It started with a tweet from @shimmer418. A little thing called #BoobieWed. What is #BoobieWed? It’s a group of women that have made it a mission to raise breast cancer awareness across Twitter, Facebook and Myspace by reminding men and women to self examine. Every Wednesday a sea of supporters change their avatars to show their support. Having lost my aunt Carol, my first official partner in crime, to breast cancer, this hit home. Early detection may have saved her life.
That one tweet led to a cathartic post. A declaration “Yup, I’ve Got Boobies.” And ultimately, my polka dotted bra clad breasts went up on Twitter for my little group of followers to see. The reaction was mixed to say the least. But, as soon as that post went up, my awesome tribe of geek girls responded with an outpouring of love and support that went beyond just RT’s. That’s how we roll. One makes a stand, we stand behind her.
We come in all shapes and sizes, each one of them gorgeous in their own right. We cover every spectrum you could declare geeky and we do it proudly.
We are strong. We are geek. We have boobies. We use our powers for good.
And I am so proud to announce that we have banded together to create a project for the cause.
Complete With: Over a year’s worth of awesome women proudly displaying their geek and their girlie. Monthly reminders to self examine Major (and not so major) Con dates printed right on it
Why This Calendar is so Important and What Your Purchase Means:
There are more than 250,000 women living in this country that were diagnosed with breast cancer under that age of 40. That does not account for the thousands that did not detect it early enough and lost their battles with breast cancer as a result.
The strongest weapon in beating breast cancer is early detection. That is the fuel behind this project- driving home the importance of it and reminding women (and yes men) to check their breasts regularly and remind those in their life to do so as well.
A portion of the proceeds of all Calendar sales will go to the following organizations:
The Young Survival Coalition: YSC works with survivors, caregivers and the medical, research, advocacy and legislative communities to increase the quality and quantity of life for women diagnosed with breast cancer ages 40 and under.
Feel Your Boobies: FYB is a breast cancer non-profit organization whose mission is to create an annual reminder campaign that utilizes unexpected and unconventional methods to remind young women to “feel their boobies”.
Remember #BoobiesAreStrongerThanTheForce But they still need to be checked.
It is almost complete. A shakabuku is no good if you fail to follow through with it. Although by definition it alters your reality so following through on it kind of becomes an instinct. Still, we instinctually tend to shy away from things that are difficult emotionally. I sat down last night and this morning and completed a HUGE step for me. The M.O.M.
Monkey Operations Manual
So what is the M.O.M? And why so hard?
Long story shortish, I’m a single mom. The girls and I left when they were very young and for all the right reasons. Even so, it wasn’t easy. Eldest remembers the way I was treated by the ex and it has stuck with her and we’ve worked on that. Lilest seems to have been too little to remember, but I still wonder. Their dad is still a part of their lives and that is a whole other story. Suffice it to say, his way of parenting and my way of parenting are VASTLY different. He is all discipline (on the rather extreme side of it at that) and little love. I’m all love and have been lacking in the discipline department.
In my head, I was providing balance. But, the scale has been very far out of whack. The result- yes, they may fear him in many ways, but they also respect and listen to him. With me- they love the mess out of me, but they don’t always respect and listen to me. Lilest especially. And it has gotten more and more obvious. I have made steps, but they have been babysteps.
I have the same issues with wanting to help, putting them first and boundaries when it comes to them. And I’m their PARENT. It’s not right. I need to fully lead by example or they are going to grow up and my incorrect attempt to provide them with a “healthy” environment is going to end up leading to very unhealthy issues in their lives. The old cycle I attempted to break is going to be replaced with a new cycle that, quite frankly, is no prettier.
In understanding my issues and the roots of all of them, I can now clearly see how to change this all for the better. I know my girls better than anyone else. They are really great kids, don’t get me wrong. I will be the first to totally gush about how awesome they are. But, no one is perfect and while that is okay, it’s up to me to help them be the best “me”s that they can be.
So, I have taken my new found clarity and have devised a plan. A manual even.
New House Rules New Behavioral Charts New Disciplinary Structures New Tighter Routines
We have had rules, we have had routines, we have had some sense of structure. But, no where near what it needs to have been. Now it will be clearly laid out in a way they will both understand and be a true balance of discipline and love. Okay, so the love may eek out just a bit higher than the discipline. I am who I am. 🙂
And Santa is going to back me up with gifts to help all of us stick to it. 🙂
Tonight a new Monkey Order begins. The M.O.M will prevail.
