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 4, 2013 @ 3:42 pm
Gratulerer med dagen !
So ? Are those pictures the answer to the mystery picture of you , in your car , wearing your necklace of invicibility and ” going to do something crazy for you (=your readers)” , smthg that you could not (then) tell us , not yet , no…?
I hope all those messages from so many and so different people will definitely convince you that you really are just one of a kind and whatever the weirdoo aspects of your personnality (be sure , there is no such thing as a ‘normal’ human being , all are trying to find a fine balance all the time !) , you are the very best of a VEB blogger ! To all the years to come , enjoying again and again reading your wonderful style, your incredible stories and your perfect taste for making a house a home full of warmth and sensibility…like you ! Long live your blog !
October 4, 2013 @ 4:15 pm
Wow! I linked over to your blog from Hooked on Houses. I’ve read two posts, added you to my feedly, and really wished I lived closer so that we could maybe have the chance to be bff’s or something (not at all in a creepy way, you just seem like a really neato person/designer/wordsmith/etc.). I like you, I really like you, and I look forward to digging in to your blog. Keep it up! I never, ever, never comment on blogs I read, and I read a lot, so that’s how you know you’re pretty special.
October 4, 2013 @ 6:20 pm
Today was my first visit to your blog. I read one of your posts and really loved it! Then — those three words that really made my heart race — “Read from Beginning.”
October 4, 2013 @ 7:38 pm
Shameless promotion is the way to go! Maybe I should pick up some tips from you….
October 4, 2013 @ 10:14 pm
Wow, girl. This post is reason alone why I need to be reading this blog more! Way to keep it real, keep us entertained, and speak to our hearts. As a blogger who recently hit her one year mark, lunacy is definitely required for this gig…but oh, how I love the madness!
{These photos of you with signs…make me an instant fan.}
Thanks to Alex at Northstory for sending me your way!
October 5, 2013 @ 12:02 am
I have stayed up until midnight reading your blog when I should have been cleaning up after my baby and starting some amazing dinner that will emerge from my slower cooker in 8 hours. I had to catch up on what other giant mirror adventures you may have had, and now I want to throw you in my basement once you’ve found said giant mirrors so I can steal them for myself.
October 5, 2013 @ 1:46 am
So I hop onto your blog (via Hooked on Houses) while cooling down after a run a few hours ago. …Haven’t done much since but read and laugh. Seriously, I’m sitting here in stinky running clothes not even sure where my kids are…
October 5, 2013 @ 6:46 am
Remember you can’t breath underwater, come up for air occasionally. But enjoy the scenery all the while.
Happy Anniversary.
Jim
October 5, 2013 @ 9:03 am
That’s what I call good advice. I will remember that myself.
“Can’t breathe underwater”. Good. Sounds like what my husband tells me.
October 5, 2013 @ 7:59 am
atta girl, you go get ’em readers!
btw love your top in the pics, very cute!
October 5, 2013 @ 9:06 am
I LOVE your style, girl! I think of you as the ‘Erma Bombeck’ of DIY blockers. I found your blog via a Facebook post that a friend posted on another friend’s Facebook page ( it was destiny). I decided to check you out …..it was the ‘Kingdom Mirror’ post and I was hooked! I shared your blog with my sisters and my mom. While traveling on vacation, I read your blogs out loud to my family and that made the trip even more enjoyable! We are definitely kindred spirits! Keep up the good work. I can’t wait to see your kitchen ( I’ve been working on mine- so I can totally relate). Happy Anniversary plus many more!
October 5, 2013 @ 9:07 am
Bloggers…not blockers! SORRY
October 5, 2013 @ 11:05 am
I haven’t a shred of blogging dignity. No shame. I used to pretend to have shame but that is really hard work. God gave me all of the flakiness and none of the shame.
It just occurred to me, however, that I may be in denial. Ah, well! Nothing a new Craigslist thingy can’t cure! My handsome husband calls my Craigslist fetish “Andie Pauly Syndrome”. There is no known cure.
