Sharp Corners

I spent a couple of days in Tampa with my kids recently and gave my poor Twitter followers a play-by-play of the whole thing. I made an offhand comment after the first day that I would share some of the videos highlighting my extreme dorkishness if anyone wanted to see them and, for reasons I can’t really fathom, lots of people asked me to post them.

Upon further reflection, it occurs to me that y’all probably just want an opportunity to mock me. Who am I to take that away from you, so here you go: further proof I am The High Preistess of Dorkdom. Enjoy your visit to my world.
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I spend all my time writing about technology and other nerdy stuff so this is a total departure from my norm. I’m about to go all girly on you so feel free to laugh and point, I won’t mind.

First, the back story: I’m a total tomboy and would happy to sack a quarterback by facemasking the crap out of him and taking the personal foul while laughing all the way to the sidelines. On the other hand, I own about 40 pair of shoes, 50 purses, and am typing this with the tips of my fuchsia-painted fingernails. I’m a bit of an oxymoron, but I’m fine with that. The fact that I’m about to write about making up is kind of making me want to slap myself in embarrassment, but I want to share something.

About two months ago, a company named Cilea Lash started following me on Twitter and we started chatting. I remember it because I mentioned I was nervous about an upcoming date and someone from the account wished me luck. I didn’t even know what the product was, but I immediately liked their social interaction — no selling, just conversation. I checked out what they had to offer and was intrigued — an all-natural lash growth product that’s a lot like the stuff Brook Shields promotes on TV. I added Cilea Lash to my wish list and kind of forgot about it.

Around a month ago, the company offered me a free tube of Cilea Lash and I accepted. No strings attached, no promises to write about their product, no nothing. Just a straight up offer to try it out for a while. Two things occurred to me when they extended the offer: First, this stuff is never going to work. Second, I spend six days a week writing my guts out for pay, I’ll never find the time to give them free advertising. But, hey, I thought, if they want to send me this stuff anyway, fine by me.

I was wrong on both counts.

I’m finding the time to write about Cilea Lash because, holy crap, this stuff works. My lashes have always been long, but they’re not particularly thick. After a month of use, I see lashes growing in and filling the empty spaces between my existing lashes — but that’s not the coolest part. Check it: My eyelashes are now so long they actually catch in my eyebrows. How awesome is that?

Aside from using Cilea Lash, I haven’t changed another thing in my makeup routine. I still use the same mascara (Great Lash!), haven’t changed eye cream, or otherwise altered anything I use on or around my eyes for months. My elongated lashes have to be the result of Cilea Lash. It’s certainly not from wishful thinking — if I had that kind of power, I’d have lost my thigh-jiggle.

Cilea Lash is dead simple to use: just apply a layer at the lashline on clean skin once a day. Though it’s meant for upper lashes, I’ve also been putting on my lower lashline and I now I can’t apply mascara all the way to their tips because I end up with little mascara dots under both of my eyes. It looks a little like Morse code, and it is not at all sexy.

About the only thing I’d change about Cilea Lash is that it would dry more quickly. I tend to sleep with my makeup on quite often (I know, I know), so I usually apply the product in the morning. It takes a while to absorb so I sometimes can’t do my eye makeup right away. On the other hand, I suspect it would need some alcohol help dry more quickly and I’d rather have my booze in a martini than millimeters from my cornea, so the drying time is a small price to pay for, y’know, vision.

If you know me at all, you know my ethics won’t allow me to take so much as a pencil in exchange for writing good things about a product. Yes, Cilea Lash gave me a free tube to try, but they did so knowing that if I thought it sucked monkey fur, I was going to say so. Happily, that’s not the case, though. I love this stuff and I’m saying so in the same vein I tweet about the other things I have strong opinions on (everything!).

So, now you know. If you’ve ever thought about trying a lash-lengthening product but worried the hype was just a bunch of sales talk — you might be right. I have no idea about other similar products but I can tell you Cilea Lash worked for me. I’m going to keep applying it until my lashes get long enough to trip the wide receiver the next time I play tackle football.

I was talking to someone today who asked for the link to my personal blog. Now, as a freelance writer and professional blogger, you’d think maintaining a personal blog would be a no-brainer. After all, words come easy, minimal editing required, and I can pick whatever topic I want. The reality is, my personal blog is the very last thing to get my attention. I ignore it like a bad pick-up line.

I’d love to give lots of exciting reasons for why I seldom update this thing. I’m busy! (True.) You already know everything I think on Twitter. (Also true.) It’s hard to fit it in while I’m training for that upcoming triathlon. (I’m sorry, have we met?)

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I don’t post here very much, and why I want to do so more often. Yes, it’s true, I’m really, really busy. However, I still find time to watch Glee (for the music) and Burn Notice (for the, um, plot lines…), so I can’t be that busy. I’m gonna blame some of why I don’t post much on the force that is Twitter.

Bloggers love feedback on what they write but commenting on blogs has fallen out of favor mainly, I think, because everyone’s pressed for time these days. Fair enough, I’m guilty of not leaving comments on many of the awesome blogs I read. When I post something on Twitter, I get instant feedback (or, deafening silence, which speaks volumes, too.) I’m able to get a dialogue going and, let’s face it, I love to hear myself talk. Deal with it. It’s fun to talk to people about what I think on Twitter, rather than blog about it into the vast echo chamber.

It’s also tough for me to write personal blog posts because, typically, I get far more, well, personal. True, I let a lot hang out on Twitter and, if you care to read between the lines, you can learn a lot more about me than you think. But, over the years, personal blogging has been a sort of catharsis for me. Now that my children are older and read my stuff, coupled with the professional online presence I have, it’s harder to get overly personal about my life.

Sidebar before we move on: This post has enough parenthetical comments to make an English teacher stab me with a quill. Tough crap.

So, why do I want to post more here? It’s not because the Internet needs more of my content, that’s for sure. It’s also not because I think anyone would hang on every word I write, or pine longingly for my next post. No, I want to write here more because writing is what keeps me sane.
Blogging has helped me immeasurably over the years keep my perspective, and sometimes my sanity. (Okay, yeah, the sane train left the station years ago. Humor me.) It’s also the only place I can let my guard down when I write. I don’t have to worry about SEO, phrasing, editors, typos, congruency of ideas, fact-checking, mis-quoting, objectivity, or any of the other 10,000 things a professional writer needs to be concerned with. See? I can even end my sentences with a dangling participle. (Yeah, that might not technically be a dangling participle, but you get the idea, so shaddup). Personal blogging means I can be myself, I can choose my words less carefully, and just be myself. That’s fun.

As many of my writer friends say about their personal blogs, it’s the cobbler’s children who often go shoeless. When you’re immersed in writing for a living, it’s hard to take the time to do it for yourself. When you spend your days relaying other people’s information to readers, you lose sight of the ability to relay your own information to others. When you’re staring down the barrel of seven deadlines, it’s hard to justify writing something that isn’t going to pay the bills. When blogging is a job, it’s difficult to also have it as a hobby.

That said, I’ve found myself missing my poor, neglected blog. So, here I am. I’m not sure how often I’ll post, or what kind of content I’ll bring, but I’ll stop ignoring it quite so much. I know, I know… you’re just giddy in anticipation. Cut the crap, I know most of you and I’m sure you’ve checked Twitter four times since you started reading this. I’ll still be there,  giving you crap and goofing off when I should be working.

But I’ll write here, too. Sometimes, what I have to say is  just too much for 140.