Some people may call it a lesson learned. But, this is more of a epiphany or shakabuku. Either way, what started as a slow discovery has hit hard. You know when you know something but it doesn’t quite sink in to your bones far enough for it to be a permanent part of you? Well, that moment that it gets engrained, burned into your psyche, that’s the important stuffs. Combine it with when you realize what you truly need to do with that and make the commitment to do so and you got yourself a shakabuku. (I like shakabuku because it’s so fun to say. )
Often times we accept things about ourselves and that’s that. Sometimes we really need to understand the why, the how and the impact that these things have on us and those around us or that are an important part of our lives. Take it back to the root and then keep digging. Why keep digging? You can pluck something out that you don’t like about yourself and replant something new there. But, sometimes the roots of it are really good, they actually just need to be stronger. So, ya gotta dig, ya dig?
There have been a few events lately that have built up to all of this. When I needed to, I lacked the ability to really explain myself properly. Rather than having the sense to say “I don’t know, let me figure it out please” I stumbled through what I thought it was. Describing a sort of reflex I’d somewhat gotten accustomed to as being part of me. A reflex that I now realize that wasn’t truly a bad thing, but also wasn’t a good thing either. Kind of one of those “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions” things. I don’t want that anymore. Ever.
I am the first one to freely admit I am flawed and proclaim myself forever a work in progress. There are no perfect people in this world, but I should constantly strive to be the best me that I can be. I’ve clearly been slacking on that. It was staring at the aftermath of the aforementioned events that it all hit me.
Some basic truths about me:
1. I truly love to help other people. It’s not motivated in any way by wanting people to like me or wanting anything at all in return. The reason is a two-parter. The first one being that I have been through some pretty rough situations in my life and many of them I did so on my own. While I appreciate the strength that it has given me, a part of me has wanted to do what I could to make sure others had help when faced with something, be it good or bad, that they needed help with. The second being that I really believe we are all on this crazy, wonderful ride called life together and should cut each other some slack and lend a hand when able. When people ask for help, 99% of the time, my reaction is one of those reflexes I have- I say yes and run full force into helping them out. Like an excited puppy dog.
2. I have a propensity of putting everyone else first. Being a giver is a part of me that I’ve always been proud of. When it comes to needs, wants, desires, time, what have you- I will put someone else’s before mine far too often. Again, reflex.
3. I have difficulty setting and keeping boundaries. I’ve worked on this and have gotten a lot better on it, but I still have so far to go. If someone crosses a line when it comes to someone I care about, I can fiercely defend that boundary for them. In a heartbeat. But, I fail to apply that to myself far too often. Someone will test a boundary and now there are times where I can point out the boundary and mark it out for them. “Don’t cross here please.” Then I inevitably feel bad when they are being nice and allow them to put their toe on that line again. It’s even worse when they are friends. I’ve tried to get better at that, but I still have issues completely severing unhealthy friendships.
When you combine these three together, while I’ve always believed they are good traits to have, they can lead to a lot of problems.
The problem with reflexes is this- while they can be life saving if they are healthy reflexes, they have the ability to do the opposite when they are not healthy ones. As I stare at that dreaded aftermath, it is far too obvious the damage that can truly be done.
In the past, the biggest detriment of these reflexes was I’d get completely burnt out and/or get my feelings hurt. Well, when you look at all three of them and the thought processes I had been using, it all came down to – well it was just me being affected by being burnt out or hurt so that’s not that bad. Right? Sooooo wrong. Even if it is just me, those in my life that care about me are affected no matter what. I don’t want to see someone I care about burnt out or hurt. It’s time I accept that others may not want to see me that way either.
When an excited puppy takes off running, they trip, they fall, they knock things over, they see a shiny and start running in a new direction which means accidentally forgetting the original direction and sometimes they flat-out run right into traffic. Whether they mean to or not, they can leave quite the path of destruction behind them.
It’s time for me to learn to take a deep breath, calm the fuck down and think things through THOROUGHLY. How will this affect me? How will it affect those closest to me?
