Ripping out my soul for your entertainment… examining my first year of blogging.
Before my Craigslist–mirror went viral, I’d decided that it was sheer foolishness to have ever thought I would make a dent in the internet.
In fact, if I had any sense at all, I would have quit blogging around six months.
Six months is what separates the sensible people— who go back to their lives.
From the total lunatics— who decide to double down.
Somewhere here, I more than doubled down.
I pushed all my chips in.
I borrowed money from the mob.
I started snorting cocaine in the high-roller suites and set fire to the drapes.
Somewhere here I stopped feeling like a writer.
Or a doer of house projects.
Or a researcher of toilets.
I turned into a version of myself that I had never met– someone who would do WHATEVER IT TAKES. To get people to read my blog.
The word that comes to mind is hustler.
For me, at six months, a very tiny dictator woke up in my head.
She was mean. And wore all grey.
And she looked just like me.
She said: vee must take over zee vurld.
And I agreed.
I thought if I could make it to one year—the parade would begin.
And I believed in my own infallibility— also defined as psychotic self-delusion.
Any megalomaniacal dictator can tell you that the first few months of a war are the best—there are impassioned speeches… the troops are excited… you haven’t run out of food and had to eat the horses.
But sometime between six months and a year is when you get an inkling that perhaps it’s not a matter of simply controlling the world with your mind.
This inkling grows in size and scope… until sometime around month eight, when you have a mini-breakdown.
But no one cares about your breakdown.
No one cares that you are having a crisis of the soul.
They don’t care, because blogging is synonymous with 24-year-old fashionistas in neon sunglasses, so attempting to convey to people the IMPORTANCE of your blog makes you sound like a total moron.
It also doesn’t help that much of what you say is rant-like: about how no one has shown up, and how this is UNACCEPTABLE.
And for the record, if there is anything less sympathetic to people than a 36-year-old woman crying about her blog, I do not know what it is.
In fact, if you want to confirm all of people’s worst suspicions about you? This is the way to do it.
And then– if somehow your blog makes it to one year? Instead of the parade you anticipated, you get the gift of FINALLY grasping the idiocy of your undertaking.
You finally understand that there are roughly one billion other blogs. And that the chances of yours being special are so microscopic as to be nonexistent.
So now you have two choices:
1. You can accept defeat and go spend time with your family.
2. You can commit yourself to self-delusion.
Lucky for me, I’ve been training in self-delusion all my life.
It is my second-greatest talent.
What’s my first? Enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm beyond what is reasonable.
Beyond what is even remotely reasonable.
That endless enthusiasm is what makes people think I am fun. Unless they have to spend too much time with me, in which case it can be wearing… Because when I am excited about something? LOOK OUT.
I am going overboard.
I am going to fling myself off the side of the ship with no life vest or scuba gear or shark-repellant.
And I’ll be screaming— OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS THING!
I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING SO EXCITING!!
EXCITING, EXCITING, EXCITING.
And you’re going to have to call in a Marine search-and-rescue team to find me in the ocean. (If you’re the one calling, please make sure they only send young Marines… Let’s say under 32, shall we?)
Somewhere in the last year, ALL my enthusiasm BECAME this blog… They merged into one entity—indistinguishable from each other.
I stopped caring about anything else. My only interest became pushing this blog forward… Uphill in a tornado… in an ice storm… carrying it over mountains while being pecked by vultures.
To do WHATEVER it takes.
Anything.
If human sacrifice were required, it would take me no time at all to build the altar.
October 1, 2013 @ 6:11 pm
Love you just the way you are. Happy blogiversary, keep up the hilarity.
October 1, 2013 @ 6:40 pm
Love you, keep blogging. You are my favourite blog. The rest is just crap.
October 1, 2013 @ 6:43 pm
So…I saw you already had a healthy number of comments and I wasn’t going to leave a comment. But then…I read some of the comments. {wry grin}
And I thought “Well, I believe she is well on the way to achieving her goal, if she hasn’t already.”
And then I wondered what the tiny grey dictator’s response was to allll the adoring, gleeful, and chortling comments above?
“Zee World, it is not enough”? 😉
Happy Blogiversary to you Ms. Elizabeth. Many Happy Returns (for you and for us) and thank you for being who you are. And for sharing.
October 1, 2013 @ 7:13 pm
Hey Victoria, I posted a comment once before but I don’t think it took. I’m trying again.
Love your blog and I wish you would post more often. I do not have a blog so there is no “obligatory” reciprocation in order here.
Happy Anniversary to you and I must include the long suffering Paul. Girl you got a gem when you got that guy! I know you know that.
I have told almost every living soul about your “Portal to Downton Abby” ~ love, love, love that. What project are you working on next. I’m anxious to see everything! Vikki (Victoria) in VA.
