November is #birthdaymonth

Toward the end of October, I told myself I wanted to spend the month of November not only #NaNoWriMoing, but also doing weekly self-portrait sessions to celebrate my birthday month.

Since apparently I always need a little downtime to allow the seedlings of new ideas to take root before I’m willing to actually do anything about them, I did my first impromptu shoot at the Arboretum today. And, full disclosure, Anthony was my living tripod(s); I didn’t need to go into full self-portrait mode, which — thank goodness! Because #lateluteal.

So as an experiment (and after a long tinkering session, also thanks to my ingenious man who rocks technology), I’m using this post to test out the ease of use for the backend on my posts.

Don’t have the energy for high-quality writing (even the passive consumption of Netflix!), so bear with me as I post a few of the photos from today.

So like, a few notes to self for the next one —

What you could do better:

Maybe don’t scarf down 434567976875 carbs immediately before.

Take a shower and do your hair properly.

Don’t go to the Arboretum on an unseasonably warm day on a weekend. Even in a pandemic with reduced/sold out entry passes, it’s still overcrowded & inconvenient.

What worked:

The leopard-print looks great on you.

Having your dip done ahead of time — duh! 😉 (But for goodness’s sake, repair any messed up ones.)

Not giving a shiz about the “audience.”

Even if you carb-loaded right beforehand, you got to eat next to a hawk and that was pretty badass. Being relaxed & attuned with your energy levels (today: low) helped a lot.

I recently received the autumn 2017 issue of Artful Blogging magazine by Stampington. (It wasn’t lost in the mail; I ordered it special, ‘kay!)

I love this publication because other than for a couple years while my sister tinkered with being a fashion blogger, I’ve never really felt like I had a community among people who had a real passion for blogging. Sure, I’ve known a small handful of peeps who’ve created personal blogs, but I’m not sure anyone’s still doing it.

And because I still LOOOVE, to this very day, blogging and everything about it, I exclaimed, “I don’t understand why blogging went out of style!” to Anthony. Perhaps because he’s far less emotionally informed than I am, he was able to immediately theorize, “It’s probably been replaced by social media.”

I had to concede. Even in the issue of Artful Blogging, several contributors (like all Stampington publications, its content was completely sourced from reader submissions) mentioned their blogs were basically their Instagram accounts.

I understand the draw; I mean, the audience is already there. The feedback is immediate. As a near-totally visual platform, its power of seduction is immense for me.

But everything has its strengths and weaknesses, and for all the potential power of social media, I can’t help but stay grounded in wanting to own my own content.

I also can’t entertain living under the censorship laws of the rulers of social — can’t even tell you how many fucking amazing women I know have either had their accounts banned for long periods of time (FB jail, anyone?) or been shadowbanned (i.e., had the algorithm dramatically lower their reach) for posting material the social overlords/bots/narcs-or-what-have-you deemed as too controversial or problematic or whatever.

I of course was super appreciative of the fact that FB existed during the time my Stroked Up blog was offline (a story for another time), so I could move the content there, but the fact is — sometimes being on your own damn turf is just comforting and feels more like home.

In the time of my absence from officially blogging, I’ve far more come to accept that I’m not super invested in the idea of “appropriateness,” meaning — a lot of my lifestyle, values, and behaviors are pretty counterculture. Which I love, and I choose every day, and part of my becoming more visible to both myself and others is exercising unapologetically being myself in a public way.

I love being able to do so on my own digital territory — not so much someone else’s.