It’s okay to put me first. In fact, if I want to keep the things I like about me, keep those most important to me in my life, I have to. I am no good to anyone a stressed out, burnt out ball of hurt. I may be good at hiding it, but that doesn’t last long. And I’m definitely no good to those I care about if my reflexes hurt them.
It’s okay for me to say no. I’ve been good at it when it is something that affects my core values, well my values need to start with me valuing me a lot more. It’s okay to completely end relationships, friendships, what have you when they are not healthy. It’s okay and important for me to explain myself clearly to them as to what they are doing, how they are affecting me and that if they continue to do so that I can no longer continue to have them in my life. I will never like hurting someone else’s feelings (and I do believe that has always been the big factor- not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings) but I can’t keep putting other people’s feelings before mine. My feelings should be just as important to me.
This has been a lot for me to digest and really hard for me to openly declare. Balancing my new found me-ness is going to be a bit of a learning process. I will inevitably stumble and trip and may still take off running all excited at times. While I am strengthening these roots, this flower is going to be a bit wonky. Okay, more wonky than usual. This flower will always be flawed. And that’s okay. But, in the end, it will still be even stronger and more beautiful.
When you look at it from afar- life really is a garden and in it, we are all flowers. Each one of us beautifully flawed in our own way.
“Look, in my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person is still going to think the sun shines out your ass. That’s the kind of person that’s worth sticking with.” ~ The Dad in Juno 🙂
Many people look at Thanksgiving like they do Valentine’s Day. “You should tell someone you love them/are thankful for them every day. You shouldn’t need some over-commercialized, Hallmark holiday to remind you to do it.” They are right. But, at least there is that one day. Lives get busy and hectic and we often just assume the people in our lives know how important they are to us. Rushing routines make one day blur into another and Thanksgiving thunks us on the head, pokes us in the heart and reminds us to stop and embrace that moment. It’s a day when, those that are lucky, gather around a huge meal with family, watch football, plot the assault on the upcoming holiday season. My favorite part of Thanksgiving when I was little was the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. It still is something I look forward to every year. In fact, #3 on my bucket list is a trip to New York with a sublist of things to do when I am there and one of those is watching the parade live.
My new favorite part will be the tradition the monkeys and I created this year. If you’ve been following me here, on Twitter or know me on FaceBook, you know I’m pretty nontraditional when it comes to parenting. We do a lot of goofy things. 🙂 A couple of weeks ago we were out and about and there was Christmas everywhere. The girls back me on my “no Christmas before Thanksgiving.” I’m not going to lie though, sometimes it’s kind of hard. What used to make me huff and puff and grump about being earlier and earlier every year, I now somewhat smile at. It’s not going anywhere, people aren’t going to stop putting Christmas up as early as they can. Stores aren’t going to suddenly decide to refrain. So, why expend the energy in being upset about it? This time of year is my absolute favorite and many times I end up getting caught up in all the things I “have” to get done before the big day and then it’s over and done with and I feel like I missed part of it in all that prep work. So, we came up with an idea. A compromise, if you will. A way to pay proper homage to a day that rightfully deserves it, while embracing that excitement that starts to well for the season of bright shiny lights, the spirit of giving and the anticipation of everyone’s favorite jolly ole man to come a calling. This year, we made a Thanksgiving Tree. Yes, it is our Christmas Tree, lit up with white twinkle lights. But, it is decorated with leaves, the Star Wars Scrufies Eldest got for her birthday, hand print drawn turkeys with names of people and things we are thankful for and topped with a giant turkey. And I think it’s absolutely beautiful. We had such a good time making it and we managed to take that same feeling you get when getting ready for Christmas and apply it to a very deserving holiday. We decked our halls and spent weeks being thankful. Not just one day. And it was pretty darn awesome.
This year I have so much to be thankful for. So many people in my life with whom I would not be where I am today without. There is no way I could even list them, in fear my skatty self would accidentally miss someone which would make me feel HORRIBLE. My sister, my family, my friends, everyone that even remotely believes in my dream of the UberDork Cafe, the doctors that saw me through a few very rough weeks fairly recently and most of all- my daughters. They truly make me the woman I am today. I hope that one day they will put up Thanksgiving Trees with their families.
