Before getting Freshly Pressed, I read all the advice on how to get…Freshly Pressed. Like, 24/7. I won’t regurgitate it here because you’ve all read it too. Like, 24/7.
I have no proof, but it’s my opinion that there’s a super-secret, critical factor (plus a back-up plan) necessary to get this honorable, if not Wizard of Ozish, Munchkin Mayor behind-the-mysterious-curtain designation.
Because I believe in karma, a parallel universe, and the Tooth Fairy, I’m letting the genie out of the box to share it with you.
Secret Key: Find Your Blogging Bestie
While trolling Freshly Pressed late-night in the dark a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled on The Paltry Meanderings of a Taller Than Average Woman. Well, I didn’t really stumble on it because it was in the pole position of all the best blogs that day, and I was actively searching for stuff to steal. O.K. not really. I’m a fairly honest person but since you don’t know me (unless you’re my mom) I shouldn’t say things like that.
Anyway, the title of the featured piece was (and still is…go check it out, like right now!) Why I Hate Witty People. I immediately identified.
I’m that girl, who, in 6th grade, never uttered a word. Especially when Crosby Middle School’s Queen Bee came up to me (which she did on a regular basis) and said,
“I don’t like your Hello Kitty lunchbox. You’re not my friend anymore and I’m officially not inviting you to the best Ouija board, spooky ghost story, popcorn with melty M&Ms, stay up all night ‘cause Mom and Dad don’t care, pretend to be Charlie’s Angels in my creepy basement birthday party ever.”
On demand, she could connect whatever was going through her huge, cantalopish head, right to her ginormous mouth, and project it like Whitney Houston (before she self-destructed and ruined an otherwise megastar career).
Because there was a parallel universe swirling through my head at all times, however, where I was in fact, a very funny and unusually loud person, I’d come up with fifteen comebacks to say right to her face, so that I could recite them one after the other and scream, “In your face!”
Unfortunately, it was always ten minutes after she’d turned on her Dr. Scholled heel and walked away that I figured this out.
Why I Hate Witty People is an incredibly witty (irony!), laugh-out-loud essay about why Cristy Carrington, the uber-intelligent author, doesn’t like witty people. The fact that she doesn’t like witty people is funny in and of itself, because she’s such a hilarious person (She’s secretly a double blog agent, love it!). Anyway, when I finished this essay, a little buzzed from my warm beer by the bed and once again unable to sleep, I decided to stalk her until she agreed to be my blog bestie. As it turns out, this was a good idea.
How to Get A Cool Blog Bestie
Step One: Find a blog you love on Freshly Pressed.
Step Two: Get some kind of weird, tingly feeling (and not from your leftover abscessed-tooth Vicodin) when you read her stuff, as if you could have written it yourself on a good day, in a parallel universe, maybe.
Step Three: Make a funny, yet somewhat pitiful comment on her awesome essay that you secretly wish you’d written, like, “Hey, loved your blog so much I now have blog envy. So thanks for making me feel like a loser.”
Step Four: Perform some kind of Freshly Pressed sacrifice, ideally on your neighbor’s cat, but if you don’t have a neighbor, any one of your kids who’s all “blah, blah, blah, blekity blah,” and in your face at the moment will do.
Step Five: Wait. Please don’t check every five minutes to see if she’s commented on your comment. You’ve got more pride than that and the magic site stat genie is recording your clicks.
Step Six: O.K. Go ahead and check. It’s almost cocktail hour and you don’t want to risk offending her by writing something creepy when you’re drunk.
Step Seven: Read her comment. If she’s all “Sorry to make you feel bad, but maybe you’ll rock like me someday,” she’s opening the bestie door for you to respond. On the other hand, if she says, “Sorry to make you feel bad, but I checked out your blog and totally understand,” abort. This relationship is going nowhere.
Step Eight: Reply back, but not until tomorrow because you’re pretty buzzed now and don’t want to appear as pathetic as you feel.
Step Nine: Wake up, shotgun a triple-espresso Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks, and respond with an everything-in-your-pants-on-the-table reply along the lines of, “Rock like you? Please. Step back and check my flow.” Then google an obscure Rihanna song from her first album, and copy the words. You should probably put her name above it for credit and everything but I think it’s O.K. to use invisible ink.
Step Ten: Watch in awe as this mutual blog bestie relationship in-development takes on a life of its own. Your comments back and forth should be so natural and, well, funny (unless it’s a blog about stalkers), that you have to double-check her site from time to time just to make all of this free-flowing fun is real.
Step Ten and a half: On the other hand, if your future blog bestie’s second comment to your sober, ball’s-up post goes something like, “Hey gizbot. Take it somewhere else. You’re totally freaking me out and I’m gonna call the cops,” with a lot of blah, blah, blah, blekity blah legalese at the bottom? Abort. You’ve gotten a little further, but this relationship is also going…nowhere.
