Issue 11

Welcome to another great issue of TopBlogMag!

This weeks theme for our writers was 'I still dream about...', and just look at the fantastic posts it inspired.

Surviving Motherhood (that's me that is, yey me!) tells us about her life long dream to hang with the cool kids.
Phara from Your Mirror or Mine finally gets to live her dream.
Meg from Simply Nutmeg gets all cosy with Oprah...

...and writer of our featured piece and winner of the Blog of the Week Award, Jennifer from Get in the Car, is still dreaming of high school.

Our weekly music column, Voices to Hear, written by John from Altjiranga Mitjina is focusing it's light on the amazing Susan Cowsill this week, a member of the family that were the inspiration behind the TV show, The Partridge family!

Next weeks theme is 'can't get you out of my head' and, although I will be contacting the four writers to be published here next week by email, if you want to play along as well you can. Just write a post on the theme (including a link to topblogmag), post it up on your blog on Sunday and send the url of your post to topblogmag@gmail.com

I will put a linky list of all your posts in next weeks issue, you can thank the lovely and very talented lady behind Velveteen Mind for this idea.

Go get yourself a cup of tea (or coffee...or something stronger if it's been one of those days already), shut the door so you can't hear the kids yelling, put up your feet and take a gander through this weeks posts. Remember, everything you can see here on this page is part of this weeks issue, scroll right down to the bottom, leave the writers some comments and click on over to the blogs of the writers you enjoy.

See you next week,

Heather.

Some Things Never Leave You, Even if Only in Your Dreams

Written by Jennifer from Get in the Car!

It’s been eighteen years since I’ve graduated from high school. In that time span, I’ve earned a college degree, held some pretty challenging jobs, and lived in four different states. I’ve married, had four children, volunteered for countless non-profits, and seen my family grow in ways I never imagined. I’ve traveled all over, including other countries, taking my small children with me, even in crammed subway cars in major cities, a map in one hand, and a sippy cup in another.

I feel successful.

So why do I still dream about high school?

I mean, it’s a pretty regular recurring dream. And it’s always a variation on the same theme.

I’m walking in my high school hallway, it’s between classes. I am at my locker. Sometimes I remember the combination, sometimes I don’t. When I do, it’s the actual combination I had in 1989. When I don’t, I feel a sense of panic come over me. I either manage to get it open and keep it wedged that way for future use, or I spend the rest of my dream trying to figure out the correct number sequence. When that is the case, I wake feeling frustrated and edgy.

Sometimes my locker is in order, my blue trapper keeper just the way I want it, with my Mead lined paper neatly in its three-hole punched place. My homework is done and ready to be turned in, and I make my way to class. Other times, my locker is so messy I can barely make out the contents. And when I do, it’s often something unnecessary for school: a pair of jeans, a stuffed animal, some perfume.

It’s the same for my classes. Sometimes I find them and take my seat, other times I wander around in confusion, racking my brain for what my fifth period class was so many years ago.

I also dream about an ex-boyfriend that I unceremoniously dumped right after graduation. We dated casually during our senior year, and then just when things were on the precipice of becoming serious, I met the man I would marry. I never looked back. I never called him, never closed that chapter, just moved on to college with stars in my eyes over the love of my life.

Then, the other night, I had the high school dream. Only this time, I knew the combination. I also had a key as back-up. I found my ex, and instead of him rebuffing me in anger as he has in every other dream, he hugged me in friendship. My math teacher appeared over my shoulder as I was opening my locker, and she whispered in my ear, “What have you learned?”

I told her that I finally figured out that sometimes it’s luck, guessing the numbers to the combination until you get things right, and sometimes you just need to be prepared and have the key.

It’s taken me eighteen years, but I finally woke from that dream feeling at peace.

Jennifer Magnuson is a mother of four, a volunteer, and a writer. She has been freelancing for online and print publications for the past two years, and before that she was a social worker advocating for victims of felony crimes. These days, you can find her at her blog, Get In The Car! And starting this summer, you will also find her at the Viacom/Nickelodeon website, Parents Connect.

Maybe When She Retires I'll Take Over the Show

Written by Meg from Simply Nutmeg

I think the whole world goes to sleep at night dreaming of being interviewed by Oprah. Actually, I've had both the dream and the nightmare. In the dream I'm being interviewed about my smash-hit memoir that is actually true. In the nightmare I'm on the show about the mothers who have lost everything because of their methadone addiction. Here are a few more shows I don't want to be on:

• Mothers who lose their children at carnivals and never find them again
• The very bad hair make-over show
• Women who find out after ten blissful years of marriage that their husband is really a woman
• The interview from prison show

I wouldn't mind if my fifteen minutes of fame came from being on one of these episodes:

• Moms who win the lottery even though they don't play
• Women over 40 who look 25
• Millionaire mom who saves the world with her blog
• Women who find babies in baskets on their front porches
• The 'how we got him impeached' show

I'm not in it for just the fame. I want Andre to do my hair too. I also want to be seen by all my old boyfriends who will obviously smack the sides of their heads and say, "Why did I ever let that one go?" (Too late, Dude!)