Wherever you are, whether you celebrate this day or not, I hope you know how thankful I am that you are reading this. That you are in my life. I hope that you take a moment to even just think about the things in your life you are thankful for. If you act on those thoughts, all the better.
Now, I’m willing to bet that your first thought was “oh yeah it’s Monday” or “awww that sucks.” But, I’m not talking about one of THOSE days.
Don’t get me wrong, the calendar says it’s Monday, the monkeys managed to bust out mad karate moves on each other this morning, fight over the Wii remote (she that controls the remote rules the Netflix streaming) and we barely got eldest to school on time. Laundry mountain is close to having snow covered peaks. The thousands of emails I have in my inbox (literally and I’m so not proud of that number) that I need to get to and handle scare me, my plate is beyond full and if I pause long enough, I’m sure the feeling of overwhelmedness will start to creep in. I’ve been giving my To Do the list the stink eye for a while now as I fight to catch up on being sick for 6+ weeks and all I really want to do today is drive around and huggle people that I have not seen or talked to enough in far too long. Standard crazy, somewhat stressful morning.
You know what though? It’s a freakin awesome day. Why? Because we have a roof over our heads, food in our fridge and the monkeys and I love the mess out of each other. I’m pursuing my dream and there are people in my life that remind me how much I mean to them. Those that are on my huggle hit list know that I love them and get what I have been through and that I would be all up on them in full on huggle more often if I could. I guess simply put, I have amazing people in my life that love me despite of (and sometimes because of) my many flaws.
N O T H I N G. E L S E. M A T T E RS .
And all of this means that I’m back. I am back to 110% Natali again. Still a bit run down but OMG it feels SO FREAKIN good.
I know I’m a neurotic mom. I try to hide it well. Sometimes I’m really good at that, other times not so much. Now, I’m not saying if I ran with every neurotic thought that runs screaming into my noggin that my monkeys would end up living in plastic bubbles. Even I will admit I’m not THAT bad. Besides, I couldn’t really fit those in my highest safety rating family vehicle.
The monkeys are now 6 and almost 5 and rather bright lil girls. I know they need the room to start exhibiting some independence and I’ve been working on that. I’m all about it at home and in controlled environments and had been really proud about branching out. Over the summer I began to allow them to go into public bathrooms on their own. Meaning, I stand right outside the main bathroom door and they go in together, do what they need to do and come out. Until this past Tuesday, I thought this was a great way for them to feel like big girls and still remain safe.
I think it will be a long time before I do that again.
It started with a text from my sister shortly after 6:00pm. She’d ventured to Hobby Lobby and was texting me pictures of all the Christmas stuff they had up. When my alert went off again, expected to see a giant fur-trimmed, bright pink leopard prin stocking. Instead I received franticness. One of those brief moments that occurs that makes you question humanity. Or am I making too much out of it?
Here are the details:
She walked into the clearly labelled ladies room. Straight ahead was the open door to the handicapped stall, so she went in. Standing in the stall was a man peeing. If it were me, I’d have probably gasped and started apologizing. She just quietly backed out (thinking “oh shit I walked in the mens room!”) and went to find a male employee to tell him about the incident. Now, there are some understandable reasons this may occur. Say, if it were a bar or there was a mental/cognitive handicap of some sort. Unfortunately neither of these were true. In fact this man actually worked for Hobby Lobby in loss prevention. Not only that, it’s his moonlighting job so-to-speak. His real job? Local law enforcement.
So…
A sober, male law enforcement agent walks into a clearly labelled women’s bathroom in a very family-orientated craft store in which he actually works IN LOSS PREVENTION (read he needs to know that store inside and out) and proceeds to leave the door completely open while he whips it out to pee. My almost 5 and 6 year old know the difference between the mens and womens bathrooms. They also know to close and lock the door when they are in a stall.
His response when confronted by my sister and the male employee “I thought I heard someone walk in.” That’s it. No “omg, I’m so sorry, I have no idea how that happened.” No remorse. No apology.
There is nothing in this that tells me this was just an accident. And it beyond creeps me out. I know that if I had been there and the girls had to tinkle, I would have let them go in while I stood outside the door. They would have gone straight to that stall because they could both go in it together. And they would have seen a grown man with his penis in his hand. They would have screamed, I would have run in and that guy would have been knocked the truck out by me. Forget the junkpunch. I would have been in full on mama bear mode. It would not have been pretty.