I digress…
I tell myself “When I finish this project, I will blog about it!”
Thing is, either I flit from project to project like a crack- addled butterfly or the finished project looks like it was completed by a crack addled butterfly. Butterflies don’t have thumbs. This is widely known. If butterflies DID have thumbs, however, they would take crappy photos of their finished work, for they only see in black and white (barring a few species). Most people don’t know this particular fascinating fact about butterflies, but thanks to my wonderful powers of procrastination as well as my penchant for careening through the internet at high rates of speed, instead of finishing any one of my 1,897 projects, I know this and I am proud to pass it on to you. Use this information any way you wish.
Where was I?
I think I will attempt to blog today. Or tomorrow. Your post kick started me back into blogging mode. I am now beginning to re-examine each of my projects and Craigslist finds and formulating clever remarks to be utilized or rejected at a later date.
It’s a start.
I actually wandered into your blog when researching a topic that I now have no recollection of.
Two hours later, I’m still here. See what you did?
xo,
Andie
October 7, 2013 @ 10:10 am
Um… I was going to reply and say—“God gave me all of the flakiness and none of the shame.” Is my all-time favorite comment ever.
But then I clicked on your site? And was like—DIVINE THEATER found me! I need no introduction to you. You are possibly the one person on the planet to whom I would cede my throne of Craigslist domination.
October 5, 2013 @ 2:40 pm
@Andie; I love you – I think you’re at the right place here…. :)))))
October 5, 2013 @ 3:35 pm
I don’t know how I just found your blog, but I am so glad and mad I did. Glad because it is wonderfully written, funny and I love any blog from Philly. ( I live in haverford). Sad because know I have to spend a few days starting from the beginning and read all the way to the end.
Please tell me what you filter to get your craigslist mirror finds. I would love to be able to limit the search to nicer ones like you find.
October 5, 2013 @ 4:57 pm
I’m going to wave my flag comment from down here at #171 and just be like I love this post. I cried laughing. And you know I gave you a shout out this b/c seriously the photos alone. I just can’t take it. I need to hire you to be my PR. Honestly this is funniest thing I have seen in ages.
October 5, 2013 @ 6:42 pm
I so enjoy this blog! It is your writing. And i do relate! Do not stop!
October 5, 2013 @ 9:37 pm
You are insane! And I love it. I started a blog a few weeks ago and I struggle with how much of my own insanity to share with my readers. Should I tell them that I painted that pumpkin when I was four bourbons deep? I think I shall. Because Victoria lets it all hang out and she’s fabulous. I am now a loyal follower of your blog and I will share my new find with everyone I know!
October 5, 2013 @ 9:56 pm
I stumbled onto your blog last weekend and couldn’t put it down until I read every post. You make me laugh. Love your giving up on the porch stain after so much, love your disappointment on the shutter color and OMG love the saga of the Craigslist mirror with a Kingdom. A Kingdom…did he really say that? It took me hours to devour your words when I should have been designing things for several important clients, but I count it as time well spent! Thank You.
October 6, 2013 @ 11:20 am
Victoria, you’re doing extremely well! I’ve had my blog for over a year and I have 80ish followers, and 1/4 of them are the scam blogs trying to get you to “make money blogging”. You have a great style and wit and a great writing voice. I’ll be honest though. I miss the posts of your house- that’s what in part attracted me to your blog. Your home is gorgeous, and your remodeling stories were both great to “watch” and to read. Of course Elvis and Don Draper and love are very important topics to write about too! Oh! And you’re Craigslist finds. You’re an amazing Craigslist lady.
I can also see how one can loose their blogging “umph”. I’m there right now. Good luck! Stay happy and keeping doing whatever it is you love!
October 6, 2013 @ 1:21 pm
“Calvin: Know what I pray for?
Hobbes: What?
Calvin: The strength to change what I can, the inability to accept what I can’t, and the incapacity to tell the difference.”
It’s so good to meet a kindred spirit. I saw your blog on Hooked On Houses!