Issue 29: Opportunity is a Bird That Never Perches

Note from the Editor:

***TopBlogMag is under major renovation/ demolition/reconstruction. Bear with us.***

How often are we presented with an opportunity and we hesitate a moment too long? Poof. It vanishes before our eyes. It slips through our fingers.

Or we never even recognized it in the first place.

Are your eyes open to the opportunities around you? Are you waiting for them to fall into your lap or are you poised to pounce at the first, well, opportunity?

Here we are, two issues in from the point that I pounced on the opportunity to take over TopBlogMag and I am still scrambling to pull it together. So many ideas being fleshed out, so many designs being prepared to implement. I could have used two or three months between the moment I accepted the position and the moment in which I actually took over.

But that wasn't the choice I was given.
So here we are.

And I love it.
I am accepting the changes and embracing the opportunity. So are our writers.

Debbie from Missives from Suburbia offers a glimpse into the reality that is online dating and how being open to opportunities, no matter how unlikely they may first appear, can be the gateway to unexpected blessings.

John from altjiranga mitjina writes about an opportunity that he did embrace but that managed to slip away anyway.

Karen Rayne from Adolescent Sexuality finds herself given an opportunity that she didn't even realize she was looking for, but a valuable one worth exploring, nonetheless.

As our Featured Post and Blog of the Week, Amie from MammaLoves... sums up my feelings about opportunity precisely, with a bit of speculation about the paths opportunity leads us down... as well as those paths not taken.

Finally, I am seizing the opportunity myself to share with you a guest post I originally published as a spur-of-the-moment guest blogger on Queen of Spain. The Queen of Spain is a rock-solid blogger in Southern California... yeah, that Southern California. The one in the news all the time right now. The one on fire.

Along with hundreds of other families, the Queen of Spain recently had to evacuate her home. As I write this, her home has remained mostly unscathed, however hundreds of other families have not been so lucky.

This is our opportunity. It is our chance to lend a hand to those in need.

Below are a handful of links to relief agencies benefiting families that are suffering due to the fires in Southern California, courtesy of the Queen of Spain.

Additionally, I am linking to the American Red Cross, an organization my family accepted help from after Hurricane Katrina and to whom I will be eternally grateful. I saw firsthand how they use their funds. It was astonishingly comforting and effective.

Visit the links. See if there is anything you can do. You would be amazed at how far just a little help can go to comfort families who have lost everything. It is a wonderful opportunity to step up.

In the meantime, join in the conversation. Read this week's submissions, visit the author's blogs, then join in the discussion. Post on your own blog about this week's theme, send me the link, and we will feature it in the "Joining In..." feature at the bottom of the page. Be sure to check back often to see who has joined in. Opportunities abound this week, however...

Opportunity is a bird that never perches. ~Claude McDonald
************


Santa Clarita Valley Disaster Coalition

Southern California Wildfire Resource Page
(a comprehensive list of relief organizations in
the devastated Southern California area)

You Are Here

Feature Post and Blog of the Week
by Amie from MammaLoves...

You did well in school to get into college. You tried to get
by well enough in college to be attractive to an employer or graduate program, and along the way you may have opened your heart a time or two. Maybe you even found true love.

With a foot in the door, the first years of work were the time to
prove your mettle once again. Promotions, raises all with the goal to
secure your future will allow you to settle down, buy a house, travel,
commit to a relationship, have kids or not. In what feels like a blink
of an eye, your future is here.

And now what?

All the decisions made to get to this point, all the paths considered
and discarded for what felt right--for what seemed the smartest move
at the time—they all brought you here. Or maybe, some decisions were made for you. A rejection
letter, a broken heart, an unintended pregnancy,
they were decisions taken from your hands but events that moved your life along
just the same.

Here you are.

Did the path you chose lead you to the destination you expected? Are
you looking back wondering what if? Is this life you have what you thought it
would be? Do you ever think you might have made different choices? Would you
have taken advantage of other opportunities? Created more?

Maybe some days it all seems exactly how it’s supposed to be, but then for no reason driving down the highway you catch a glimpse of how different it could have all been.

And you wonder.

This post submitted by Amie, a 37 year old woman who has reached one
peak and is looking ahead trying to envision the next. She blogs regularly at MammaLoves... and DC Metro Moms

Chance Favors Only Those Who Court Her

by Debbie from Missives from Suburbia

After a less-than-friendly divorce, I was on the market again. Seizing the opportunity, my friends scoured their address books and Palm Pilots for single men and set me up on blind date after blind date. My reaction to most of those dates was, "I call these people my FRIENDS?" One of my real friends suggested Match.com, and given how much I love the Internet, I gave it a go.