Am I overreacting? Is the neurotic in me running amuck? Do you think this was just some accident?
Okay, so it’s not really summer and it was far from a vacation. Maybe “Fun with Numbers” would have been a better title. Don’t worry, there will NOT be a quiz at the end of this. Whatever the title, the last 6-7 weeks have been a string of unpleasant adjectives like insane, draining, depressing, scary, confusing, painful. There have also been some very awesome moments too. Moments that have kept me from completely losing it. From losing me. I’ve been in this almost animated coma, like a lil zombie Natali. And whenever I had glimpses of me snapping out of it, I would get dragged back into it. One word I don’t use too often is hate. But I HATE not feeling like myself. Now that I’ve said that, I’m going to turn around and do something NonNatali. That’s right, instead of some long babbling post that gives you a big blow by blow of the last several weeks, I’m going to boil it down to basic facts. Facts that I realized this weekend as Zombie Natali started packing her bags.
In the last (we’ll just round it to 7) seven weeks I have:
Seen 4 different specialists and 2 different general practitioners
Had 3 trips to the hospital, 2 to urgent care, 2 to regularly scheduled doctor appointments.
Been on 7 different antibiotics- one that I found out the hard way I am VERY allergic to, one that was via shot in the booty which I understand they deemed necessary, but totally hurt like Hell and I am currently still on a 2 antibiotic combo cocktail now and for the next 4 days.
Gone through an entire bottle of calamine lotion and benadryl (see aforementioned allergy comment), 2 bottles of different narcotic based syrup thingies (I know that’s super technical and they weren’t nearly as fun as they sound), 3 different pain killers (sadly one was prescribed so that I could actually swallow the antibiotic without crying because my throat scared the doctor), 2 bottles of Ibuprofen, 1 bottle of Tylenol, 1 box of Sudafed, 1 1/2 boxes of Hojicha, 1/2 a box of this really nasty “cold repair” tea, 12 quarts of Cherry Pomegranate “Immunity” Crystal Light, a vast array of ramen and soup and I’m sure a bunch of other things I’m forgetting.
Faced the “c word”, “a really wicked case of the flu you poor thing”, strep throat, “at this point I’m suspecting a combination of things including walking pneumonia” and a couple of other lovely diagnoses. By the way, the people at my lovely urgent care here do NOT think it’s funny when you say “I’m fairly certain I may have the plague.” I thought the plague went out with like scurvy, but I guess it’s still around. And it triggers words like “Department of Public Health” and “HAZMAT.”
Had needles and scalpels accost me, fluids pulled out and pumped in. I like my fluids, I think I have them for a reason. I do NOT like scalpels. They are not very friendly.
Through all of this, I was under the delusion I was holding it all together somewhat. It seemed like every time I was finally starting to feel like myself again, something else would hit me. I managed to hold off the really nasty stuff until the weekends I did not have the monkeys. Until this past Monday. It would seem that the powers that be felt I needed to be knocked on my ass once and for all. So, enter 102.9 temp (which is more like 104 for someone whose “normal” temp is 97.3 ) , a nurse with a very, very large needle, another round of antibiotics and me literally just sleeping. For like a week. I barely remember packing eldest’s lunch for her everyday before my dad came to take her to school, but I guess I did. I missed my weekly UDC meeting and The Power Geeks Podcast. I pretty much just slept curled in a ball under 2 down comforters for days. I’ve slept more in the last week than I think I’ve slept in a year. Yet, I’m still tired. Go figure 🙂
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired and I miss me. I know I say I’m just Natali, but I’m the only Natali I have. When she disappears, it kinda sucks.
But, I feel her coming back. Friday night she came by for a very nice visit.
