Online Terrors

Today my husband and oldest child made tacos for dinner. All because the other night I fell asleep for 5 minutes and had a dream that I ate a taco. With lots of cilantro. So on Wednesday I went to the Farmer’s Market and bought a bunch of cilantro, which was listed as PARSLEY (but I smelled it: cilantro) for $2, I defrosted some ground turkey, bought taco stuff, and finally, finally, tonight we feasted.

Now he’s making chocolate chip cookies. What did I do to deserve such stellar treatment, besides, you know, being my usual cheerful premenstrual self?

The answer: nothing. Cadillac is just a Really Nice Guy. You know how there’s a Porn for Women calendar that features men doing housework and folding laundry? He’s always done that. No big deal. Sometimes because he doesn’t like how I do it. Mostly because he feels that, well, I DO work from home and he DID help create 3 little urchins, so what else is there to do? And also, did I mention I would keel over dead, stone-cold, that is, if I had to do absolutely everything? I would. And can I also say that every time people talk about men roles and how men act vs. how women act regarding housework and being sick, that our roles are completely reversed? I am a baby when I’m sick and I hate housework and complain about it obnoxiously at every opportunity. He got hit by a CAR and went to work the next day. He flew OVER the car! The man is like a robot.

Anyway, I am upstairs “working.” What I’m supposed to be doing, and why I get chocolate chip cookies, is my Online Marketing Questionnaire for Authors. In it, the marketing department asks questions such as:

1. How many Facebook friends do I have?
2. How many LinkedIn connections do I have?
3. How many people follow my blog?
4. What blogs do I enjoy?

Are we not getting kind of personal here?

I know how many people follow my blog and the number does not require two hands to count it. I don’t even know how many people really read my blog; most people don’t comment. I suspect most readers are spammers who get paid five cents per entry to go to random blogs and leave posts like, “You are the best, Margaret Dilloway! I found my match on HotRichPeopleWithLowStandards. You can, too.”

I’m worried. Are the marketing people going to crumple my survey into a ball and throw it away? Will someone come after me and tell me I was supposed to have 5000 FB friends by now? What will happen?

I don’t even read that many blogs. I know. It’s me not doing what I’m supposed to be doing as a modern author. But I have a good reason. It’s because I work from home, freelancing, and I’m very disciplined. I work in the morning, I work non-stop, and by the afternoon the computer screen literally makes me motion sick. Oh yeah, that computer scrolling gets to my inner ear or something. And then sometimes there are doctor’s appointments, dentists, errands, and even the gym sprinkled in.

So the blog-reading for pleasure goes to the wayside.

Unless you count TMZ and Perez Hilton, blogs I read only for their news content and so I can answer important Jeopardy! questions in the future when I’m on Celebrity Jeopardy, which, let’s face it, is the only one I have any hopes of qualifying for anymore. I could beat Wolf Blitzer with the buzzer in my teeth. Did you see him? That guy is a terrible player.

And of course, I have to tend my Farmville farm. Hey, I make plenty of friends on there when I fertilize their crops or feed their chickens.

Or instead, I watch reruns of Hawaii Five-O (no way the remake’s going to be good), or any of the 15 religious shows they have on which actually appear to be reruns from the early 80s (leaving me to wonder if I’m supposed to send money and to where, if so).

I hope marketing’s not mad at me.

I have to go eat some cookies.