A couple months of e-dating passed by in a blink. It was fun, but so far nothing meaningful had hit my radar, and my match inventory was starting to run low. You see, Match.com "matches" you to people based on a list of your requirements, and I'd pretty much run through all my existing matches who didn't seem psycho or stoned, based on their profiles.

Then, one day, I got an email from a guy who was not a match by my standards. He asked me out. I declined, although I tried to be funny about it. He asked again, because he found me amusing. He was funny, too, but once again I declined. He just wasn't my type. He pressed, listing attributes like a fervent love of movies and adoration of museums as reasons to go out with him. I replied that I hate the movies, and I never go to museums. But his persistence and wit convinced me to talk to him on the phone.

We talked for two hours that first time. I liked his voice, and he was just as funny and interesting over the phone, but he still wasn't my type.

I agreed to meet him for dinner. He had a nice smile, and he dressed well. He also had great taste in restaurants, and I am a foodie. Nonetheless, he was not my type.

Six weeks later, our friendship continued to deepen, and we agreed that since we both needed a vacation, we would go together. A platonic vacation. No, really. Platonic, because he still wasn't my type.

We returned from vacation, and we were still "just friends". Because – yes, you guessed it – he just wasn't my type.

A month after our vacation, I began dating this man who was not my type. Less than two years later, we were married. Two years after that, our beautiful son joined the family.

In a span of a few short years, an email in my inbox went from being an amusing distraction to becoming my life's love, teaching me that opportunity comes in many forms. Sometimes, they aren't even your type.

Debbie spends her days playing mommy to one human child and four large fur kids, and her nights hunched over her laptop, desperately trying to find the perfect shoes. She busily pursues life, liberty and happiness amidst the chaos of a home buried in diapers and dog hair located in the Twin Cities and believes that suburbia is not a location, but a state of mind. http://missivesfromsuburbia.blogspot.com

Jesus Toothpaste!

by Karen Rayne from Adolescent Sexuality Today with Karen Rayne, Ph.D.

This weekend I went out of town, leaving my family to fend for themselves. On Saturday, my darling husband took my two darling daughters – 6 and 3 years old – to what he heard was a fun new toy store in town. Great, right?

They walk in the door, and the 6-year-old pipes up with “Look, Daddy! Jesus toothpaste!” He takes one look, puts one hand on each girl’s shoulder, and does a 180 out of the store. It may be a fun new toy store, but it’s intended clientele does not include the under-13 set.

When I got home on Sunday, the first thing the 6-year-old says to me was, “Guess what! We saw Jesus toothpaste!” I blinked, figuring I hadn’t heard her correctly. Regrettably, I had.

Now we have to decide. Is this an “opportunity” to talk with our daughter about Christianity? About irony? About inappropriate jokes? About the only son of the only God who died to keep our teeth clean? And if it is, what on earth do we say?

It seems we are faced with these “opportunities” almost daily. Most parents are.

Billboards, full of conversational opportunities, are everywhere:
“Microsurgical Vasectomy Reversal!”
“Find out who’s the Daddy!”
“Adult Videos! News! News! News!”
“ ‘Love thy neighbor.’ – God ”

As are grocery store tabloids:
“End of world predicted in 1000 BC!”
“Mother Mary seen in a Tortilla!”
“George Bush dines with aliens!”
“George Bush IS an alien!”

Perhaps even more insidious are the magazines:
“Bigger breasts!”
“100 ways to keep your man happy!”
“How to eat less!”
“How to be more!”

But a wise, anonymous person once said “Opportunities are never lost; someone will take the one you miss.” If we don’t take this chance to talk with the 6-year-old, she’ll continue thinking it’s fine and funny to use Jesus toothpaste. The toy store already took the opportunity to talk with her about it. And after all, was a toy store. And toy stores are for kids, so everything in there must be good for kids. Right?

So tonight I’m going to take the opportunity to sit the 6-year-old down and tell her what I think of Jesus toothpaste. That it’s something that some people would find offensive, that it would hurt them. That I’m sad that other people find that funny. And after that conversation has run it’s course, I’ll ask her what she knows about Jesus, and how she recognized a picture of him so quickly.

This will be a scary conversation for me. But I spend my life encouraging parents to have scary conversations with their children about sex, sexuality, and romance. I tell them that the conversation will happen, and that the only choice they have is whether it happens between them and their children or between someone else and their children. I ask them to realize that a forced opportunity is still an opportunity.

So this has become my forced opportunity – but my opportunity nevertheless.

Parents have to learn to talk about the hard topics. Sex, sexuality, porn, body image, romantic relationships, these are all topics I have thought through and I can talk easily and appropriately about with the 6-year-old. Religion? Not so much. This is one of my hard topics.

So I’m gathering my thoughts, preparing myself for the conversation tonight. But I know that the real learning will actually come during our conversation. After all, there’s no better way to learn than to do. Sometimes, actually, it’s the only way.

