Ode to the Blogger Spouse

By Holly Olson.

Today, you may have logged on to MPW looking for your daily dose of my husband’s witty rhetoric. (He paid me to say that). Unfortunately (or for the better), you’ve got his wife instead. Why you may ask — is Adam in the hospital? Does he have carpal tunnel syndrome? Have the shower nuts taken him hostage and are holding him for ransom? Hardly. Rather, we are on our annual summer vacation.

So, in honor of taking this week "off," and to prevent him from blogging while we are away, I will take up the mantle for a day. I would also like to take this opportunity to do something a bit different. I would like to dedicate today’s blog to the unsung heroes of the blogosphere: the Blogger Spouses.

The blogger spouse is an unusual creature. We must exhibit extraordinary patience, an uncanny ability to listen, and a boundless enthusiasm for the most inane subject matter. To give you a sense of what I endure as a blogger’s spouse, I’ve included several examples of issues that I frequently deal with.

1. You’re going to write about what??!!
As with any writer, there are lots of ideas that never see the light of day (and rightfully so). Luckily for you, I listen to all of those bad ideas so you don’t have to. This is how the situation typically plays out.

I arrive home from a long day at work. My beloved has not bothered to put away the dishes, feed the dog, or start dinner. Instead he has been playing computer games (or, you guessed it — blogging). So I head into the kitchen to do what he has neglected to do. As I do so, I am bombarded by my husband who has been thinking about all of his new ideas on his drive home listening to Iron Maiden. Being the dutiful wife, I (half) listen to these ideas as I make dinner. My criteria for eliminating ideas are fairly straightforward. Anything that might result in the following is immediately banned:

• Adam being lynched
• Adam being fired
• A bag of flaming dog-s*** being placed on our front door-step
• Protestors outside of our house (a la George Leventhal)

2. Why are you talking about Mike Miller again...
If I have to listen to one more blog idea about Mike Miller I think I am going to scream. Let me be blunt: I have had more discussions about Big Daddy in the past year than I ever want to in an entire lifetime. I know so much about Mike Miller that he might as well include me on the invitation list to his next birthday party. No wait — cancel that. If I did go, Adam would want to tag along and ask him why Montgomery County isn’t getting its fair share of money back from the state.

3. What do you mean you can’t take a vacation from blogging?
As we all know, the DC area pretty much shuts down in August. For almost a year now, my husband has been a fairly regular, if not daily blogger. So, I thought it would be good for him to take a break. Why not just take the whole month off? The response I got was fairly typical. He said he could not take a break because: a. one of his readers complained about another blogger taking a week off, and b. because most of the other bloggers were continuing to post during the month. Heaven forbid that he should be outdone or outblogged by anyone.

But this was not the end of it. This morning, as my beloved and I were about to head to the beach for a swim, he asked me if I would go to an event with him this Tuesday evening. A play? A concert? An evening cruise on the bay of the Eastern Shore? Hardly. Instead, he asked if I wanted to go to the local planning commission hearing. Yes, you heard me. A PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING. My true love wants to go to a public hearing about a new development in Cape Charles, Virginia while we are on vacation.

So there you have it. This is the life of a blogger spouse — unsung heroes of the blogosphere. The next time you see one of us, feel free to extend your thanks, or your sympathies, for all that we endure.