Mommybloggers:Tracey, your posts range from the rare autobiographical post (we personally love those) to links to sites that reveal a remarkably wacky sense of humor and a love of wit and irony. Is there a reason you tend to link to other sites more than you write about yourself?

tracey: i tend to think of sweetney as more conversational than writerly, but i also see its content as being very personal and autobiographical, though perhaps not in a conventional sense. while many of my posts aren't recording the typical happenings of day-to-day life, they do document more immaterial -- yet, i think, still very personal -- aspects of my life and who i am. on sweetney i record the compulsory amusing anecdotes of daily life as a SAHM to be sure, but also the ephemeral amusements, thoughts, ideas, opinions, works of art, and odd nuggets of popular culture that occupy large portions of my brain's real estate during my waking hours, wherever i am and whatever i'm doing. its analogous to making a mixtape – pulling together disparate bits and pieces of material that for whatever reason speak to me on some level into this singular amalgam that, taken altogether, says a whole lot about me and who i am. and, in any case, i’m not going for inclusion in the genre of memoir, nor am i hoping to parlay sweetney into a book deal (though more power to those who do); the web is the medium here, and so i’m just using all the tools of the web at my disposal to make this crazy little thing called sweetney.

besides, i don't think i was put here on earth to share with all of you only the exquisite joys of wiping someone else's butt all day (though, my god, it IS ecstasy); others have that market cornered and do a much better job at it than i could or would. i didn't start off trying to do something different, but its become what it is, and i enjoy it.

Mommybloggers:Your links are freaking hilarious. They range from bizarre to side-splittingly funny. How do you find this stuff?

tracey:i've been on the web since the early 90s -- i was on Prodigy in DOS, man! -- and so over the years i've managed to mine out a vast array of sources. there’s really no secret – all of my sources are out there for anyone to find. its just a matter of having the time and energy to dig em’ up. i also benefit from having a husband in the web dev business and a lot of very cool web-addicted friends who send me material.

but if you were expecting me to cough up specific URLs or something, you’re sadly mistaken, ladies. i worked for those, man, and you’ll have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.

Mommybloggers:What do you feel molded that spectacular sense of humor of yours? Because Tracey, you are funny. Damn. You are funny.

tracey:well, umm, thanks! but the unfunny answer to this question (sorry, dudes) is that i think the development of my sense of humor probably connects strongly with having a really hard time socially as a pre-teen and teenager. my folks moved around a lot during those years and i was kind of a misfit-type, and as a result of those two things had a hard time fitting in during that stage of life when fitting in is paramount. as i see it, there are two way to respond to social ostracism of the sort i experienced in those years: 1) withdraw from the social system and become angry and bitter (and later maybe, oh i don't know, blow up your high school or something), or 2) renounce the system and become funny in spite of it. i chose the latter path, and remained nearly sane by honing my ability to find humor in what would otherwise be really painful, soul-crushing situations and experiences.

obsessive consumption of Monty Python's Flying Circus in the late 70s (yes i'm old. shut up.) and a powerful Steve Martin fixation during my pre-teen years probably didn't hurt, either.

so, to sum up: childhood trauma and resultant defense mechanisms? a laff riot!!

Mommybloggers:Baltimore seems like a great place to let your freak flag fly. As a published poet and riot grrl, do you find that your environment adds to your creativity? Besides sweetney.com, what other projects are you working on?

tracey:i honestly can't say enough good things about Baltimore. its strange, but it really is a city of outcasts and weirdos, though i've yet to determine whether the city actively inspires weirdness or just attracts it (or both, i suppose). and so, yes, i feel very much at home here. i love Baltimore’s battered-underdog-roughness, and strongly identify with its defiant spirit (which i rhapsodized about here); its very, well, punk rock, i guess.

as for other projects, i’ve just signed on to be a blogher contributing editor, so that’ll give me a nice little platform for talking shit about all those pathetic mommybloggers (oh wait, I’m one of those!); i’m also working on getting a website together for our artist friend, seth, trying to get back into writing poetry, and waiting on my fancy pants new camera, so that i can assail blogdom with a deluge of purty pitchers. then of course there’s rock-n-romp, which will soon be sucking up a great deal of my time and life-energy, as i battle the forces of band scheduling evil (which will require the application of all my superpowers) to bring the rock to the peoples.

the life, she is hard. sniff.

Mommybloggers:Motherhood = punk rock. True or false?

tracey: hmm. that depends on the mother in question. “punk” to me implies, at its core, anti-establishment tendencies, and i think there are most definitely aspects of being a parent and raising a child that can be “punk rock.” for example, not being brainwashed by Our Great And Powerful Parenting Overlords into believing that you must do things a certain way on a specific timetable with all kinds of equipment and manuals and shit is a start. to be frank, i’m deeply disturbed by the current baby-genius-making culture of parenting presently in vogue, as it manages to somehow convince otherwise reasonable human beings that they need to send their 9-month-olds to baby ‘classes,’ organize developmentally appropriate learning activities, and orchestrate artificial teachable moments (honestly, just typing out that last sentence made me more than a little queasy). is it not apparent that all of this is crazy talk? aren’t parents under enough pressure already? let kids play! let kids be kids! let them learn in the ways they learn best – by naturally exploring and interacting with their normal, uncontrived environment. so please, please, calm the fuck down everybody! don’t drink the koolaid, parents! DO NOT DRINK THE KOOLAID!!

i’m sorry… uhh, what was the question?