I'm sure if I made it on the show for whatever the reason, Oprah would think I was just the best, and that would be the end of Gail. We'd talk every night on the phone and I'd tell her what I thought of the day's episode. I'd tell her not to wear those clingy tan pants anymore and she would thank me for the advice. And listen. I'd most likely have to take over editing the magazine. She'd start leaving witty comments on my blog and I would subsequently beat Dooce in the Bloggers Choice Awards. Hell, I'd even beat Rosie.

In the mean time, my book would sell two billion copies and I would be invited on a world book-signing tour. I'd bring along the whole family, but I'd need to hire a couple of British nannies (ugly ones because I'm not ending up on the show about women who lose their men to the nanny.) I'd get to sleep in every day. Life would be sweet.

Maybe she'll interview me because I wrote a funny little blog post for TOPBLOGMAG. One can dream, right?

A writer, editor, teacher, and mom to four little menches, Meg dreams big every day at www.simplynutmeg.com.

My Road Finally Traveled

Written by Phara from Your Mirror or Mine

When I was 17 and graduating from high school, my aspiration was to become a designer. I wanted to live in New York City, have long flowing hair, wear too big for my face sunglasses like Jackie O, and attend Parsons School of Design. Here’s how the conversation went with my father.

“Dad, I really want to go to school in New York City and be a designer”, I said.

“New York City”, replied my father. (I think they used him as their voice model for the Pace Picante sauce T.V. ads). “Design isn’t a real major…I’m not paying for that”.

And just like that, I wasn’t going to New York City. Instead I settled on a fine arts university and got a degree in elementary education. Here’s how that conversation transpired.

“This school is expensive. You’re going to graduate in four years, right?”

“Yes dad, four years.”

I kept my promise, got a job as a second grade teacher, and taught for one year. Now teaching is a noble profession, it just wasn’t for me. Next……

I don’t know how I happened upon my next career, but here’s conversation number three.

“Dad, I’m a urology nurse now. I love it and am really good at it.”

“Are you doing what I think you’re doing in that profession?” my dad asked.

“Yeah, probably. Try not to think about it”, I said.

Fast forward twenty years. I am now in my forties. I have two teenage kids, one about to leave for college, and I’m still dreaming about design. I don’t have the long flowing hair, I look like a fly when I wear Jackie O sunglasses, and the occasional excursion from Oklahoma to New York City is enough for this girl. So, what was the next logical step? Here’s the last conversation about my profession with my father.

“Dad, I’ve quit nursing and gotten my certificate in design”.

“You’re really good at decorating, huh?”

“Yeah, dad, I am”.

“Guess you should have gone to school and done that in the first place”.

Sigh……

Hangin' With the Cool Kids

At primary school I was always the girl stood at the edge of the playground looking on longingly as the other girls played tag, too afraid of rejection and ridicule to ask if I could play and far to bashful to just run and join in. Whenever a new girl would come to the school I would be green with envy watching her easily making a place for herself in the group, fitting in with people she had known 2 hours more easily than I ever could with people I had known 2 years, secretly hoping that she would be rejected and then maybe we could be friends and stand at the sidelines together.

At high school it got even worse. Now used to not being amongst the popular kids I developed a sort of pretense I didn't care, that, looking back now, undoubtedly came across as arrogance and made me liked even less my those cool kids. Although unlike in primary school where you are just left alone, in high school they would come looking for you to torment and bully, to call names and push you around, throwing punches and scaring off those people that had befriended you.

They were not nice times, but I have grown and forgiven and I am sure that if I met any of them in the street today I could be polite, nice even, towards them as I realise that many of those girls were just doing what they had to to survive, what they had to do to make sure that they could hang with the cool kids and not be bullied by them and I'm sure, given half the chance at that age, I would have joined them picking on some other kid if it meant that I was accepted and no longer a target.

Even to this day, after all the adventures and travels I have taken in life, I am much more of a watcher than a joiner, prefering the safety and comfort of the sidelines than the possible rejection that 'joining in' could bring. It takes me a long time to get to know people and trust them well enough to call them friends and quite often it seems, just when I start to feel comfortable around someone and decide to open the door to them a little wider, I find that they are no longer stood on the other side of door, that they took my holding them at arms length as a sign of rejection and I am left feeling rather alone, disappointed and less willing to embrace the next person that comes into my life.

When I started blogging I thought I could shake off those issues, portray a more confident, well held together persona and maybe I would be able to bluff my way into hanging with the cool kids, trick them in to thinking I was one of them.

