Welcome Petunia Face

Visit Petunia Face HERE

I get these blog crushes.
I read alot of blogs, which really stinks because I hardly crack a book anymore. This blog reading is a new nasty habit that started last March (2008), when I was researching something I wanted to buy on eBay, some piece of cheap vintage crap that my over active imagination tricks me into thinking it will look like a million bucks once I play with it.
The first blog I came upon was Decorno. I was smitten. What the hell was this? The title was beguiling, combining the words decor + porn. The writing was funny, and pretty good. I was hooked, and for the first time I didn't think blogging was for assholes and losers scribbling their lives away. In fact I saw something of myself in Decorno, and thought, hey I can do that.
It has been many years since I semi retired from the design world, and I had never missed it before. I guess I was healed from the damage I let it do to me, and I was ready to allow that side of me live again.
So I started my blog. I didn't know jack about how to do it. Thank god blog spot, blogger, Google - makes it so easy a monkey could figure it out. It was so cool to learn how to play with photos, to learn about widgets, to discover Google Images, and to discover a world of super talented bloggers out there.
I got more crushes - Joni from Cote de Texas, and Meghan from Beach Bungalow 8, and Hab Chic, and Mrs. Blandings and Style Court, and M21, and The Perfect Red (now Fashion Phil), and Peak of Chic, and Optimism and White Paint, and Sneaky Chic, and so many others. Everyone has a blog roll of favorites, so I would check out one, which led me to another one, which leads to yet that other one over there, and well you know the drill - all of a sudden the sun is coming up and the laptop is burning up your fucking lap.
I wrote to some of my crushes, via comments and sometimes via e-mail.
I was accused of stalking Decorno by a very nasty Anon, so I didn't want to disgust her or freak her out (I was told she does not do e-mail so I didn't bother to write her about this), so I took her off my blog, and have stopped reading her, except for every once in awhile. I felt bad that she didn't want to be friends, but hey what the fuck is this, fucking high school confidential. I'm a grown woman with a full life, with accomplishments up the old yazoo.
Besides Joni was there and friendly from the start, and she helped me with so many things; Meghan wrote to me and egged me on.

Joni recently sent this beauty to me
after she read my post about
my lust for canopy chairs

So I learned that there is kind of a blog etiquette, unspoken rules of the road so to speak, and that if you mind your P's and Q's, you can make friends with your crushes without it being totally creepy.
But I have a huge crush again. And it's directed to Susannah who writes Petunia Face. She's on a ton of blog rolls, and she's kind of famous as a blog writer. She writes about her life and her daughter Zoe. I love this blog, and it has nothing to do with decor + porno.
It astounds me that there is a whole genre of mothers blog writing about their kids, posting photos, etc. I worry about predators, even though I don't have kids. But I worry about my nieces and nephews and my godchild Hailey.

My grand niece Brittany, and my godchild Hailey

Bloggers just seem to put it out there in such an open way. Not only that, but everyone single, dates on line! WTF! My ancient step father met a woman on line and they got married (it's been 12 years). I am so out of that fucking rodeo.
Joni told me there are two Jonis, the good Joni is the blog girl, and bad Joni is her real life ha ha. I found that vastly amusing, and I could dig it. But I am fooled if that's the case with all the blog girls out there, because it all just seems so real.
My only other inter net interaction has been on Rate My Space and eBay. I did my fair share of buying and selling, and I got alot of terrific letters from other eBayers, something that at first shocked me, then ultimately charmed me. I got a few letters from a woman in Israel who bought a Gerard Yosca bracelet from me, in which she described bombs bursting in air during some fucking war outside her door. Bombs and eBay!
It was like being a kid again with pen pals.
I made friends with one guy from Rate My Space. It was a whole song and dance as to how to exchange e-mails via the comments. Neither one of us wanted to post our e-mail address. So he would come and comment on an outdated posting of mine, and we would chat like magpies. We got busted by one of the other regulars, and it was very funny. He was the only straight guy in the hen house and had quite a little fan club. All in all it was cordial, and we wrote each other for awhile, but it eventually petered out once I got my blog.
One thing he did freaked me out. I posted a photo on RMS of the exterior of my house. The house number was visible, and everyone knows (because I proudly broadcast it) that I live in New Orleans. This guy sent me a warning about showing my house number, in a disturbing way: He revealed where I lived, my exact street address, and how much I paid for my house, and when I bought it, and other little things that I had not told him about. I tried to shrug it off, because I'm a tough cookie, and I'm street wise, and I live on the edge of the hood, but really I was queasy, and if the hubs found out how stupid stupid stupid I was, he'd kill me (actually he was very nice about it). So I took the damn pictures with the house number on it off of RMS!

My house without the house number LOL

So when I see so much information given (and I give it out too) by bloggers, I wonder about creepy stuff, like identity theft, and bad people preying on kids, of an axe murderer jumping out of the computer screen leering and taunting me saying so you thought I was a harmless decor freak you mother fucking asshole.
But the other side of me, the nauseating Pollyanna side, sees the good of all of it, the openness, the sharing, the talent, the love of what we all do, blog our fucking lives away for what?
Some get chump change from ads (at least I think it's chump change) or maybe writing gigs out of it, or nice little profiles on 1stdibs (and hey you at 1stdibs when are you going to do Joni Cote de Texas?), or in magazines. Some get a ton of comments, the comment queens I call them, and yes I do covet a comment or two. And Anon don't fucking write me anymore and tell me I am desperate.
Because yes I am desperate. Life passes quickly. We run out of time to do all the things we want to do. So I am a tad obsessed. So stick it in your ear if you don't like the passion.
I too have facets, and I do sleep, eat, take care of my loved ones, make a living, but sometimes I'm just on a writing jag deep into the night.
Oh yes, please, please do go to Petunia Face HERE
She's on vacation now, and has some terrific guest writers. I'd love to invite some of you to do a guest piece/posting once in awhile.
But anyhoo get your snarky asses over there and have a good read - it's almost as good as reading a book, and I say say almost because I am a dinosaur that likes to hold a book in my hands, no fucking heartless Kindle for me.