Then Saturday she stayed and played for awhile. My sister had called and basically told me it was time I got out of the house and she felt like a mini road trip. Of course it was already almost 7:30pm but she said the magic word- sushi. You see WISN, a local station does an “A list” every year of all the “best of…” I had peeked at it not long ago and was surprised that some little hole in the wall place in Kenosha took best of sushi. Now, you have to be from around here to kind of get the perplexity that out of all the great sushi restaurants in Milwaukee, some really upscale, and a lil place in Kenowhere takes it. So, we hauled on down to Soon’s Sushi Cafe and O M Freaking G. From the outside you think “no way this place has great anything,” Okay, even when you walk in, it’s not even remotely fancy. We were the only people there as they were closing at 9:30. I still don’t understand how the place wasn’t packed. The whole experience was bliss. It started with a green tea tini (so I maybe shouldn’t have had alcohol) and a giant plate of amazing sweet potato tempura. They specially made it all sweet potato for us and didn’t charge any extra. At $4.50 it was a total steal too. We then ordered a Spider Roll (an old fave of mine I hadn’t had in ages) and a Playboy Roll. I’m telling you this right now- it’s called the Playboy Roll because it makes love to your mouth. It was seriously the best roll of any kind I’ve ever had. Our waitress was awesome and her and I babbled away about… COMICS!! And the upcoming Green Lantern and SuperMan movies and the atrocity of the new Wonder Woman outfit and storyline. Then, the owner/head chef Soon came over. I wanted to put her in my pocket and take her home with me. Not only is she a phenomenal chef, but she is so sweet. Plus, even though she is actually from Korea, I got to actually converse in Japanese with her. It felt so good. Then, Brandy (You’re a fine girl) came on the radio. It was the chosen karaoke song of my really good friend Bob. It was the 5 year anniversary of his death recently. A death I’ve never really gotten over yet. But, that’s a whole other post. It just felt good to hear it. Our waitress then told us that little Soon is actually 72!! I’m telling you, she could make a fortune off those carnies that are supposed to guess your age cuz there is no way she looks even close to that. The food was great, the people there (Soon’s husband came by and chatted with us for quite a while too) rocked. I swear I’d drive down there again in a heartbeat than go to most of the trendy places around Milwaukee for sushi again. It is very much worth the trip. When we left, Soon kept bowing and said “Arigatou! Sayonara! Oyasuminasai!” and then giggle happily when I said “Matane!” 🙂
That night did me so much good. On the way home, we stopped by the hilariously odd place I spotted on the way there. It was called “Cafe de Lube” and no, it’s not a porn shop. It’s an oil change center and “coffee cafe” all in one. Complete with a drive thru and a sign boasting a huge discount for “recycling” electronic cigarettes there. It’s several blocks down from Tacos To Go that proudly serves “Mexican Egg Rolls” and “Italian Beef Burritos.” I now love you Kenosha. You make me smile.
It feels weird to interact with people now. I’ve lost touch with so many over the last several weeks. There have been some that have stuck with me through it all, repeatedly checking in on me. My inbox scares me more than ever now. I need to go through it. So, in the off chance you’re reading this and have sent me anything, I promise I’m getting to it! 🙂
I am now hopefully way on the way to being fully mended, trying to not freak out and become crippled with overwhelmedness (I think I just made that word up) about all the things on my plate at the moment and hoping Natali sticks around for awhile. 🙂
And that, my dears, is what I did on my summer vacation. Not even a new tan to brag about. 🙂
I am sitting here at Intervention (Con not the show where someone is ending up in rehab) surrounded by some amazing talent and amazing people. Yet another congregation of people that get each other on some level even though they’ve never met. It’s so inspiring.
While I am still refraining from naming the names of the companies that decided they did not want to be “associated” with the words dork, geek or nerd, I don’t think I’m done with them yet. I still have a message to send them. Well, we have a message to send them. It’s a simple message really. In fact, we’ve been doing it all along.
We are who we are and we’re damn proud of it.
We’re not going to hide it anymore. We’re not going to try to fit into someone else’s mold or idea of who we should be.
Geek is gorgeous. Nerd is not negative. Dork is divine. Gnork is awesome cubed.
We have taken those terms that may have once been attempts at insult and we have fully embraced them and made them our own. We wear them proudly.
So how do we get the message to companies like that? How do we make our stand?
A friend’s answer to that? Oprah. That would totally work. You know who it made me think of though? E L L E N. Now, I have an immense respect for Oprah and what she’s accomplished. But I love Ellen. She is a giant ball of awesome that is definitely on my “Peeps I Want To Huggle Someday List.” I think if anyone gets embracing being quirky and different than the mainstream it’s definitely Ellen. She’s bravely looked peeps in the face and said “I am who I am” for years now.