And later tonight, I will thank Jesus toothpaste for this forced opportunity, and I will have made sure someone else did not take it.

Karen Rayne teaches classes about sexuality to teenagers and about adolescent sexuality to parents. She also writes a blog on adolescent sexuality. She lives in Austin, TX with one fabulous husband, two amazing daughters, and two rambunctious dogs.

A Lost Opportunity

by John from Altjiranga Mitjina

Trying to break in as a writer in the comic book industry can be a bit like the one legged man in a butt kicking contest. Every step forward you make means you land on your butt after your kick forward. Comic books are a visual medium. An artist can bring a portfolio to an editor at a convention and said editor can sit there and look at it within minutes and decide if this artist is worthy of working on the newest issue of Stupendous Man or not. Trying being a hopeful writer handing over a script to this same editor at a busy comic convention. You’ll be lucky if the editor agrees to take the script and promise that they’ll look at it later. Most times the hopeful writer is told to send for their submission guidelines and mail in their proposal.

The best way for a writer is to find an aspiring artist and hook up. (No, not that type of hook up, get your mind out of the gutter.) If the two can create a short story, combining art and words, than both have something to show. And maybe create something new between the two of them.

I’ve been writing and trying to break into the comic book industry for years. When I first started that was my method. Find some artists that were trying and hook up with them. And it’s worked. Finding Ron Wilber lead me to getting “Lizards” published in CRITTERS. Finding Dave Garcia lead me to getting some stories published in DEATH RATTLE. Finding Sam Kieth lead me….well, that’s a different story, a story of a missed opportunity.

When I “met” Sam neither of us had published anything. I say met, because I came across Sam in the mail, in a fanzine, and we didn’t actually meet for close to a year until we both made the trip to San Diego for the Comic Con. I knew when I saw Sam’s work that he was going to be a star. Even then I could see how good Sam was. We came up with some ideas and shopped a few around. We sold one or two to Kitchen Sink for their DEATH RATTLE comic.

Sam started doing inking work for Comico, then DC Comics. He got work on the SANDMAN. Sam was quickly becoming a hot name in the comic biz. We kept in touch. Sam is a nice guy and a very unassuming guy. Anyone that knows him will know what I mean. While Sam was becoming a star I was getting more work published. A few stories here, a few there, I felt like I was making headway.

When the Image creators broke away from Marvel and DC to form their own company they asked Sam to come along. All the Image guys were coming up with new characters and Sam was no exception. He created THE MAXX but didn’t feel comfortable enough with his writing skills yet to do the scripting chores on the book. He called and asked if I wanted to write it over his plots. Now does anyone need to know what I said?

I wasn’t Sam’s first choice. At that time Sam had been working with Bill Loebs on some other projects. Bill is a great writer (and artist as well) and Sam had asked him to do the MAXX project first. For reasons that are Bill’s own he bowed out. So Sam gave me a call.

I’m not sure of the timelines here so some of this may be a little off. MAXX was a ways off, so Sam and I would spend time on the phone talking about what he wanted. Sam kept telling me to let everyone know that I was working on an Image book, get my name out there. Somewhere around this time MTV approached Sam about turning THE MAXX into a cartoon series for their network.

Things were happening fast. And it was around this time that Sam called me up and told me that he had decided to go with Bill Loebs as the writer on THE MAXX. I couldn’t blame him too much, Bill was a much better writer than I was. I was and am a big fan of Bill’s work.

I bring this all up not to throw stones but as an opportunity lost. I’ve never really commented about the whole situation and do so now because it fits in the theme of this issue. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I had written Sam’s book. Things didn’t turn out that great for Bill, through no fault of Sam or his book. So I can’t say that if I had written this book I would now be a big name writer. I can look back and realize that if I had written that book I would have probably went to work writing full time for at least awhile and missed the chance of meeting a lot of the people I know now. My life would be different, I don’t know if it would have been better or worse, but I would be in a different place.

I continued to write for a few more years, publishing a few things here and there, but never being able to decide that I was going to do this full time. And then I quit. (That’s a story for another time.) But now I’m back, trying to write, trying to find more opportunities.

Check out John at his blog altjiranga mitjina and keep an ear out for more Voices to Hear music reviews in a new platform from John soon.

A biker, a green thumb, a cracked hand, and a Queen.

by Megan from Velveteen Mind, originally guest posted at Queen of Spain


A random biker on a Harley-Davidson took my picture last week. What I wanted to do was take his picture, but I hesitated. Now, instead of a photo of some random biker holding an i am bossy.com bumper sticker, all I have is a lame photo of me holding the bumper sticker and the mental picture of him riding off into the sunset, never to be seen again.

Okay, it wasn’t as romantic or dramatic as that. It was nine in the morning and there was no sunset.

