conference because I didn't think I had it in me to be confident in front of people. I read later about how all of my friends had a blast. Honestly, I wasn't even jealous. I was almost relieved. I wasn't online for 2007 and started this blog the week before the 2008 conference.

This year (and this blog), has been different. I am different then I was back then. I wanted to meet all of the people I've become friends with in the past year. I wanted to hug them and tell them how much I adore them, how much I love them for being so supportive, so I signed up. I wondered from that second on if I could do it. I wondered if I would hang out in my room. Hide behind plants, like I said on Twitter. I wondered if I could make myself talk to people I didn't know. I wondered if I could really get up there and read at that keynote.

A week ago today, I decided to email all of the people I knew were going, people who I talk to often and give them my cell number and ask for theirs. It was kind of my way of protecting myself. Of making sure, I'd have people I knew around me.

On Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, I flipped out. You can see that post below if you so choose. I thought in that moment of panic that I couldn't do it. That I'd not get on the plane, that if I did, I'd stay hidden the entire time.

On Thursday when I got to the hotel, I was feeling overwhelmed. I wanted to hide. Instead I did something I never do. I took a deep breath and then I walked up to a group of eight women, who I was assuming were there for the conference (easy to tell by the squee's, sorry Kirsten) and I said, hi, I'm Issa, do I know any of you? Not surprisingly they all said no. I exchanged a few cards, hung out for a few seconds and then moved on.

I did this all weekend. I talked to more people that I could even tell you. I have 48 cards for people, whose sites I have never been too. I have just as many for people who I did know. I went up to people who I've read for years and said, I'd just like to say hi and tell you how much I love your writing.

I texted people and tried my hardest to make sure everyone I did know, was invited to each meal that I left the hotel for. Can't say I succeeded at that, as my phone service was shotty at best. But I tried. I tracked down as many people as I could.

I invited people standing in the lobby, for coffee, as I walked to Starbucks each morning, to come with. I invited people to dinner, who I saw in the lobby as well. I tried my damnedest to attend every party, even if just for a little while.

I spent four days living confence life to the fullest. Enjoying as much as my BlogHer experience as I could. I had a blast. I will never speak for anyone else, but my experience was awesome.

I won't discuss the drama on here, there was some, as there always is and others are more qualified to discuss it. Was there some? Of course. Weirdness? Of course. Hurt feelings? Yes, I know there was. Were their things I saw and heard that bothered me? Yes. But it doesn't matter anymore. I had fun, I enjoyed myself and that, for me, is what mattered.

The BlogHer conference is what you make of it. Me? I made my experience fantastic. I had a blast with my friends, I enjoyed the panels I went to. I am honored to have been a part of the keynote, which you can see each reading HERE. Truly, watch them all when you have time. Some of the most amazing posts ever. I can't even begin to tell you what an amazing experience that was, nor how it felt to have strangers talk to me about it for days. It was awesome.

Now? I must relax, because tomorrow my kids come back from camping and my relaxing will end the second they show up.

Keynote

Hai Internet. I loves you, I misses you. I'm having an absolute blast, but I'm having serious getting on the Internet issues. Like, it's either slower that watching paint dry, or it just won't even connect at all. On the laptop as well as my phone.

Anyway, I have a million things to say, stories to share....all that Jazz. However I wanted to share something with you all.

This HERE is my keynote presentation from Friday afternoon at BlogHer. It's not the one that BlogHer will show/put up at some point, but it is my post. Me, in the flesh, so to speak. The awesome Greis from Amazing Greis posted it on You Tube. Either because she hates me....or cause she loves me. Not sure which. Kidding. She is teh awesome.

That's all the battery power I've got (brain power too) in the moment.

Just wanted you all who know me and wanted to see it, to be able too. Talk to you all later.

Oy before I leave...one more thing. The people who I was on the keynote with were the most AMAZING people in the world. When you get the chance, please watch all of their speeches. They were brilliant and I"m thrilled to have been included on that keynote.

Also mad props and love to Stacey from Anymommy for sending in my post. I can not even begin to thank her enough.