Mommybloggers:So, Tracey, it seems we opened up a pandora's box when we asked for praise from your readers. There was a mixed response to the term "mommyblogger" and whether or not it applied to you. Some people felt the term should not be used in relation to you, because you write about things that are intelligent and funny and relevant, as opposed to the fluffy, feel-good stories about baby puke that mommybloggers are known for.

The term seemed to raise hackles on all sides. Has "mommyblogger" become a bad word? If so, why? Why should we even care about the label?

tracey: i think its fair to say that the term is often used in a derogatory, dismissive sense to evoke a stereotype, namely: mothers with depthless blogs who prattle on endlessly about superficial minutiae related to childrearing. but all blogs are self-indulgent – swap baby puke stories for i got so wasted i puked stories and you have the worst of 20-something bloggers, and so on. these are just stereotypes -- massive generalizations that are both inappropriate and incorrect when applied to masses of blogs. in every corner of blogging there are inept and boring writers, without a doubt, but what i find interesting is how the term “mommyblogger” has come to more broadly be used to simply signify bad writing. i’ve lately seen the term thrown out as a kind of comprehensive put-down, aimed at blogs not even vaguely about parenting or children, written by people who don’t even have kids. obviously the singling-out of “mommybloggers” as a catch-all condemnation has a lot to do with the status of women in society and, more specifically, societal attitudes about motherhood (SAHMs in particular)… and all of this of course just makes my blood boil, but its reality, and we need to confront that if we want to fight to change it.

Mommybloggers:Is it fair to say that we are "reclaiming" the label?

tracey: i hope so. and, well, i for one am down with actively trying to reclaim the label. heads up: it doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon and we’re likely stuck with it. so i do hope that, in service of the greater mommyblogging good, sweetney can serve as one example (among many) of a mommyblog that refuses to be typecast.

ladies, lest we forget: something like 55% of the world is women. if we collectively decide to imbue the label with power, it will redefine itself.

alternately, we could all just start calling ourselves “da muthabloggas” (number one in the hood, y’all!) – as i’ve suggested previously – and wash our hands of the whole thing.

its a thought. [cough]

Mommybloggers:Tracey, we loved meeting you at BlogHer. You seemed to make a point of getting out and meeting new people. We feel it is important to keep the conversation going, and to constantly expand our genre. How do you think we can create a sense of community with other bloggers?

tracey: well i don’t know about you guys, but gifts of large sums of cash and pretty shiny things have always helped me to create a sense of, ahem, community with others. heh.

actually i think we just need to focus on supporting each other right now, on building a strong community from within. not to get all women together, loving one another sappy or anything, but i think before we conquer the world we have to conquer ourselves, know what i mean? SEE: squash cattiness and gossip; be good to one another; minimize shit-talking; heap praise on those worthy of the praise-heaping; assume the best not the worst of each other; be supportive not competitive; link, blogroll, read, comment, etcetera… lather, rinse, repeat.

if the community of women bloggers comes together – truly together – without the clawing and the pulling of hair and the breaking of nails, seriously guys, there’s nothing that can fucking stop us.

except maybe a sale at Bloomingdales.

oh, i kid! i kid because i love!

And here are the questions we ask all our featured guests:

1. What is your favorite parent related word? right now?

preschool. ah, the sweet, sweet release of preschool…

2. What is your least favorite parent related word?
whining. nuff said.

3. What is your favorite creative censored curse word used around children?
dangnabbit. because it immediately makes me feel like Yosemite Sam, and thus cracks my shit right up.

4. What is your favorite hiding place within your home when you need to get away from it all?
i pretty much retreat to the bedroom when things get a little too hairy… though what i really wanted to say here was “why, i retire to my super-secret underground relaxation bunker.” why don’t i have a super-secret underground relaxation bunker, dangnabbit?!? so unfair.

5. What hiding place have you been found in too often and can no longer use?
the bathroom. solitary use of that in any fashion was pretty much over once mina realized she had the power to open doors. the day she added that knowledge to her little toddler swiss-army-knife-like skillset was a sad, sad day in sweetneyland, indeed.

6. If Oprah exists, what would you like to hear her say when you arrive at the Oprah Winfrey show when she features the Mommybloggers? “sweetney…. I’M GIVING YOU A BRAND NEW CAR!!!” [insert wild applause]

Be sure to check back tomorrow, as tracey graces us with some muthabloggin' freestyle in her guest entry here on Mommybloggers.