This is not the first time that I have hesitated to seize an opportunity. I don’t expect it will be the last. However, I hope with each lost chance for something intriguing, I will lose a shade of that hesitation for next time.

One of the last times I let an opportunity slip away was at the beginning of this summer, as I was planting my first flower garden. For some reason, I became simply obsessed with hydrangeas. It seemed like everywhere I turned, there was a beautiful hydrangea bush, bursting with full blooms. Certainly, these bushes must be a snap to grow, as even run-down houses seemed to boast the most gorgeous bushes of blue and pink hydrangea.

Snap my ass. Apparently I don’t understand much about gardening. Or acidity of the soil. Or watering needs. My hydrangea died. Quickly. As in, the next day. Impressive.

While driving home and mourning my poor dead hydrangea one day, I noticed the most impressive hydrangea bush I had ever seen. Blue hydrangea mop heads, weighing down a massive bush outside of an old shack of a house that I had driven by a million times. I was surprised that I had never noticed this bush before because there was an old man who sat outside of this house and waved at passing drivers, if you just took the time to notice him. I always took the time to notice him. But how had I never noticed his hydrangea?

That night, I read a post by Oh, The Joys! about a conversation she shared with a couple of strangers on a plane. She wrote about how she rarely took part in plane conversations, but found herself opening up to these strangers in the most unexpected ways.

“We were three strangers talking about love and loss…
It was nice.
As much as I appreciate the quiet time to read, perhaps I should reconsider my position on plane talking…”

I decided that the next time I passed the old man with the hydrangea bush, I would pull over and talk to him. Talk to him about his hydrangea and hopefully talk to him about his life.

Dangerous? Maybe. Naive? Probably. Hopeful? Absolutely.

Having grown up in a rural community in Southern Illinois, I miss the old couples sitting out on their front steps in the evening, watching traffic and waving at the drivers who take the time to nod their way. There was something about this man, sitting in his old folding chair, next to his lush blue hydrangea bush, in front of his dilapidated old home, that spoke to me. Something familiar that I recognized. Something familiar to which I wanted to be near, if only for a moment.

The next night, I drove by his house, saw him sitting out front, began to bully up the courage to stop… and then hesitated. I realized that I was not driving the car he usually waved at me in and was suddenly afraid that he wouldn’t recognize me. As I approached the intersection in front of his home, I found myself driving right on past.

I never did stop. Despite seeing him evening after evening, I never did stop. I hesitated and the moment past me by, never to return. And now I regret the missed opportunity. The unknown pesters me.

If I have learned anything, it is that opportunities surround us every day. We just have to have our eyes open to recognizing them. It also helps to have our guts fortified so we are ready to seize them when they present themselves.

Oh, what lives we can lead when we do. When we stop hesitating and just pounce.

I used to just pounce. I did some of my favorite pouncing in college. The fortification of my gut was courtesy of a camera lens. The result was memories I will remember long after those of late night college dorm parties fade.

While experimenting with contrast filters, I drove through the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, looking for a subject to capture that would allow me to make the most of my filters. A foreshadowing of my opportunity with the hydrangea man presented itself and this time I pounced.

Outside of the entrance to the local mall parking lot, you could always count on the boiled peanut man. A heavy man in his early forties, he boiled peanuts in a huge kettle on the side of the road. People would pull over, pay a couple of dollars, and he would dip out a fresh batch of boiled peanuts into a paper bag for you.

What began as an opportunity to play with filters capturing light colored peanuts against dark water turned into an afternoon learning about a life. His huge, rough, cracked hands could have spoken a thousand words as they moved in and out of the hot water, but something in the air of the moment allowed him to open up and tell me tales his hands never suggested.

I was open to the opportunity. And I did not hesitate.

Now that fortification of my gut is found, not in a camera lens, but rather in the endless appetite of my Velveteen Mind. Always hungry for another story. Always searching for a new ear to bend.

I just have to remember to never hesitate. To simply pounce.

Just a few hours ago, I noticed your lovely Queen post a Twitter calling for guest bloggers. Figuring she was looking for someone to post, say, next week or so, I threw my hat in the ring. Her readers have always struck me as my kind of people, so what better way to introduce myself and hopefully find a few new ears to bend.

Fifteen minutes later she emailed me back and said something along the lines of “Great. Write it right now and post it yesterday.”

Okay, it wasn’t as demanding or dramatic as that, either. She actually granted me an hour or two of breathing room and then threatened to sabotage my Technorati ranking through her magical Queenly blogging influence if I didn’t deliver ASAP.

No time for hesitation this time. Seize the blog, my brutha, seize the blog.

Before she saddles up her Harley and rides.


Megan usually writes on her personal blog, Velveteen Mind, however she has a tendency to wander all over the internet, sprinkling guest posts here and there... and dragging her fabulous readers with her.