Lawlady's Divorce and Relationship Blog

The Spamminess of Blog Comments

It's Friday night. I'm now of an age (50) where sitting at home deleting blog comments seems fun.  I was surprised that I have many blog comments. Seriously, I wasn't paying attention and turned off the comment approval button years ago.  As I'm cleaning this blog site up, I decided to weed through my 500+ comments.  

What was amazing is... the amount of wonderful comments.  I actually touched some lives.  That makes me feel blessed.  What an unexpected reward. Thank you. I'm so sorry I sort of overlooked your comments previously.  Ouch.  Bad blogger.    

The next thing I noticed is... why is Cialis and Viagra commenting so often on my divorce site?  You can see a pattern:  weird pharmaceutical names keep posting comments. What was encouraging is that some posters (internet type, not wall type) would actually make a divorce related comment.   For those spammy comments where "Buy Viagra Now" bothered to customize the spam, I left the comment up.  Heck, being a paid spammer is probably a crappy job.  Sharing their sad divorce saga probably perked up their day. 

Here's to blog comment spam AND the other 300 comments my site generated since it was started way back... in .... 2004, 2006?  I forget.  I'm glad you liked my posts.  Even "Mr. Buy Cialis,"  you touched my heart and made my first day back at serious blogging a charmed and happy experience.   

 

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How is Your Scam IQ? Take the Email Headline Test

What it feels like to blog after a VERY long time away.

My brain creaks on.  It hurts.   It's as if, my hand covers my eyes and I squint crawling out from a cave, or a dark bedroom, or a long-time in the dark. It hurts.  My brain.  

"Don't make me do this again," my mind says.  

"I don't want to have more thoughts and ideas."

"I don't have time for ideas.  They make me crazy."  

These are the words my aching brain is saying to me.    

Embarrassed. Chagrined.  Sorry to leave my loyal readers for so long. 

Sad that I don't have the time to something I committed to a while back and ashamed that I clearly started something I can't finish. Sad to let the blogging community down.  Sad I haven't understood the heart of blogging.  Sad in many ways for the state of the world (another blog entry).  

Purely Style Concern

Do you like the new blog style?  It's a canned theme off typepad.  I got tired of the old one.  Do you take me as seriously with the little flying airplane and the baby blue color scheme? Is it too hard to read?  That's my fear.   Does it say:  this woman is a granny? 

Does my readership want me to go back to the mainly black and white format?  Will the three of you please let me know? 

Thank you!

Can you hear the wheels squeeking?

Oh My Gosh I am dragging. It's 7:50 p.m. and I feel cooked.  It's been a long work day starting with a breakfast meeting at the old Olympic Hotel downtown Seattle.   It was bought out during a hostile takeover by the Fairmont Hotel.  It's a lovely hotel and if you ever want to experience being rich, you can go there for a $16.00 omelet, have exquisite service, and sit 18 feet away from the closest other diner. I got to sit on a couch with a command view of the room. 

During the afternoon, I had a meeting at Carillon Point in Kirkland. With time to spare before the meeting, I hung out in my car (napping) with a view of the water and Seattle. The day was blue and gorgeous. 

Maybe I shouldn't be tired tonight.   I've had some lovely perks during the day.  I think the problem is drinking the numerous cups of coffee, missing my morning workout, and changing the efficiency around the office.  Change is draining, even when it's change for good reasons in the right direction.

I haven't been writing in about a month.  Periodically I go back and forth about whether the blog is useful to my legal work and wonder if it undermines my professionalism.  Then I speak with a blogger and get reenergized.   I think you will be hearing more from me in the next days and weeks. My passion has been rekindled today for blogging. 

Kid Blogging

My nine year old cousin is visiting and she wants to know:

     1)  Is there a kid-friendly blogging site available out there that screens the material?

    2)  What is the best kid blog out there?

Thank you for your help.

Stefani

What Blogging Gives Us

This is my first attempt at including someone else's work into my blog. I hope I am not violating blogging laws!  I found this quote on http://beyourbestself.blogs.com/online_sales_success/blogging_news_and_trends/index.html. I believe the author was quoting another person and blog.  I found the information helpful too and want to quote it as well.  Maybe the original was printed on Brand Autopsy. Good work!

 Learning through Sharing

Brand Autopsy.

I think this article really gets to the central tenant of blogging and why it has taken off. Blogging at its best is not a one way conversation driven by ego but an transparent exposure of oneself. This risking encourages real communication, real connection and hence real learning.

From 10 to Tens of Millions … Throughout my marketing career I’ve always been quick to share interesting articles with others. On Monday mornings back-in-the-day, I would usually find myself wrestling with the office copy machine to churn out double-sided copies of must-read articles from Fast Company, BusinessWeek, the Wall Street Journal, and stories from a variety of other sources. At that time, my distribution list consisted of only 10 co-workers.

These days I’m still sharing interesting articles with others, but the difference is my distribution list extends beyond 10 co-workers to tens of millions of people on the Internet.

