Not for me

I frequently get requests on my blog to blog about something else, besides me and my ailments. I usually decline because they are not the focus of my blog - which can be summed up as things that interest me or annoy me. (How's that for a bit of selfishness?) I have even updated my home page with a note that I will not blog about other people's  issues. No one reads that. I still get requests.

Yesterday I got a request:

"My name is Mxxxx. I am an intern with Darna & Company. We have a new product in the market called the NoMoNausea band. This band uses peppermint aroma therapy and acupressure to combat nausea and vomiting. We have joined with the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida to help patients going through treatment. For every band purchased in the month of October, a patient at the cancer center will receive one free of charge. Please visit our website, nomonausea.com, and amazon for more information. To receive $1 off use the coupon code: SAVBOOBS. We hope that this band will bring relief to the nausea and vomiting from the trauma of the chemotherapy treatment. Please share our information with others that deal with nausea and vomiting. Thank you for your time."

At first I just ignored it - because I felt it was a run on sentence/paragraph with typos which had clearly been cut and pasted from another blog. Then I decided it really ticked me off:

1. The coupon code is offensive.
2. From the coupon code and I can deduce that it is a pink project
3. Wrist bands for breast cancer patients? A lymphedema no-no.
4. Why should I care about a cancer center in Florida?

I admit that in the past I have used wrist bands and not thought much about the wrist band/lymphedema connection. Now I can no longer wear bracelets, even loose ones, because of lymphedema and arthritis/tendonitis, so why would I want a wrist band which puts pressure on my wrist? I can feel my arm swelling at the very thought.

So this clearly became a topic that annoyed me to no end. I do not recommend this product at all. They need a better marketing plan. Hey, I'm a marketing consultant, maybe they should  hire me.

Letting my insecurities rule in blogland

I started my blog and using the wonderful templates, I tried to customize it. I changed it around a few times. But now I have my own little pink, blue, and purple pages. It is not pink due to pinkificiation. It is pink because I like pink. But I digress.

Then I started looking at other people's blogs. Theirs are so much better than mine. They put in pictures. I rarely put in pictures because that means I have to remember to  upload the pictures from my camera to my computer. I just uploaded more than six months of pictures so there is hope for the coming weeks. I usually stick with comics that I like.

They get lots of comments and have hundreds of followers. I have 65 followers (and I am proud of all of them) but some people have 300-400. Why not me?

They have nicely designed blogs with images, and funky text, and all sorts of things. My blog is pretty boring in its pinkness. Would you know from looking at my blog that I work on lots of websites and people pay me to do so? Why isn't my blog prettier with more followers and more comments? I'm not good enough.

I am not providing any links to these blogs which are better than mine. They are all better than mine (except for the ones that have a single entry from four years ago that says 'I just started my new blog and I'll be sure to update it every day.') My blog is just not that great. Just like I could not write the great American Novel (and if you asked my high school English teacher, I couldn't even write a decent essay), I will never be able to write the great American Blog.

It turns out I am not just insecure about this. I have a new ailment called blog envy. Isn't that one of the deadly sins? Envy Grr. I usually do not compare myself much to others. I don't really care if my clothes are the latest style - they have to be clean and comfortable, or my hair is perfect - I do wash and brush it daily but often not much more, and my house clearly is not the cleanest - the maid has had the last decade off. I am what I am and I call it like I see it. But I do have blog envy.

You read those other perfect, fancy blogs, with lots of comments and followers. People manage huge families, large businesses, save the homeless, recycle everything, and are completely perfect. Or so they claim. Can they be?

Over at Shabby Blog, there is a post on how to blog and not have blog envy. Yes its a pretty blog and I am linking to it so you can see her followers and comments (84 and counting on this single post). Her list on blogging is:

1. Be original
2. Respect other's originality
3. Blog blindly
4. Be kind
5. Blogging isn't everything

Wait that can't be right! Blogging isn't everything? Well then maybe I'll be insecure about something else. Do these pants make me look fat?

Blog comments

I love having a blog. I am amazed people actually read it. Then even more amazing, people comment on it. This to me is astounding. When I first ventured out in to the online world, I wouldn't leave comments - I mean what if someone read what I wrote? How embarassing!

Then I started a blog. At first, it was set to comment moderation where I had to approve all comments before they are posted. I was chicken - thinking people would write MEAN things about me and my blog! No one did. Everyone was nice. So I gave up the moderating thing - fewer emails for me to deal with. But I did stick in a Capcha (that little block where you have to type in the letters to prove you are human and not a computer) to prevent some spam.

Most of the comments are from friends and other bloggers. I love reading them and commenting on comments and reading their blogs and making new virtual friends. (No these are not imaginary friends like when you were a child.) Virtual friends are the ones I have gotten to know online and follow their ups and downs but probably never get to meet them in person. But that's okay. We can be friends without meeting in person.

However, I still get some weird comments. Yesterday someone left me a comment about another comment who was basically selling their stuff and have no cure about the 'cure' they are recommending. I used to go in and delete them but now keep them for their entertainment value. The latest one I have now gotten twice is there is an iPhone app that works with GPS to tell you where the nearest mammogram center is. Hmmm.... Well, if I had an iPhone, you can be sure I would want to know where the nearest mammogram center is so in case of an emergency where I needed another mammogram, I could run in and get one. Is there such a thing as an emergency mammogram? (Honey, its 3 am but I need an emergency mammogram? Sorry to wake you up but I don't feel right driving there by myself.) I mean don't you want to get one with your regular doctor as normally scheduled? Clearly in the case of what were they thinking...

I think a while back (and clearly chemo brain is acting up) I found one comment offensive and deleted it. Basically my thoughts are that if you are selling something, don't sell it in a comment on someone else's blog, get your own damn blog. By spamming other's blogs with 'cures', you looking like a quack.

Anyway, please keep commenting. I promise to keep writing.