October 1, 2013 @ 7:14 pm
You look fantastic too! Especially with mega pearls and rocking a peplum. Love your blogs, soul sister, and it is obvious masses of women adore you. Glorious hilarity. Wishing you all you dream of. (And myself and all your readers the same. Because girls just wanna have this particular kind of fun<)
October 1, 2013 @ 7:25 pm
alright, alright, alright – we heard you, loud and clear – we LOVE you, unconditionally – we adore every pix and every utterance, so much that we write comments at 01.25am instead of going to bed…. !!!
your blog is the only one I can’t live without, so HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, crazy sister and many happy returns, for your own ego and our undivided attention, fellowship (no, that should be followship, shouldn’t it?), never ending love and adoration – good night my Lovely. It’s fabulous to have you back – was getting worried!
October 1, 2013 @ 8:07 pm
Love your blog, just wish you posted way more often!!
October 1, 2013 @ 8:11 pm
I was so excited when I started hearing about this thing called the world wide web-at last I thought-brilliant people sharing brilliant ideas on how to save the world, the oceans-animals nearing extinction etc. Imagine my disappointment when I began reading strange hateful rants by people? about every petty annoyance they wanted to share with the world. Thank goodness for people who are witty, funny, and interesting.(regretful about the desperation part but try to think of the quality of your loyal readers and not their quantity.
October 1, 2013 @ 8:18 pm
You are hilarious & adorable! I read tons of blogs but only subscribe to a select few! . . Commitment issues & such maybe. Just keep it coming & start writing the screenplay. And figure out who can play YOU in the movie!!
October 1, 2013 @ 8:27 pm
just had to add one more comment! I LOVE your blog!!! keep writing!!!!
October 1, 2013 @ 8:33 pm
So is this your way of saying”Congratulate Me, It’s My One Year Anniversary”?
Yay You!!!
Look at all the Wonderful Things that You Do!
All I can Say
Is this is Your Day!
October 1, 2013 @ 8:37 pm
Happy one year! Glad you have won the war, or whatever amazing metaphor you’ve used in your writing. I love it. I found your house reno blog when I was beginning mine. I applaud your enthusiasm – for the reno, but even more so, for the blogging! That shit takes work! Our reno continues, but my blog? Shhhhhh don’t wake her, she is sleeping.
May you celebrate with a 10-foot gold framed mirror that someone on craigslist literally pays you to take off their hands.
October 1, 2013 @ 8:38 pm
Yours is the blog I just can not keep to myself. I just have to tell others about it and preferably read out loud to them! There may be billion blogs but none as perfectly insane and hilarious and witty and well written. Keep it coming and congratulations on your blogversary.
October 1, 2013 @ 8:41 pm
So, is this your way of saying that this is your one year anniversary?
Yay You! Look at all the wonderful things that you do!
We love hearing what you’ve been making Paul do!
So don’t ever stop, you probably hear that a lot,
Cause you are simply outrageously over the top!
October 1, 2013 @ 8:47 pm
Sorry for the double post. I was having internet connectivity issues and then I got a blast of creativity. Stuff happens.
October 1, 2013 @ 9:17 pm
I wasn’t going to comment for fear my voice would be drowned out in amongst all of this love! But who doesn’t like to be part of a love fest? Not me! My comment: I only follow your blog and none other. Big <3
October 1, 2013 @ 9:19 pm
You are my alter ego! BUT, Victoria (!)*, stop torturing your people and fess up about your unbelievably hip and chic top!
* btw you are and you look fantastic!
October 1, 2013 @ 9:44 pm
Oh, Ms. Barnes! I ADORE your blog! I am CRAZY about your writing! I COVET your wardrobe! (And you have 128 responses just to this post so you can’t truly be lacking in followers, right?). But mostly, what I love is how you reveal yourself as a real person with humor and grace. I have recently started a new business and my biz partner and I are soooo in your camp about throwing your whole self into over-the-top content for our blog. I would be OVER THE MOON if you actually took a look at OUR blog because, not only do I think our aesthetic is sympatico with yours, but because I really, really want to have a glass of wine with you. (Ok, if that’s weird thing to say on a public forum, my bad). And maybe if you read our blog and watch our video you’ll see that we are your two lost sisters from a group of triplets. Ok, I’m gushing and rambling because I just relate to you, your dreams, your pursuits… oh, and your’s is the ONLY blog I read out loud to my husband because it makes him feel better that he’s not the only one who has to live with a crazy person. (Meaning, I assume by your posts, that your husband is dealing with crazy, too).
October 1, 2013 @ 10:11 pm
Writing about doing stuff to your house is easy. Writing about doing stuff to your house in a way that is consistently engaging and hilarious takes real talent. Congrats on your first year, and best wishes for many more!
October 1, 2013 @ 10:43 pm
Lucky for you that you’re well practiced in self-delusion and lucky for us that you’ve decided to share that in the form of a blog. Never stop writing and posting. I love your blog and have shared it with all my friends!
October 1, 2013 @ 10:51 pm
You are shameless and adorable, so it’s okay if you tell people that I think you’re shamelessly adorable. These photos are the absolute best blog pics EVER!!
Please tell me…
1. … that you know the girl in the black dress in the second photo. She is hysterical.
2. … that you the bridal party is now following VEB
3. … that in all your spare time you plan on starting a fashion blog, because I LOVE your outfit!
Major love for you, my enthusiastic friend!