Blog Blues...No, Make That Green

So I thought I'd spruce up Life in A-Town for the season by changing my color scheme, from winter-blue to spring-green. I fiddled around in backstage-Blogger and ended up picking a new template altogether. I snickered at myself when I momentarily questioned the wisdom of this “marketing move”—as though my throngs of readers might be seriously thrown off by the jarring change of appearance.

The truth is (online confession #672), part of me secretly hopes this blog might get me noticed as a humorous writer/essayist/memoir maven—the next Anne Lamott or Eat, Pray, Love lady. (I had to look her up—it’s Elizabeth Gilbert…that was my first guess, but then I thought maybe I’d been watching too many Little House on the Prairie reruns and was thinking of Melissa Gilbert/Laura Ingalls Wilder’s actor-sister—the one who played the part of Roseanne Barr’s sardonic teenage daughter…but no, that’s Sara Gilbert. You see how my cerebral filing system fails me—thank God for Google!)

I realize there are…well, actually, I don’t know how many blogs exist on the Web World-Wide, but I do know, intellectually, that the chances of my ramblings being recognized as any cuter, cleverer or more marketable than anyone else’s is less likely than winning the lottery. And speaking of The Lottery, wishing to become a famous author might be a little like the classic short story by that title (one of the few assigned readings I actually completed in high school): Turning a cherished hobby into a professional obligation often results in the unnecessary death of an otherwise healthy part of a person’s life. Creativity is killed by compulsion; exposure eradicates enjoyment. Maybe writing for fun is the best way to go.

But back to my blog makeover…and my ego. When I changed the template from “Tic Tac Blue” to “Thisaway Green” (and subsequently “Rounders 4”), I apparently undid my Google Analytics code, the Web widget that tells me how many people have looked at Life in A-Town from day to day. Most days, I can count on 7 to 12 views. On days when I post a new entry, it might hit a “high” of 15-17. When I’m bold enough to incorporate the blog address into my Facebook status update, it basically doubles my readership—from, say, 16, to 32. These are obviously not New York Times Best Seller numbers. But I check almost every morning…OK, OK, every morning. And I like to think I’m summoning some smiles to my friends’ faces.

Two days ago, my Frumpy and Fabulous post celebrating Scottish songstress Susan Boyle brought an audience of 34 to my blog (humble indeed compared to Ms. Boyle’s new-found fame, but it was a “good day” for me). Next day—yesterday—down to zero! zip! nada! no visitors whatever to my trying-to-be-humble home online. I’m hoping to chalk it up to the Google Analytics glitch. Wish me luck (that is, if you’re out there) while I try to figure out how to reinstall the HTML mumbo-jumbo necessary to keep those numbers climbing.....

Frumpy and Fabulous: A Redemption Story

A matronly Scottish woman named Susan Boyle moved me to tears this week—me and millions of other You Tube viewers. If you have yet to watch the clip from the show Britain’s Got Talent (like American Idol, across the Atlantic), here’s what happened:

Boyle, a fairly frumpy 47-year-old with a short shock of gray curls and bordering-on-bushy eyebrows, walked out on stage in a mother-of-the-bride dress. The snarky audience immediately twittered and sniggered at her dowdy appearance. In a brief interview before her performance, she told the judges that she aspired to be a famous singer. The cynical crowd jeered openly. But Ms. Boyle was evidently undeterred—a tad oblivious, perhaps, but no matter: The music started, and she soulfully swept the house clean of every skeptical sneer.

Susan sang “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables, the poignant tale of the French Revolution. Now, I admit, this song almost always makes me cry—it’s so sad and beautiful and fraught with anguish:

I dreamed a dream in time gone by,
When hope was high and life, worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die,
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.

But the tigers come at night,
With their voices soft as thunder,
As they tear your hope apart,
And they turn your dream to shame.

On that stage, on that show, on that night, Susan Boyle stood up to those damned tigers! Tiger-people who claw at the tender souls of “misfits” whose clothes aren’t cool, whose bodies aren’t sleek, and whose faces aren’t sculpted or plucked or made up to perfection. “Weirdos” who simply don’t see the world the way most folks do—they’re “odd,” “strange,”…to-be-feared…and jeered. If we admit it, there are secret compartments in each of our hearts that nervously suspect we are the misfits. And sometimes, regrettably, our anxiety awakens our own inner tiger that tears down people around us, even—no, especially—those we love.

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living,
So different now from what it seemed...
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed...

Susan’s song—Susan’s story, as a woman who went from laughing-stock to “Who’s laughing now?”—represents redemption. That’s what moved me to tears. It wasn’t so much her strong voice that inspired me, but her strong spirit—her courage. While millions watched, she defied the spirit of scorn, in the room and in the world. And in doing so, she rekindled the deep-down dream of acceptance and love for everyone who watched her.

Bravo, Susan, Bravo!