Vintage Schmintage

A few weeks ago, The Girl and I attended The Vintage Bazaar's pop-up in a Pilsen warehouse space. I had been following BackGarage with interest since it was posted a few years ago on Reddit Chicago. I really wanted to like the pop-up, but I found it "meh." My most interesting purchase was 6 vintage buttons from a 70s deadstock vendor. (My only other purchase was a vegan s'mores brownie from Bleeding Heart Bakery.)  Otherwise, the pop-up was a nice stroll through the visual reminders of my early years, but really, the early 1970s were pretty horrible design-wise: I'll leave the avocado green, mustard yellow and basic brown dishware sets to someone far removed from the era -- like the hipsterish couples who were waiting for the bus to take them back to Uki Village.

I think that for me, part of the thrill of vintage is the thrill of the hunt. And while some vendors at the pop-up had some gorgeous mid-century modern pieces, a lot of them just had a lot of junk. Old chairs covered in layers of peeling paint, Samsonite leatherette suitcases, an old Mason jar full of marbles, stained linen pillowcases and other pieces of crap. It was not unlike digging through the bins at the Salvation Army or an estate sale at an Indiana farmhouse. The difference being that the S.A. is cheaper and the Indiana farmhouse offers the opportunity to use my imagination about what that family might have hung on their handmade hat tree (which now, for a mere $5, graces my entryway).

There were a handful of tastefully and sparsely displayed booths featuring mid-century modern furnishings.  It's a look that is appealing to me--living in a 1400 SF Chicago foursquare has deepened the appeal of mid-century modern with its box-on-legs look and hide-the-electronics functionality. But, for all the appeal of artfully displayed 1960s glassware, I prefer my decorating touches to come in the form of Wii remotes and contemporary Matchbox cars. 

Another post on writing

The problem with blogging and getting followers and really putting oneself out there is that every post feels like An Article. I can't just write an off-the-cuff diatribe. Even though that is what blogging is supposed to be about. The beauty of self-publishing on the Internet is that you can get your message out fast. The ugly of self-publishing on the Internet is that while bloggers sometimes masquerade as journalists (I have been guilty of this myself), they have even less credibility than journalists. And that reputation is rightfully deserved in many cases. There's a lot of garbage on the Internet, opinion dressed up as fact, live-blogging and recording and sharing in real time--churning out copy and content so fast after the experience--sometimes during the experience that it seems the most followed bloggers can barely enjoy the experience for the need to blast it out to the world. 

For the record, this isn't a slam on bloggers, having a following/fan base, or seeking (or achieving) fame and fortune through blogging. After all, as someone remarked about me recently, I am a writer, a blogger, a communicator. I almost feel compelled to share my knowledge and/or analysis with my friends and associates. Email and blogs are the perfect outlet for me to unleash my need to communicate with the world. 

However, I struggle with this need for information--reading it, analyzing it, disseminating it. Which is funny because I don't generally watch the news, and glean what's going on in the world from The Dad's Reddit links, education blogs and a once-weekly cruise through The New York Times app or NPR. Or calling my mother, who is as addicted to MSNBC as I am to writing about education, parenting, society norms and my children. 

As a writer, I am drawn to the need to share my story, my opinion, my analysis of a situation or event. Or maybe being a writer has nothing to do with it--maybe it's just because I'm opinionated. And have no editorial calendar. 

I'm also a big believer in transparency. Perhaps because I try to be transparent. While I recognize the right and importance of privacy in many things, I probably would exercise it less than I do now if I were not contractually obligated to keep a lid on it. But where is the line between transparency and oversharing? And should everyone know what I think as soon as I think it? Is there value in getting information out there as soon as it is known? Or is it better to take a page from Lane Smith's book* and just "shut your big yawp"? 






* John, Paul, George & Ben. I highly recommend it. It never fails to delight The Boy, The Girl and The Tot (who's no longer a tot). That particular quote pertains to Ben Franklin and his frequent dispensation of free advice.

Must Write More

And so it has happened without any real warning, without an official moment to mark the passage: I have become boring. I started this blog as part creative outlet and part desire to record all the fun things I did with my children in the city of Chicago. But as my children have aged and my life has changed, I have less and less to say that fits in with my original objective.
 
Since I began blogging, the "scene" of kid-friendly Chicago has exploded. There's Windy City Tot to aggregate weekly tot-friendly activities. TimeOut Chicago Kids brings us a whole magazine full of kid-friendly activities and restaurant reviews each monthly (and weekly emails). And of course, there's the old standby of Chicago Parent. The Chicago momlogging world is pretty full as well, although I only really know of Momtrolfreak and Sassafrass, both of whom are prolific writers with more to say than I even think in a day. I cannot possibly keep up. I work full-time, volunteer, and have three kids and a husband.

And yet, this blog is such a great record of my children's early childhood experiences and of my own new-motherhood.  I cannot bear to give it up for those reasons alone. My posts may be sporadic, but I hope you'll keep reading.

When Blogging and Real Life Collide

Today, as I was resting on a giant leather sofa at the Starbucks closest to my office on a mid-afternoon caffeine run, I looked over and there was a cute blond toddler in a red Bumbleride screaming his head off. I laughed--not because I was taunting the child or teasing his parent, but because I have so been there. And then his mother popped up and I smiled at her in that way that mothers who have survived toddlerhood will recognize as the secret-club handshake of mothers...and realized that she is the genius behind Big City Fuzz and Big City Suds. Cool. Now I want some lemongrass-scented soap and recycled wool mittens.