I think Ellen would help us. Help us get UberDork Cafe and the message of gnork pride and gnork community out there for all to see. Whatdya think peeps? Do you think we can get Ellen on board? There’s only one way to find out. Let’s give it a shot.
Click here and fill out the form to tell Ellen you wanna see UberDork Cafe on the show!!
Some other great ways to help get the word out and get Ellen to notice:
Tweet “Hey @TheEllenShow! I wanna see @UberDorkGirlie & UberDork Cafe on!!”
Tweet the link out to your followers.
Share this on your Facebook page.
Tattoo it on your forehead and… wait no, that’s a bit much. 🙂
I know we can do this. I have faith in my community and faith in Ellen.
I’m not typically one that is really left at a loss for words. Yet, I’ve struggled a great deal writing this post. My life has been so centered on the UberDork Cafe (and it’s all good stuff in re: to that) that it has been far too long since I just wrote on here about life. I still am not sure what the “right” answer is in terms of use of my blog now. Me being me, it’s still a necessary outlet for me that I’ve missed and part of me feels that it shouldn’t affect the UDC as UDC is me too. We are intertwined. Many people that have supported UberDork Cafe have done so based on knowing me. Whatever the solution will eventually be, I felt I truly needed to write this post.
Where the truck have I been?
There is a long and gory answer to that, but there is definitely an overabundance of TMI in this world, so I’m going to do my best to not add to that. In short, about 2 weeks ago I started feeling ill. What started as something that seemed quite simple and no big deal really snowballed. The original treatment for the first ailment diagnosed was an antibiotic that, it turns out, I am pretty darn allergic to. In short- my hives had hives. I spent all of that weekend literally coated in Calamine lotion, doped up on Benadryl and trying my best to sleep so I wouldn’t scratch. It was BAD. There have since been follow up appointments. Then it was eldest monkey’s 6th birthday. So, still feeling so ill, I did my best to make sure her birthday (last Friday) and that whole weekend was nothing but awesome for her. Then came Monday and some exploratory work at the hospital. Exploratory work is so not fun. Then Wednesday eldest embarked on her first day of 1st grade. I had been battling with the school district to allow her to return to her school despite the insane redistricting that occurred and thankfully I won that one.
My goal over these last 2 weeks has been to try to make sure my girls don’t know I’m not well as best as possible and to be there for them. You see some of the possibilities health-wise that were mentioned were far from comforting. It really puts things in perspective. UberDork Cafe is still a HUGE priority in my life and there is news on that front as well. These last two weeks have forced me to take a step back from being as vocal and out in front about it though. Truthfully, when I think about it, part of it has to do with my survival mode as well. When things get super insane or hard, I tend to hide and deal with it. I’m so used to being the rock for many people in my life, yet not having a rock of my own that I tend to just hunker down and handle it on my own. Try to be my own rock. It takes so much for me to step up and say “I’m scared” or “I need help” or “I’m overwhelmed with life” or “I need you” and when I finally manage to do that and get kicked, the wounds and scars are pretty deep. Yup, I haz a big squishy. Especially when the bailing comes from people that tell me they love me. It’s a issue I’m trying to work through.
So, the results are in and part of the problem turns out to be some clusters of precanceous cells. I know the word “pre” is in front of that, but it’s still a pretty rough thing to hear. This weekend I will be undergoing a simple, yet painful and unpleasant, procedure that will hopefully eliminate all of them. I will then have to continue to be monitored closely to see if they are gone, if they come back, if they return with a vengeance, you name it. This weekend is gonna kind of really suck. But, I should be recovered by Monday or Tuesday and be coming back out the gate swinging!!
If I am up to it, one of my main goals is to catch up on emails and with everyone I have lost touch with and start bringing everyone up to speed on what is going on with UberDork Cafe. I should warn you though, there is a possibility that it may turn into a couple of days of me drooling on my couch in a small Vicodin coma. But, I will be thinking of you while drooling! Ok, that sounds a lil creepy.
The last two weeks have taught me so much about myself, my daughters, the people closest to me in my life and what I am capable of. In this time I had someone call me “beautifully flawed.” Some that heard that took it as insulting, I didn’t. I know the person that said it adores me and they meant well. I see it as their way of reiterating my theory of the fact that I am a continual work in progress. We all are really. If we are not striving to learn, to grow, to improve, than what is the point?