We’re gonna assume that didn’t happen though, because life is all about positive thinking, and now you’re in super-awesome bestie blogland, where the sun always shines and dreams really do come true.
Step Eleven: You and your new blog bestie cross-promote each other, talk about your husbands’ weird toes, cross-promote each other some more, promise to rendezvous in Cabo as soon as the bank will let you use credit cards again, and figure out more ways to cross-promote each other.
Step Twelve: Your blog bestie, who you found on Freshly Pressed, responds to a 7×7 Link Blog Award, and features you (the “you” in this case would be me), in her post. A couple of hours later, you (the “you” in this case would still be me) are Freshly Pressed.
Coincidence? No freaking way. And now you know the Super-Secret Key to Becoming Freshly Pressed. I owe my bestie, Cristy, an almost unpayable debt, and unfortunately, she doesn’t want any of my kids.
That seems like a great place to end this blog-chapter, and if I were writing my novel, I’d stop. Because I’d like a cocktail. But I’m not working on my novel today, and it’s only 2:28, and I want you to get Freshly Pressed. So I’m gonna keep going. Plus, I just slammed a Coke with forty fun-filled grams of sugar, and I’m like, flying right now.
In the event that you simply don’t like people, I have a another plan.
Back-Up Secret Key
I noticed, after my post, “Why You Should Take A Day Off From New Year, New You,” a strange spike in traffic. It was only my third blog, and technically, I shouldn’t have any noticeable hits at all. Yet there they were. So I started trolling my stats, and found some interesting, if not repetitive, search engine terms:
- rajinikanth portrait paintings
- rajinkanth without makeup
- rajinkanth photos without make-up (apparently, Rajinkanth wears a lot of make-up for a dude)
- rajinkanth straight face
- rajinkanth old photos
- rajinkanth portrait paintings
- body paint in indian actor
- loc india chin
This isn’t even twenty percent of what I’ve been picking up. Since then, I’ve developed a ginormous following from India, and more hits on my site from Rajinkanth’s picture, who is apparently a huge megastar, than anything else. Like, every day of the week.
And because I believe in a parallel universe where everything is connected and we’re all part of one big, happy light family and stuff like that (not really), I’m convinced that Rajinkanth has something to do with me being Freshly Pressed. I’m serious. And I’m sharing my secret with you. Again.
I’m so certain that his presence, or spirit, or groovy retro hair and ‘stache played a role in the whole FP thing, that I’m bequeathing him to you. Take him. Please. Figure out a way to include a Rajinkanth photo in your next post and watch the magic unfold. And if your traffic doesn’t immediately pick up? Check back in a few days and I’ll have a limited edition Rajinkanth statue for sale that you can buy direct and bury upside down in your front yard. It’s only $19.99, so really, what do you have to lose?
And there you have it. You’re officially on you way to being Freshly Pressed. I can feel it. Well, not really. I can’t feel anything right now, especially my fingertips, from my self-propelled, sugar-induced typefest. But I’m sure I’ll feel it tomorrow.
Glossary of Terms:
Genie: “Pseudonym for a feral child who spent nearly all of the first thirteen years of her life locked inside a bedroom strapped to a potty chair.” I lifted this definition straight from Wikipedia. I swear. Go look. One of the things I love about Wikipedia is that a crackhead on crack probably wrote this definition while he was tripping on crack and the Wikipedia genie hasn’t caught it yet.
Crackhead: I couldn’t resist adding this one from urbandictioary.com based on the definition above. “A broke a_ _ mutha f_ _ _ a who relies on crack to sustain daily life. Often seen running at full speed for a multitude of reasons.”
(I’m using _s because I try to keep this blog suitably rated for the Disney crowd. The Pirates of the Caribbean Disney crowd, that is.)
Trolling: My way of communicating late at night with a warm beer by the bed and zit cream on my face. I’m usually looking for anything and everything that might get me Freshly Pressed.
Über: The absolute best, most awesome thing, like, “I’m über-excited to take a nap!” or “I’m so über-stoked that winter break is over and the ankle-biters are back in school!” or “I’m uber-serous. I will cut you if you eat the last Cool Ranch Dorito.”
Blah, blah, blah, blekity blah: This is how my children respond any time I try to pass on the abundance of wisdom I have to offer. It’s also what my husband hears when we attempt to verbally communicate (hence the two-part non-verbal communication blog).
Megastar: Rajinkanth, Indian film actor. Demi Moore, pre-Skeletor phase. Whitney Houston, pre-Bobby Brown.
Stalker: Me.
Gizbot: I don’t know. I just made it up. It could be a robot that…..never mind.
READING BETWEEN THE PINES 
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