Blogs Are Stupid

Doesn't anyone believe in Dear Diary anymore? What happened to the joy of putting actual pen to paper? And why does every ordinary Jane and John think they can write well enough to burden the world with their scribblings? It’s a mystery that badly needs solving. My first entry contains my thoughts about blogging and will set your expectations. The rest will probably be stream of consciousness garbage, much like you’ll find on any other blog. Perhaps we will both come away enlightened.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Women Are Crazy

I’ve been around the internet in some form or another since it began.

My husband is an IT professional, so even when I was uninterested in using it myself, I was aware of it in a contemptuous, sneering sort of way. At that time, only computer geeks and gaming dorks used the internet.

At the risk of sounding like an aging relic of days long past…I remember when you had to pay by the minute for internet service and you had to use a proxy service like AOL or Compu Serve. I also remember hitting the roof when I found my husband had racked up a $400 AOL bill playing a now antiquated, but then cutting edge RPG.

When the information superhighway exploded I was a young wife with a new infant who had quit her full time job to stay at home and care for my baby. Like everyone else, I was looking for something. I got on the net to find some way of connecting to people like those I had once encountered daily with no thought to their presence in my life, but whom I now missed dearly in my isolation.

What I found, were message boards. People talking to one another about anything and everything. Expecting Club boards, Playgroup Boards, Debate Boards, Recipe Boards, Book Club Boards...it was a dizzyingly diverse array of people, opinions and knowledge. I was dazzled and immediately drawn in.

Now, many years later, the internet has evolved and with it, my perception of those who populate it.

What I have learned, is this: Women are crazy.

Now, I don’t mean dress your doggie up in evening clothes and serve him dinner at the table kind of crazy. I mean, Single White Female Crazy. Squeaky Frohm crazy. Make your baby sick so you can spend time with handsome doctors crazy.

But I have also learned that for every mean, crazy, desperately unhappy woman out there, who needs to spread the misery and sorrow that poisons her soul…there are TEN women of immeasurable kindness, incalculable generosity, inexhaustible strength, undying passion, and unceasing tenderness.

For every woman is who Texas Cheerleader Mom crazy…there are ten who are Give the mortgage payment to a homeless family so they can have Christmas kind of crazy. Drive 500 miles in the middle of the night because a friend found out her husband is cheating on her kind of crazy. Sell everything she owns to finance a trip to Africa to care for dying AIDS patients kind of crazy.

At times, it has been tempting to simply give myself over to the belief that all women are contemptible human beings, devoid of any shred of human decency.

But there are women I have been privileged to know that have taught me that is not so.

So yeah. Women are crazy. Thank God.



Crazy Woman Canyon, Big Horn National Forest;
As beautiful and formidable as its many namesakes.

17 Comments:

  • At 9:11 AM, Blogger SUEB0B said…

    Yes, thank goodness. For instance, my sis has a business an hour and a half from home. She heard her granddaughter, who has cerebral palsy, was sick and needed better care than they could get in the small town where she lives. She drove the hour and a half home, got the baby, drove the hour and a half back to the city where the better doc was, had her seen and then drove home. All so her son wouldn't have to take time off work again to go to the doc with his daughter. She is crazy in the best way.

     
  • At 9:18 AM, Blogger Random Thinker said…

    and thank God for crazy women - world would be a dull place without them!

     
  • At 10:13 AM, Blogger Fairly Odd Mother said…

    I met a group of women when we were all pregnant with our first, due dates around the same time. We still talk from time to time, more than 7 years later. Years ago, one in our group found out her beloved daughter had a fatal genetic condition and we, without question, opened our pocketbooks to raise money for them to take one last special trip. I remember someone asking me how I could do this for a person I didn't 'know'. I'm sure this person thought we were crazy to throw hundreds of dollars at a relative stranger. Thank goodness for that kind of crazy, though, don't you think?

     
  • At 10:22 AM, Blogger Emily said…

    Yet another fantastic post. But, how did you know about our doggie evening clothes...?

     
  • At 10:43 AM, Blogger jean said…

    Thank God for us crazy women. Without us, those normal people would be screwed.
    jean

     
  • At 11:06 AM, Blogger Carol said…

    Ah yes, AOL message boards. I remember them well!

    Wonderful post about wonderful -- and crazy -- women!

    Carol

     
  • At 11:14 AM, Blogger we_be_toys said…

    Seems unfair to say only women are crazy...I know plenty of crazy men too - they're just quieter about it (and usually don't want to dress up their pets - that IS a Crazy Woman thing!
    Good Post!

     
  • At 11:24 AM, Blogger Maddy said…

    So you're only speaking for yourself right?

    Me I'm as sane as the goldfish in the next bowl over.
    Cheers
    This is my calling card or link"Whittereronautism"until blogger comments get themselves sorted out.

     
  • At 12:11 PM, Blogger flutter said…

    I loves all my batshit girls :)

     
  • At 12:29 PM, Blogger KP said…

    Very well said. Thank you. I've known my share of both, but I remind myself of the sane ones when the crazy ones get a little too intense. (I can handle some crazy, just not a daily dose.)

     
  • At 2:11 PM, Blogger Liv said…

    I don't want to go as far as flutter, but I lurves my crazy gal posse. The others---the homewreckers, the squeakies, the unstable ones....skeer me. Yes, skeer is a Southern form of scare. Believe.

     
  • At 3:11 PM, Blogger Sharon L. Holland said…

    I love this post.

    I too used to post on message boards. Message boards for BIRD OWNERS. All the same judgmental craziness of parenting, but about a pet.

    I was at a candy store with my kids a couple months ago, and a woman there brought it all back. She was a stranger, but insisted on buying my children a big, sugary treat because she was impressed by how well-behaved they were in the candy store. Then we all left, and we saw she had a large parrot in her car. When I told her I owned cockatiels, she gave me an intense, personal-space-invading lecture on the importance of feeding them healthy bird food. As my children ate the chocolate-covered rice crispie treat she had given them. Crazy.

     
  • At 8:57 PM, Blogger Chicky Chicky Baby said…

    I've always found that life is a bit better when women get a little "crazy". I long for the day when someone calls me a crazy broad.

     
  • At 6:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Great post, and beautiful photograph. Big Horn National Forest was where my husband and I spent our honeymoon.

     
  • At 10:27 AM, Blogger Amy Y said…

    Proud to be a crazy woman here :)
    Great post, BA!

     
  • At 9:22 PM, Blogger Christine said…

    I remember those aol message boards all too well also! I still am in touch with someone I met on one.

    Here's a funny, BA...in 1990 (ish) I was dating a guy who was using this fancy new computer thing called electronic mail. You typed a letter and it would travel on phone lines! Took a while to get there, but still pretty cool!

    "It'll never catch on," I said over my shoulder as I walked away.

     
  • At 9:27 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    No she's right ALL women are crazy. Not mean though. Women talk in riddles like Yoda from Star Wars, it can never be yes or no for an answer.. NEVER.

    fn broads

     

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