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Making Sense of the Mommy Bloggers

by Sasha Stone on August 10, 2010

I don’t get the whole mommy blogging thing very well.  One thing I noticed is that almost everyone wants to be a prototype, or a brand.  They have to sell an identity – like a sitcom star, or a reality TV star.  The brand they’re selling is often helpful and entertaining.  They give back more than they take, which is why they’re making money.  But every once in a while you can see behind the curtain.  That’s what I love about this photo.

You don’t often see what it really must like a lot of time at the Drummond ranch in Oklahoma as Ree Drummond displays a fantasy life for her readers.  It is all fantasy, with a smidge of reality thrown in here and there.  I really don’t begrudge the fantasy – I just sometimes feel like a sucker for being pulled in, I will admit.  I prefer hardcore truth in writing.  But I also enjoy the fantasy.  Why not, right?

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Panic in the Night

by Sasha Stone on August 8, 2010

Oh, life.  I know now that lack the necessary ability to shield myself from the things that are the most painful that we all must experience in this life.  I lack the necessary spirituality is perhaps a better way of putting it. Because of this, I have a rather pragmatic, but nonetheless torturous view of the big subjects, like death and love and happiness.

My daughter woke up in the morning after a particularly traumatic nightmare and I heard her voice down the hall as it stammered to get out those few words right upon waking, those panicky words that will pull your consciousness back to the real world where we wake up in the morning.  The morning is always the best part of any day, in my opinion, because it is a new beginning.

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Smart Cookie Abby Sunderland Found and is Just Fine

by Sasha Stone June 11, 2010 Blog 'em and Weep

I know that it is easy to get hysterical when a girl’s life is at stake. Indeed, many of us were worried that the 16 year-old Sunderland was put in harm’s way. There was even talk of child abuse charges for her parents. But of course, Abby is the second girl of 16 to attempt this. Another Australian girl had done it already at the same age. Moreover, Abby’s brother accomplished the feat at just 17. I feel sure that in the same scenario, if it were a boy feared lost at sea, there wouldn’t have been such widespread panic. But she’s a girl, right? Sunderland’s boat was damaged in the storm – something that could have happened to any sailor of any age. I will admit that I was worried for her yes, because she’s a girl. As the mother of a 12 year-old I WAY too overprotective. My [...]

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Abby Sunderland: Do Not Go Gentle in That Good Night

by Sasha Stone June 10, 2010 Blog 'em and Weep
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Oh god.  Whenever these dramas surface I try with all of my might to resist the temptation to indulge in yet another news story about a missing white girl.  But here we are again, a missing white girl lost at sea.  I guess what amazes me about the story is that Abby Sunderland was trying to make history.  But as a mother of a girl I say history can wait, sugar plum.  Don’t be in such a hurry to hit your highest goal.  You could drip battery acid into my eyeballs for an extended period and make me chew on glass before I’d let my daughter go on such an escapade.  I’m not judging the parents.  I’m not saying they should be brought up on child abuse charges; we all know they will have suffered enough.  They will have to live with this for the rest of their lives should [...]

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My Mother

by Sasha Stone May 9, 2010 Blog 'em and Weep
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Mother’s Day is the day we’re supposed to, as a people, spend money to, as Charles Foster Kane once said, “buy things.”  We do this to prove our love because somewhere down the line we were taught that buying stuff equals love.  We have to buy something for each and every holiday and that ensures, somehow, that we’ve proved how much we love and appreciate our mother, our lover, our secretary, St. Patrick, our kids on Halloween.  Love equals stuff.  Stuff you buy. Good thing?  Bad thing? Who can say.  We are not here to judge.  We observe and that is all.  Oh, what the hell.  Let’s judge.  What I hate is how if you don’t buy anything it’s taken as a symbol that you don’t care. I appreciate my own mother and appreciate her more and more as I wade my way through the bucket of shit that can [...]