Only it actually seems harder to be that person on here that it does to pretend in real life. Somehow, this me that you see cataloged between these electronic pages is more real than the me you would encounter anywhere else. The true me, bad and good, the stuff I hide from real life acquaintances so that I don't offend, upset, scare away, is the stuff I feed into this virtual world of friendship.

It is the stuff I read about in others, people that perhaps, if I met in real life, I would be intimidated by and think too cool to hang with me. It is these things that make you realise that we are all the same really, beneath the shiny veneer and packaging, beneath the layers of self protection and falsified confidence, we all have those things we hide from the real world, things we are too afraid to let our real life friends know about for fear of rejection or ridicule. We are all afraid of not fitting in with the cool kids in some way or another.

It is a wonderful feeling of relief to start reading someones blog, and realise from one post about how they set the kitchen on fire, or feel guilty about dropping their baby/kicking their puppy/not cleaning the house for a week and know that they, like you, are not perfect and they are no more intimidating than that cute little puppy that hasn't stopped limping since they accidentally trapped it's leg in the door and blamed it on the kids 3 days ago.

That my dear friends, and I think we have earned the right to call each other friends by now (especially since you now know my secret about being to blame for the puppy's limp which I hadn't told another living soul before now), is why I no longer dream about hangin' with the cool kids, who wants that kind of pressure anyway? I'd much rather sit with you kitchen burning, cat running over, not always coping, funny, talented, wonderful people any day and laugh, rant and cry over life in all it's technicolour glory.

Well that and, thanks to the amazing power of spell check (even if it does try to change all my English spelling into American),the fact that you are all deluded into thinking I am a smart, intelligent woman who can spell.

Damn it! Another secret out!

I am really a woman though.

Honest.

When not chasing reindeer out of her garden, cows around the field or her baby through the house, Heather can be found over at her blog Surviving Motherhood, where some days the only way to survive is by cracking open the wine. Who says white wine and cornflakes don't go together?

Voices to Hear

Written by John from Altjiranga Mitjina.

This week’s voice to hear has been singing for over thirty years, but only recently released a solo album. Susan Cowsill has been singing and playing guitar since she was in kindergarten. Her family The Cowsills were the real life inspiration behind the television show The Partridge Family. In the sixties they had hits with the songs "Hair," "The Rain, the Park and Other Things (Flower Girl)," and "We Can Fly." At the tender age of twelve Susan decided to retire from the music business.

Her retirement didn’t last long. Before almost any time she was back performing with acts such as Dwight Twilley, Hootie and the Blowfish and other musicians. She still was singing in the background, not taking the forefront yet. In the 90’s her musical family reunited for a new album and tour.

Living in L.A. she met Vicki Peterson, formerly of the Bangles and the two formed a power pop duo called the Psycho Sisters. The basis of this musical act became a life long friendship and years later they became sister-in-laws when Vicki married one of Susan’s brothers.

While performing in L.A. the two met some other musicians that were forming a new group called the Continental Drifters. One of the members of this group was Peter Holsapple, formerly from the critical acclaimed group the dBs. Peter and Susan ended up marrying and having a child together. The group slowly found its way to New Orleans until all the members were living in the Big Easy.

For ten years the Continental Drifters put out five albums of quite simply wonderful glorious music. The group has multiple singer/songwriters so every album is a mixture of songs from the different members. Unfortunately great music doesn’t always equal great sales and finally after a decade the group and marriage of Susan and Peter go their separate ways.

Finally Susan is ready to release a solo album. Just Believe It comes out and is proof that Susan is just a talented lead as she is part of a band. Susan’s songs are Pop music mixed with some of the Louisiana flavor and a sprinkle of country and rock. “I Know You Know” is one of those songs that just makes you want to sing along. Instead of the…I’ll be nice and not say what I think of a lot of the current “musical hits,” this song should have been a hit.

After Katrina every other artist from New Orleans had a “Katrina song.” Susan was no exception except I think she had one of the best, if not the best of the bunch. Her song was called “Crescent City Snow” and it incorporated so many elements from New Orleans in it.

I’ve seen Susan live multiple times. She always puts on a fun show. She loves to talk to the audience and have fun with them. I’ve seen her open for the Bangles, play Jazz Fest, open for Better Than Ezra, headline her own show. Every month at Carrolton Station in downtown New Orleans she does a Covered in Vinyl show, where she recreates a classic album in its entirety. She’s done songs from Fleetwood Mac, U2, Led Zepplin, Joni Mitchell, Mamas and Papas, Jimi Hendrix, Beatles and many others.

In addition to her solo album she has released an album of live outtakes from different Covered In Vinyl shows and has two live albums from her appearance at Jazz Fest available. Also check out her albums with the Continental Drifters and her family The Cowsills. For someone with just one album out officially she has a lot of music out there to sample.