Last Friday morning I was sitting in a conference room at the Ritz Carlton in New Orleans, listening to Abigail Disney speak about her documentary films and about her belief in the importance of...
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28
Feb
Last year, I received the following Facebook message:
Catherine –
I know I probably shouldn’t say this, but I have to ask you, how did you end up a mom working from home after all the...
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10
Jan
… actually doesn’t stay in Vegas when you’re a blogger.
(I need about sixteen naps before I recover my ability to write English in complete, grammatical sentences. Until then, I have nothing to say about Las Vegas and CES but this: SHINY. VERY SHINY.) (Which, as it happens, describes Ms. Alli’s sequined beanie in the photo above. It is always good to match your headgear to your surroundings.)
*****
Catching up on my kindnesses and random generosities:
14
Dec
I don't think I've ever had the stomach flu, like, ever. Maybe I had it once or twice as a kid - I have vague memories of sipping ginger ale and nibbling saltines while...
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13
Dec
I’m not a professional photographer. Nor am I professional filmmaker or documentarian. But I do tell stories, and a lot of those stories are about my kids, and telling stories about my kids involves using photographs and video. So I am, if you will, a Semi-Amateur Multimedia Documentary Artist and Chronicler Of Family Narratives, and I do an acceptably decent job of it, if I do say so myself.
But it’s a job that has had a somewhat steep learning curve. Capturing the most narratively interesting moments of family life is only slightly less complicated than filming meerkats, not least because small children are less predictable than meerkats. Capturing the movements of children on film during the holidays is considerably more complicated than filming meerkats, because during the holidays children tend to be jacked up on candy canes and Santa, and meerkats, to the best of my knowledge, don’t get all that excited about either of those things. But it’s not impossible, and well worth the effort, because although meerkats are awesome, they are not nearly as funny and adorable and documentary-worthy as your own children. You can make an awesome photo collage or montage or video that captures the awesomeness of your family during the holidays, and you should.
So, herewith, and humbly, some tips from me on how get adequately amazing footage of your family, whether on digital film or video or sketchpad, and use it to craft some remarkable holiday memories. (Or, Tips For Being An Awesome Documentary Filmmaker/Photographer/Auteur And Creating The Best Family Holiday Video/Photo Album/Virtual –Slideshow-For-Your-Mom-Blog EVER, Even If You Have No Idea What You’re Doing At All, Really. Or, Failing That, How To Get Just Enough On Film So That You Don’t Forget What Your Kids Look Like.) (Read all the way to the bottom! There is music! And PRIZES! And other feel-good things!)
This week, I'm in Washington DC to attend the TEDWomen conference. Some of the other women attending include Arianna Huffington and Nancy Pelosi and Naomi Klein. The only thing that could make the whole...
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22
Nov
So I’m trying to renovate this old blog, but it turns out that knocking down walls and building extensions onto virtual spaces isn’t all that much easier than doing so in brick–and-mortar spaces, so there you go. If I could, I’d just set up a few extra chairs and throw a sheet over them and say hey guys! I made my fort bigger! but it seems that there’s no HTML code for ‘sheets’ and ‘chairs’ and that a virtual blanket fort isn’t really a thing, so I kinda have to go with the whole complicated hire-a-professional enterprise and hope for the best. I should probably figure out how to do this stuff myself, shouldn’t I? I don’t even know that I could if I wanted to. I’m about as technically skilled as a drunk Luddite. So.
Oh, hi! Can I tell you something about myself? I am not a mommy blogger.
Yeah, I know. There’s a baby in my header. There are lots of pictures of my children here, including that one, right there, on the left. (Aren’t they cute? I let them call me Mommy.) But still. I am not a mommy blogger.
I am mother, yes. I blog about my children, sometimes, and about motherhood, frequently, and about other things here and there (including but not limited to: religion and spirituality, grief, social causes, my nephew, cupcakes, social media, feminism, and zombies), and I do have the word ‘mother’ in the title of my blog. But I am not a mommy blogger. You can call me one, if you want, and I won’t, like, have to restrain myself from punching you. But I’d prefer that you didn’t.
My One Word, wordled. Or rather, my 49 One Words, as decided by you (duplicates were eliminated) and then transcribed into Wordle for the purposes of making a word cloud, which is so last-month-media, but still. Note that I opted to include the word ‘moist,’ despite my deep aversion to it, for the simple reason that a) it was suggested, and b) human beings are 98% water, so it’s probably accurate.
There were some words that were suggested a few times over – open, honest, impassioned/passionate, smart, strong – and I love those words. I also love Catherine J‘s suggestion of ‘Catherine Wheel‘ – which strictly speaking isn’t one word, but two, unless you hyphenate it, which I think that you can do with any words, really – and Annie‘s coinage of ‘philoso-activista,’ which I – being a transliteration-of-ancient-Greek geek, tweaked as ‘philosopho-activista’ – and Alli‘s sensible insistence upon ‘complex’… I love all of these words, really, with the obvious exception of the word ‘moist,’ and can see using all of them. But after reflecting upon all these words, and the ones that I had jotted down, secretly, in my Little Black Notebook Of Words That Don’t Go On The Internet, I settled upon this: