Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

…Twice, in fact, over the past two weeks. First by Fuse #8, as a “Thinking Blog.” And then by Lindsey at Zee Says to list 5 non-bookish blogs that we read. So we’re multi-tasking by responding to both memes in one post.

First, the Thinking Blog meme. We’re flattered. And a little baffled. We mean, yeah, we’ve got advanced degrees and stuff, but we also say “dude” a lot. It’s actually pretty funny, if you look at the reviews we were cranking out when we first started this blog back in August. They’re all “blah blah protagonist’s motivation blah alliteration blah blah synecdoche yadda yadda pathetic fallacy blah.” We were trying so hard to be, you know, professional and stuff. Now we tend to trade knock-knock jokes back and forth, and ask people what their favorite curse word is. And yet we got tagged, by one of the smartest blogs in the kidlitosphere. Go fig. Maybe it’s just a ploy by the intrepid Ms. Fuse to get Eisha’s boots. (Yeah, that’s right, I’m on to you, Bird…)   

Right, so, anyway… In return, we’d like to tag a few more Thinking Blogs we dig: Chicken Spaghetti, Propernoun.net, the Excelsior File, the NCBLA blog, and Journey Woman. Thanks, all, for providing smart, interesting content and unique perspectives on literature and other issues we care about.

Second: the Non-Lit-Blogs meme. We’re pretty heavy on the lit-related blogs, but between us we were able to come up with some that aren’t all about books.

• Go Fug Yourself. Oh, come on, who doesn’t?
• PostSecret. Jules just discovered this one thanks to Kelly at Big A little a listing as one of her non-lit blogs. Eisha has read the first and second books, and drops in on the blog occasionally. Compelling stuff.
• SPOGG. This is the blog of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. That’s right, we’re card-carrying Grammar Nerds.
• The Sneeze. Eisha just discovered this one by accident a while ago, and it’s wicked funny. The best part is the “Steve, Don’t Eat It!” series. Did you know there’s such a thing as pickled pork rinds? Ew.
• Martinimade. This may be sorta cheating, because it’s the blog of Adrienne Martini, author of Hillbilly Gothic (a memoir about her struggle with postpartum depression). But she’s also a friend of ours, and writes with wit and candor about raising her two children, knitting, and the writing business.
• Entertainment Weekly’s Popwatch — Light, fluffy pop culture news. There are some decent writers there, and every now and then you’ll come across some mildly amusing gems, such as this, though I remember Kelly Herold saying before that she’s deathly afraid of squirrels, so this won’t be your thing, Kelly! (Squirrel milk, anyone? Actually, the inebriated squirrel is disturbingly funny, despite all the heavy breathing and sad, sad misspelling of “pumpkin.” Is an inebriated squirrel an Animal That Should Have Its Own Picture Book perhaps?) . . .
• Literally. It’s a blog that tracks the increasingly rampant misuse of the word “literally.” Did we mention we’re Grammar Nerds? And see for yourself. Isn’t it fun (in a nerds-will-one-day-take-over-the-world kind of way)?
• Finally, I (Jules) would like to add some smart-mama blogs that I admire and wish I had time to read more regularly but get to them when I can:
  1. MotherTalk — Andrea Buchanan, the author of Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It, which I reviewed here way back at our blog’s birth; Stacy DeBroff; and Miriam Peskowitz provide the following: ” . . . {A} service for writers who are also mothers, and who write the kinds of books that women who are mothers like to read. We connect writers with readers through several different kinds of viral PR: in-person literary salons, virtual book tours via blogs, and radio broadcasts/podcasts and targeted e-newsletter mailings.”
  2. Literary Mama — the blog of the “literary magazine for the maternally inclined”
  3. Reading Moms (“a place to catch up on the latest discussions about the books we’re reading for fun, the books we’re reading to our children, at work, in bed at night”), which is temporarily on hold, I believe, but I hope it gets movin’ again soon with new and updated posts. It’s a great blog . . .

That was fun, and thanks for the tags, everyone! As for tagging forward, uh, we’re not very good at this, and it also seems as if everyone has done this already. How about Elzey at The Excelsior File, Brooke at The Brookeshelf, and Kristen at pixie stix kids pix — just ’cause we really admire them and would love to know what non-lit blogs they read, though we’re not sure if they’ll even see this or want to play along (and if they weren’t so inclined to play along, that’d be okay, too). Who knows — they might have already been tagged, too. Oh well . . .

Ciao!