Thanks to the expansive reach of blogs and to blogging’s ease-of-use, I no longer spend my Monday mornings slaving over a problematic copy machine to share interesting articles. Instead, blogging allows me to simply link to the article online and digitally Cc: the entire online world and not just Cc: my marketing co-workers.

Sharing to Learn …
The main reason I blog is to learn -- that’s because I learn by sharing. Conversation always follows sharing and inherent in any conversation is the art of listening and the act of responding.

When you share your opinions, thoughts, and influences with others on a blog post, it will usually generate comments. It’s through listening and responding to these comments that I learn most.

I learn when someone openly challenges my thoughts as it forces me to reevaluate my thinking. I also learn when someone adds their unique perspective by riffing off my perspective.

But before you can share to learn, you must learn to share.

Learning to Share …
Too many times we find it easier to keep our opinions, thoughts, and influences to ourselves. Blogging requires you to tear down barriers and be more transparent in sharing with others what you are passionate about.

The act of blogging has been characterized by some as being egotistical selfish musings. I could not disagree more.

Blogging is as selfless an act one can do. To blog is to be transparent. To blog is to open oneself up to being judged. To blog is to share. And to share is to learn.

The Virtuous Cycle of Sharing and Learning …
Blogging’s virtuous cycle of sharing to learn and learning to share has transformed how I receive information and how I am inspired by information. I credit this virtuous cycle to helping me make sharper, more strategic business decisions and in helping me to become a more consistent marketing mentor to others.

I invite you to join this conversation because the more people share, the more we all will learn.

If you are already blogging, I ask you to blog more often. If you haven’t started blogging, I ask you to begin. Together, we can make this virtuous cycle even more virtuous when more of us share to learn and more of us learn to share.

Posted on March 28, 2005 in Blogging News And Trends  | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

I'll Never Have Sex Again and Other Myths About Divorce

I'm putzing around writing my book(lette), at the rate seeds turn into trees.  My book(lette) is:

I'll Never Have Sex Again and Other Myths of Divorce

Actually, I'll confess.  I thought up the title, but not much more.  I don't have enough myths.  Can you help fill me in? What are the biggest myths you discovered going through the divorce process?

Here is what I have so far:

Myth 1:  Your Spouse is Going to Screw You

The Truth:  You are going to screw yourself with that paranoid thinking.   Fear makes the process worse than it has to be. 

Myth 2:  I'm never going to sex again. 

Wrong.  But it may be by yourself for a while.  (Or it should be.  It's called Sex for One. You can find books about  it on the internet.  It's what single people have been doing in the interim for years. Get used to it.)

Myth 3:  People don't like hearing Whiney, Divorce Tales.

That is true. This is not a myth!  Don't destroy otherwise good relationships with ad-nauseum complaints about your spouse, your process, your financial status.  Share the pity-party with people who understand. If you would like to be a charted club member of the Lawlady's Agony Discussion Group, let me know. We'll get a group going.  I'm assuming I can find the technology to host an Agony Session via internet.  If Daniel Pink can do it for marketing, I can do it for Divorce.

Oh dear, I've got to run.  I promised myself no blogging past 10:00 pm.  We 40+ women need our beauty rest (if we don't intend to look it!)

But please do pass this blog along. I'd like to finish a book(lette) by September before I start massage school.  Which brings me to:

Myth 4:  Life is Lonely After Divorce.

No it isn't. You get to be a kid again and do all those fun things you never had time to do when you were too busy sitting around eating Ben and Jerry's on the coach watching American Idol, not having sex with your spouse who repulsed you.  You get to do cool things like go to Massage School. 

Oh my God: Blogs

Shit, as an attorney, we are 5 to 7 years behind the times.  Really. 

Alright. I've heard about blogs before.  Sort of.  And I'm a pretty hip attorney.  I actually know who Seth Godin is.  My friend Lily talks about blogging. I saw an article on the subject once in Newsweek.  But I had NO idea there were law blogs. Who knew? 

When I happened to read another post on Typepad.com I  just happened to stumbled onto the non-billable hour blog.  Oh my God.  My brain was just blown open.  There are good-writing lawyers out there.  Who knew? 

It's confirmed. I'm a blogger. I just didn't know it. 

And to think that I have been saving all these break-up emails for no other reason than I liked them and couldn't bare to delete good writing, even if it was coming in the form of an email from someone I didn't want to date anymore. 

I think I must feel the same way a 14 year old boy feels when he learns the joy of the joy stick for the first time (video game variety).   

First Day

It's Friday. I have an hour before my next client. I could review a will, but I don't really want to.  My clavicle area is sore from Iyengar yoga this week, and I've had a coke. I'm futsy.  Writing feels better than working. 

I feel tremendously guilty for starting a blog.  I've committed to so many writing projects over  the years that I don't follow through with, I give myself internal emotional hives making yet another committment. 

Writing committments are like new boyfriends.  Hopeful, but with a bit too many memories of how things  fail.

Let's see how this new forum goes.  Baby steps.