I am honestly very sorry that I’ve upped and disappeared while going through this. It wasn’t my intent more of a knee-jerk reaction. When juggling so much with so little energy, balls get dropped. And I was the clown that couldn’t juggle, so I’m at a disadvantage. I make really kick ass balloon animals though. 🙂
Bear with me for just a bit longer and I promise I will be back and annoying the mess out of you as soon as possible. Oh, and I get really spazzy on Vicodin for like 45 min and then turn into the narcoleptic chick from Deuce Bigalow so, if you see some crazy tweets/posts/etc from me- it’s the Vicodin talking!!!
*huggles*
One of the songs the “beautifully flawed” person associates with me. 🙂
For this last week and a half or so I have been pretty sick. After finally getting antibiotics for it, I ended up breaking out in hives from head to toe from them. My hives had hives. Soooo not attractive. Soooo not comfortable. I had hit the brick wall of burnt out.
Until last night.
I’m still wiped and still dealing with health issues, but it’s time to pick up the #truthbat again. This time, surprisingly, for the cafe. For everyone that believes in it.
You see, I have a weekly conference call every Tuesday night for the UberDork Cafe. I look forward to them for many reasons. What I learned last night floored me. Saddened me. When the shock of it all wore off, it downright pissed me off.
I’ve always proudly embraced the titles geek, nerd, dork. One of the many amazing lessons that I have learned on this incredible journey of UberDork Cafe is that us gnorks still tend to hide who we are. Stay in our lil corners of the online world and don’t tend to venture beyond that. Part of the whole goal of the cafe has been to give us a place to go to. To branch out from those corners. To give our future gnorks a place to go to meet others and to actually be able to comfortably be themselves in a place within the community, the real life community. To teach them and us that we don’t need to hide who we are. There is no shame in being geeks, nerds, dorks.
Last night I realized I might be wrong.
It might not be a fluke that there is nothing really like the UberDork Cafe out there. The fact that we tend to hide may not really be our fault. It seems others are more comfortable when we are contained to online. We may come out if we must, but we shall not refer to ourselves as dorks, or geeks or nerds. It makes others uncomfortable it seems.
Last night I was informed that major corporate sponsors of the first auction completely backed out. Why? Well, during initial contact the full name UberDork Cafe was used. From that point on it was shortened to UDC or “the cafe.” Then they got the press kit yesterday. These major corporations then stated that I would need to change the name of the cafe for them to follow through with sponsoring. Yup. They don’t like “dork.” And yeah, don’t try to replace it with nerd or geek either. Those simply won’t do as well. One of these major corporations makes a great deal of money off of us gnorks as well.
My response? (Ok, well the edited version, I won’t lie, there was A LOT of cussing on my behalf initially.)
Dear Giant Corporate People,
Shame on you. Shame on you for so very many reasons. For thinking you could just buy a name. For thinking you have that sort of power over people still. For thinking that us dorks, us nerds, us geeks are that weak that we would hide who we are, change who we are to suit your comfort. For being more than willing to take our money as long as we remain safely tucked away from view and deny who we are. For thinking that you somehow own us. For thinking that in this day and age discrimination is ok, as long as it has a price tag on it. For thinking that I am the type of person that is going to just roll over, change my entire character and teach my children that it is acceptable to allow a company, or even a person, to force you to change your name, your character, or who you are for them.
Allow me to enlighten you. Dork, nerd, geek… in your feeble minds may be words that show weakness or less than desirable characteristics. I hate to break this to you, but the term “corporate” invokes far worse feelings amongst a vastly wider population of people. People that span all age levels, races, income brackets, you name it. Do you know why that is? Because of things like this. Because you still live under the antiquated notion that bigger is always better. That money will buy you anything, anyone. I hate to break it to you, but it really doesn’t. In fact, it won’t even buy you one lil ole dork.
I’m not for sale. My children’s dream is not for sale. My friends, my family, the people that support this dream, that support the UberDork Cafe are not for sale.
And we certainly aren’t going anywhere. If anything, you’ve just made us a bit louder. A bit more present.
Thanks so much for reinforcing the need for the UberDork Cafe. Your shameful behavior has made my mission that much stronger.
Have a wonderful day!
Sincerely, Natali Proudly known as UberDork Girlie
