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 @ 10:58 pm
We wub you ViVi.
October 1, 2013 @ 11:21 pm
I started reading your blog at11:15 this morning. Other than a couple hour break…I have been here all day long.
Victoria, close the door. Turn out the shiny mirror ball lights.
Hide Elvis.
I have got to get some sleep.
I feel so inspired, in a crazy happy kind of way!
Thank you
October 1, 2013 @ 11:36 pm
Still loving your blog. Thanks for providing the ongoing entertainment.
October 2, 2013 @ 12:01 am
Love the blog… shared at your pleading behest… with this message attached…
“if you are into antiques, and husbands that rebuild kitchens and bathrooms, and nutty women that trawl craigs list for the next awesome piece for their victorian home…and chicks who write blogs that make you spit coffee on your screen, take a look through this woman’s archive.. funny shit!”
<3
M.V.
October 2, 2013 @ 12:48 am
Repeat to self ….. I am special …. because you are …. whether the majority of the planet knows it or not .
October 2, 2013 @ 7:14 am
Not to sound gushy…..oh what the hell…….I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your blog!
“Don’t stop changing….” Waiting impatiently for the next, and happy anniversary!!
October 2, 2013 @ 7:21 am
Yes, all the good things everyone said above, but also…..
THAT TOP! THAT DvF TOP! I’VE BEEN WANTING THAT TOP FOR ABOUT A CENTURY NOW! IT LOOKS FABULOUS ON YOU!
October 2, 2013 @ 10:55 am
Your blogging talents appear to be masterful. I just hope you have a real job where you can utilize your writing talent. But, if blogging is all you do, I feel sorry for you!
October 2, 2013 @ 2:13 pm
Blogging is a real job of its own. Her talent is masterful, wherever she chooses to apply it. If you are referring to making a living, that is another issue. I haven’t found anyone else as talented as she, or anyone who engenders the devotion and appreciation she does. Hail to thee, VEB.
April 24, 2014 @ 4:31 pm
WOWZER! …well then… 😉
October 2, 2013 @ 11:09 am
Ah, dear Elizabeth. You are seen. You are loved. You are followed!
October 2, 2013 @ 12:57 pm
I stumbled across your blog via facebook, no easy feat since I do not have a facebook account. It was your blog about the Kingdom Mirror that sucked me in and caused me to tag your blog to my favorites bar and have two sleepless nights because I NEEDED to read every.single.blog.you.wrote.previously. We all define success differently; nevertheless I think you’ve reached success by several definitions. You certainly are entertaining.
I had to comment: 1) to let you know that I was getting concerned because I kept checking back to your blog and it was taking too long to see a new entry. I started having visions of a Dynasty kitchen shoehorned into your funky space!!
and more importantly: 2) to ask you: Is that Lara in the black dress in the second photo?
BTW I loved the pics, all of them. Who did you convince to take over zee vurld with you that day?
Keep up the entertaining blog, and more updates on the house progress!!!!
October 2, 2013 @ 9:15 pm
It’s Narnia and Mad Men and love of old houses and hardwood floors… You’re my BFF. Don’t argue, you are.
October 2, 2013 @ 9:50 pm
Ok..
1. It’s you’re fault completely that I have a new obsession with old, overly orate, gaudy mirrors.
2. I love that you are as insane as I am about every last ever loving detail, OCD much anyone?
3. I just know we’d be best friends in real like, I KNOW IT! Really, it’s ok if you don’t think so, but I’ll go on living the dream.
Keep Blogging BBFF (Blogging Best Friends Forever!)
Nicole
XOXO
October 3, 2013 @ 3:09 am
Hey, water seeks its own level. Love your blog. Wish you were my neighbor. We could hold each other down when we begin floating off on a new whim/adventure…or we could experience the adventure together!!!
October 3, 2013 @ 7:06 am
Congrats on the 1st year. And I feel terribly guilty, because I never write anyone…just sneakily read and ENJOY stuff AND always send to my friends. You’re hilarious. My friends love you too. Mimi
October 3, 2013 @ 10:45 am
I love your blog and unlike some others that I sort of skim through, I always read yours to the end. You’re a great writer. Cate
October 3, 2013 @ 2:06 pm
You and Nicole Curtis—my media idols! How about getting your own HGTV show to supplement your blog and vice/versa? Resurrecting old Victorians, using an ex-Marine crew and a staff of Craig’s List scourers from around the country. You have the looks, the talent, and the charisma, (plus you’d get a free wardrobe). The world is your oyster Victoria Elizabeth Barnes–make it glitter!
October 4, 2013 @ 1:34 am
I would love to tell my friends about your blog, but if I had friends I wouldn’t spend most of my day reading blogs.
October 4, 2013 @ 5:39 am
I tried friends-they tend to have opinions that don’t agree with mine so naturally they had to go………….
October 4, 2013 @ 7:30 am
I just found your blog….I love it!!
I think if you did build an alter, it would be gorgeous!
October 4, 2013 @ 10:40 am
Yep. Super cute outfit.
October 4, 2013 @ 2:25 pm
I thoroughly enjoy your blog–I think the day I discovered it I read through your entire Archive of posts:) It sounds like you have secured a devoted following, so I would suggest you just be yourself and keep on posting–“you being you” is what attracts most of us here:) (don’t sweat the numbers!!)