Remember when I almost died in a Goodwill dressing room?

Read about how I nearly died!

Remember back before I went to the blogging conference and I got stuck in a dress and I thought I was gonna die? No? Well you can read about it here at the Huffington Post's Comedy page!

The Search for Happiness

Evening Snarklings! Late blog for me, but I wanted to share! Remember the post I did on being responsible for your own happiness? Well guess what! It's up on Huffington Post! Go check it out and please feel free to leave me a comment or share the post. Thanks!!!

I'm on HuffPost!!!!!!

Happy Saturday, Snarklings! I brought back an oldie but goodie that I wrote when this little blog was back on Tumblr. Now I'm here on Blogger and I submitted this post to the Huffington Post and it's published!

So come revisit my post Long Live the Schlepprocks and leave me a comment over there. As always, thanks so much for always being such loyal and awesome readers, friends and family!!!

Small fish, big pond. So I just keep swimming....

I've got a confession to make. I never thought I'd be a blogger. Seriously, writing never even crossed my mind until I hit my mid-40's. In all honesty, I don't even consider myself a writer. I'm more of a ranter. I like to bitch about stuff, and I do so with humor. That's pretty much my niche.

I was talking to a fellow blogger the other day, one who has an agent. She told me that she's been rejected several times by real, reputable publishers. She said one of the reasons is that she didn't have a platform. In my mind, I'm thinking a platform means you have to stand up for something like one-armed pygmy Korean vegetarian children. I started to worry because I don't have anything like that. She laughed at me and said that a platform means you have a big audience. Like huge. Like 5 digits or more. Huh. That rules me out. I currently have 98 people who subscribed to receive an email anytime I post a blog. I have 145 people who follow me on Google+ (which I still haven't figured out yet) and I've got just over 2800 "Likes" on my Facebook page. Hardly a 'platform'. Barely even a step stool.

As a writer/blogger, I want people to like my stuff. I want people to read and comment on my posts. I am looking for approval and for people to like me. Would I like for MORE people to like my stuff? Hell yes. However, as I've heard time and time again, bigger isn't always better. A bigger audience means more eyes looking at you, more people to judge you, and more pressure to be ON. I've seen some of my friends who have posts picked up by bigger sites like Huffington Post, Reddit or Technorati, and some of those posts have been absolutely skewered by trolls, douchenozzles and assbags with awful comments. Do I want that kind of reaction if I was to have a post go big? No effing way! I hate criticism and rejection. It makes me feel awful, so to have something that I put my heart and soul into go big would be great, but to have it be the target of haters would be devastating.

I wouldn't mind having a bigger audience (as long as they like me). But with a bigger audience comes more pressure to entertain people. The thought of having something actually go viral excites me but it also scares the pee out of me. Seriously, if I went viral, then I'd feel pressure to be consistent with my content. I'd be afraid every time I hit the 'publish' button that my latest post won't live up to the BIG one that got me the BIG attention and the BIG numbers. Being funny, witty, or even thought-provoking isn't something that you can switch on and off. I don't wake up in the morning and say "I'm gonna be a funny bitch today." Most of the things I say that people find funny are a result of a situation I'm in or something that someone tells me about. I write off the cuff. My posts are almost all stream-of-consciousness. I don't prepare stuff ahead of time, I don't outline my material. I just sit down and write. If it's funny, great. If it's not, then no one will like it. But the bigger your audience (IN MY OPINION anyway) the more pressure you have to entertain.

I am happy that I have the audience I have, I'm happy to be a small-time blogger. I don't know if I'd like to be a big well-known author. Maybe I'd like the chance, but more likely than not, I'd succumb to the pressure to please, and I'd quit. So what if I don't have tens of thousands of followers. That's less people to throw eggs at me if they see me walking down the street and yell "Hey, Snarky, your stuff isn't as funny as it used to be." I don't need that kind of pressure. I'm happy to be a little fish in a big pond.

I just wish there was a bigger payment for being a little fish.

Are you effing kidding me??

I read a blog a few weeks ago (I apologize, I cannot remember whose blog it was) about a 16 year old girl who was sexually assaulted, then criticized for Tweeting the names of the creeps that did this to her when they were found guilty, but since they were minors, their names were not made public. I thought, you know what? Those asshats deserve to have their names made public for what they did to her. KNOWINGLY did to her. While she was passed out. Now, she's not completely innocent in the grand scheme of things. She's 17 (16 at the time of the assault) and was participating in underage drinking, but because she over-indulged and passed out, did that give ANYONE the right to sexually assault her, take pictures of her and post said pictures on the internet? I don't fucking think so. 

Now she is being held in contempt of court for Tweeting the names of her attackers. According to this article from the Huffington Post, she's being threatened with jail time for making the names of those scumnuggets public. I'm sorry but boo-fucking-hoo for them. Here's a quote from one of the attacker's lawyers:

"He's had to move," David Mejia, the attorney for one of the attackers, told The Huffington Post. "He has lost all the potential that was there. He was attending high school and was kicked out. He was on course to a scholarship to an Ivy League school to play sports and that may be jeopardized. He's in therapy. He's just overwhelmed and devastated by what started from the conduct of this young girl saying false things as she did."

Mejia filed a contempt motion against Dietrich in July. She had tweeted the names of two teenage boys who assaulted her back in August 2011. 

After naming the boys, Dietrich, then 16, tweeted, "I'm not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell."

Now keep this in mind. In June, these boys confessed to felony sexual abuse and misdemeanor voyeurism. They CONFESSED to felony sexual abuse. Whether or not it was 'legitimate' rape, penetration or not, they CONFESSED to felony sexual abuse. They CONFESSED to criminal sexual abuse or touching, according to the Huffington Post article. If criminal sexual abuse is this year's charge and they get away with it because they are minors, what's to stop them next time from following through with actual 'legitimate' rape?

Excuse me for just a moment for my forthcoming tirade.

Are you kidding me? One of the boys is trying to hold HER in contempt of court because HE touched her inappropriately while she was passed out??????? He was on course to attend an Ivy League school to play sports and that may be jeopardized??? HE'S in therapy??? SHE ruined HIS life?? Are you fucking kidding me??????? There aren't enough "are you fucking kidding me's" for me to wrap my head around this.

The boy's lawyer was hoping she would show remorse or offer an apology? What???? I'm sorry I Tweeted your name announcing to the world that you're a pervert who sexually assaulted me??? Is that a good enough apology? That boy doesn't deserve an apology, he deserves to be put in jail where he becomes the bitch of a 300 pound inmate named Tiny, and gets traded around the cell block for a pack of smokes. Daily.

I'm sorry if anyone is offended by this, but in my opinion, these boys, minors or not, KNEW what they were doing and deserve what they get. Savannah's only mistake, in my opinion, was underage drinking to the point of passing out. She deserved to get in trouble at the hands of her parents, she deserved the hangover she probably suffered, but she did absolutely NOT deserve to be sexually assaulted. NO one deserves that. Except the jackasses who did this to her. Sadly, they will not serve one minute in jail. They may have their future at an Ivy League college put in jeopardy. Isn't that a shame?