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Leaving Rimini

by Sasha Stone August 20, 2009 Blog 'em and Weep

We leave this place tomorrow with mixed feelings, a lost watch, a new pair of shoes, and a double dose of “older and wiser.”¬† I thought about what it means to be a parent today as I brushed back my daughter’s brownish goldish hair into a pony tail.¬† When she asked me to do it, I thought, she’s asking me something that she probably won’t ask for much in the coming years.¬† She’s 11 going on 15.¬† She looks 15 but is still just a little kid in many ways.¬† Sometimes I think she’s wiser than I am; I know she’s better in all ways than I am.¬† Sometimes my soul feels like a puny rotten emptied-out pit when, as Tom Petty would say, “she puts her arms around me and I can somehow rise above it.” I know that being a parent shifts the focus so dramatically that eleven [...]

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Europe Diary, Day One

by Sasha Stone August 11, 2009 Blog 'em and Weep

It’s up early and out by around 1:30pm.¬† Airport shuttle.¬† I’ve never actually taken a shuttle to the airport.¬† Usually someone drives us – or I park down at the airport and pay $40 to park so that I can drive us home after our trips.¬† I really hate asking/depending on people to drive to the airport because it’s just such a drag.¬† We’re almost ready to go – just a few last-minute details, saying goodbye to our cute cats and bidding Los Angeles farewell for a couple of weeks.¬† We will be hitting Milan, Modena, Florence and Rimini in Italy and then flying over to Paris for four days and four nights (which turned out to be expensive, too expensive to justify).¬† I’m still feeling much trepedation about this trip.¬† My daughter is now 11 and she’s plenty old enough to really figure out the whole situation.¬† I just [...]

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The Hike

by Sasha Stone August 3, 2009 Blog 'em and Weep

This weekend, my brother-in-law, my niece and my daughter thought it was a good time to revisit Matilija Canyon for what may become an annual hike to the swimming holes up there.¬† They really are nice when the water is running high.¬† This year, there wasn’t much rain so the swimming holes weren’t up to their usual saturated luster – moss covered, murky.¬† We had a cool breeze this time, and it wasn’t as hot as last year’s hike and so there wasn’t much to complain about.¬† Except for the fact that I did almost pulled the entire toenail off my big toe while slipping comically into one of the deeper pools way up high.¬† That was fun. It was even more fun when I kicked at least three big rocks, toe first, on the way down. There are things in life that I’ll remember as I plow the older [...]

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Ode to My Main Inspiration These Days

by Sasha Stone July 26, 2009 Blog 'em and Weep

“Who’s Pioneer Woman?”¬† Everyone is always asking me that question.¬† Who is she – she’s just the coolest thing on the web.¬† She started her blog a few years back about her family life on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma – cut to 2009 and she’s a bonafide web star and complete success.¬† It’s a little frustrating to see someone do so well.¬† Don’t you always wish the worst for people?¬† I know I do.¬† It’s just my bitter little secret I keep with myself: I want everyone to fail AT EVERYTHING! But with PW – she gives so much back that no one can begrudge her success.¬† She updates almost every day — never on Sunday (psst – her family is religion, church-goin’, homeschoolin’ folk) and her photography is stunning, her cooking is fabulous, her taste in everything is dreamy.¬† She makes my own daily life better.¬† I just [...]

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Doing Everything Wrong

by Sasha Stone July 17, 2009 Blog 'em and Weep

It’s never a good feeling to know for certain that you’ve been doing everything wrong up to now.¬† The whole drinking water out of the plastic bottles thing – a signature of the ’80s and mostly the ’90s?¬† Totally wrong.¬† Bad for you, bad for the environment, a waste of money.¬† One thing I’ve been doing wrong (besides, well, everything) is that in¬† my experience as a blogger I have not taken criticism well.¬† That would be an understatement, my readers would say.¬† My partner in blogging, Ryan, is much better at it than I am.¬† Every once in a while he’ll get really pissed off but for the most part he, twenty years my junior, is far more mature.¬† I always say “tough.¬† If you don’t like it go somewhere else.”¬† Or else I say “this is not a democracy.¬† It’s a dictatorship.”¬† I’ve been at it a long [...]

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