Mommybloggers:If we dropped over to your house at 9:30am for a cup of coffee, describe the scene around you that we would walk in on. Would you even have coffee? If not, what would you offer us?
Eden: My kitchen would be immaculate, but you wouldn't be allowed to see any other rooms. Also, the espresso machine is on pretty much 24 hours a day here. You want a latte? I'll use the chocolate milk.
Mommybloggers: You have mentioned losing your inspiration and feelings of tiring of
mommyblogging. Do you think Fussy will take on a different tone or go in a different direction anytime soon? Care to share where you see Fussy.org in a few months?
Eden: I go back and forth these days about on how much I should talk about my son, who's turning five. When they're two you can talk about their little psychotic episodes until the cows come home, but when they're five they've become people with a sense of privacy that, duh, demands respect. Fortunately, I'm kind of a part-time "mommyblogger" anyway, I always have plenty of other stuff to think about.
Mommybloggers: What do you personally think about the term mommybloggers?
Eden: I hate it. People have used it against me -- both offhandedly and ferociously -- to infantilize my brain and my blog and my life, non-parents who seem to think that being a mother makes you a second-class citizen, they feel perfectly free to use that term in the most demeaning way possible. It's so bloody stupid, to be so prejudiced against women who are audacious enough to talk about what their lives are like as they raise young children -- and do you ever see these assholes go after the dads? I could go on all day about this.
Mommybloggers: Many of us have your t-shirt that states "Writing well is the best revenge" How did that phrase come about? Did you ever imagine that these t-shirts would become as popular as they have? And what kind of magic dust do you sprinkle on them to make all of our breasts look so amazing when we wear them? (You started a craze, my friend, of blogging t-shirts among many bloggers!)
Eden: The phrase came about after a particularly stupid exchange in my comments with a person who was nuts. No rational commenter could take it, this crazy person would always come back and have the last word and it was infuriating for everyone. I finally realized that the only way I could win was to follow up with a terrific post, and then another, and another, and another. That was the only way to get revenge on this jerk, to be the better writer/blogger.
My t-shirt guy is the one who recommended that particular style of Hanes shirt to me, I'll thank him for you. He's always shocked when I come in for a new order, he just can't fathom how I keep selling these things.
Mommybloggers: Tell us more about your BlogHer session. You are speaking on Day Two (July 29) on the Is Your Blog a Gallery or a Canvas? panel. You'll be addressing blogging as a creative end in itself, from the perspective of a writer. You asked the question: "Why do we need the validation of [bloggers] being in book form? Is the web too ephemeral? Is it because the web doesn't pay?" Care to elaborate or whet our appetite for the discussion?
Eden: It's a panel that will try to address the big What The Hell Is All This About? It's surprisingly useful to examine your reasons for blogging, whether you treat your blog like a conversation, a newsletter, a magazine, an endless autobiographical work in progress. Maybe you labor over every post like it's a little prose poem, or maybe you knock out the posts without revising? Tell me why you strictly tell the truth -- are you making a family record? -- or do you exaggerate to make a better story? Are you waiting to be discovered? By whom? The other two women on the panel are coming at the question from different perspectives, one blogs photos from her cameraphone and one posts pages from her sketchbook, so they approach self-revelation in the blog format with that added dimension. I don't know, I was a philosophy major so I dig this sort of thing. It should be really good.
Mommybloggers:We hear that you are writing a book - is this a continuation of blogging, or a whole new genre for you?
Eden: I started a novel, and then I realized I know nothing about character development or structure. So I'm going to take one of these great online writer's classes from UCLA and see if that will straighten a few things out.
Mommybloggers: Okay, yogabeans! is absolutely hysterical. Tell us where in the world you came up with that? Would you consider that your "play site" when you just don't feel the inspiration to do the whole "blogging" thing?
Eden: Actually, yogabeans! takes a lot more work than Fussy, I have to shoot all the little figures doing their yoga poses, then I have to look at them and figure out what they're saying to each other. It can take weeks to do a single post. I kind of rue the day I ever cooked it up because I still have hundreds of poses to get through, it's going to take forever. But when I get in the zone the posts just write themselves. And it's a good exercise in writing dialog.
Mommybloggers: Tell us about your passion for yoga. Do you really feel calmer? And can we schedule a pre-first-day-of-BlogHer yoga session with you?
Eden: I've been sick and I haven't practiced for a month, I can't even remember what it was like to have that yoga glow.
Mommybloggers: Your haircut experience that was documented daily in photos became so popular and link-able. Did you ever think that people would really care about how long it took to grow out your hair? Any other photo documented essays planned for the future?
Eden: I gave up growing it out the first time because the daily Internet scrutiny of my appearance became too much. This time I'm shooting photos more like once a week, so the pressure's off. It still looks like hell, though. The only other photo essays I plan on doing will be the spontaneous ones, like the carnival or the dog parade. Actually, I should do one on BlogHer, oh, that could be fun.
Mommybloggers: Tell us a secret. (Honest, we won't tell anyone. Okay, maybe the thousands who read us, but that is all!)
Eden: I have saved every credit card statement since I've been married to Jack, just in case anyone ever asks me to prove which one of us got us into all that money trouble.
Mommybloggers: What would most surprise your readers about you that they may not know already?
Eden: I took ten years of ballet as a child, including four years on point. My feet are just now recovering.
Mommybloggers:And here are the questions we subject all of our featured bloggers to (With apologies to Bernard Pivot and Inside the Actors Studio):
1. What is your favorite parent related word?
Bedtime.
2. What is your least favorite parent related word?
No.
3. What is your favorite creative censored curse word used around children?
We don't censor around here, so Jackson spends a lot of time saying, "Mommy, don't say fuck."
4. What is your favorite hiding place within your home when you need to get away from it all?
In bed with a DVD.
5. What hiding place have you been found in too often and can no longer use?
Our third bedroom is an office, but half the time I get on the computer to post or read other blogs Jackson comes in and demands to look at toys on Amazon.com.
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?
I've chosen your novel for our next book club.
Join us tomorrow as the incomparable Mrs. Kennedy shares some of her wit and wisdom with us.
We'll admit it - when we first caught a glimpse of the fabled Mrs. Kennedy walking into BlogHer 2005, we poked each other in the arm and blushed furiously. We'd admired her from afar forever, and were a little starstruck when it came time to introduce ourselves.