Posted on 2 Comments

Morning Coffee with bzzzzgrrrl

The Morning Coffee Interviews at Polka Dot Cottage

Welcome!  The masses have spoken. Or not spoken, as the case may be. It looks like everyone is perfectly happy for Morning Coffee to take another hiatus. I’m cool with that.

So today we will talk with bzzzzgrrrl of City Mouse Country, and then take another long break. Ok?

New to Morning Coffee? For several Monday mornings we have sat down with some of my favorite writers & creative people, and gotten to know a little bit about their blogs and why they do what they do.

Ready for today’s interview? Let’s go 🙂

Morning Coffee with City Mouse Country at Polka Dot Cottage

Why City Mouse Country?

I don’t usually allow aliases as part of this series, but bzzzzgrrrl is a personal friend (we go waaaaaay back to college) and she requested I maintain the relative anonymity she enjoys with her blog. As a friend, she gets perks!

The fact that I am willing to sit here and count out z’s and r’s every time I write her alias should prove our friendship.

It would be so much easier to just write her name 😉

City Mouse Country is different than most of the other blogs I read. It’s not bursting with photos, or showing off creative projects. It’s just a slice of life, written in an entertaining and engaging way.

Q&A with bzzzzgrrrl

I’m so glad to be chatting with bzzzzgrrrl (and I thank her for waiting more than a month for me to get my act together and post the darn thing already). Read on!

Morning Coffee with City Mouse Country at Polka Dot Cottage

Welcome, bzzzzgrrrl!  When and why did you start your blog?

I moved from the Washington, DC, area to a smallish college town in New Hampshire in 2007. Though I’ve lived way more in ruralish places than urbanish places, I liked DC, a lot, and had a nice group of more cosmopolitan friends there who were, for lack of a better term, horrified.

They got very wide-eyed, asking me about all the things I’d surely miss and how cold it would surely be. As soon as I moved, I found myself e-mailing mobs of people about what it was actually like, and a blog seemed easier.

Has your blog evolved significantly since you began it, and if so, how?

When I started the blog, it was very slice-of-lifey, and maybe a little Green-Acresy. I was definitely showing off a little for my city friends, with healthy doses of funny stories at my expense.

I still write funny stories at my expense, but I’ve been back in New Hampshire for nearly as long as I’d lived in DC, so I’m a little less aw-shucks about it. I write more about my bad TV habits and less about the weather than I used to.

I also used to be weirdly afraid to write about religion or social justice or LGBTQ issues, which was just silly of me. I still write mostly about other things, but the posts I write that gain real traction tend to be about those things, specifically.

Morning Coffee with City Mouse Country at Polka Dot Cottage

How does your blog fit in to your daily life?

I *wish* I had routines. I write a lot for my day job, and then have a lot going on with family, friends, my partner, volunteer activities, and watching truly awful TV, so I tend to write only when the mood strikes. Sometimes I give myself a gimmick that gets me posting every day, and sometimes I wander off for a month. I should arrange for my blog to fit into my daily life. That’d be neat. I bet the design would be better, too.

Is blogging something you can easily explain to your family and friends?

My family (that is, parents, sibling) are almost shockingly uninterested in my blog. Which, as far as I’m concerned, means I can write whatever I want about them.

My friends largely get it and like it, though, and still make up by far most of my audience. My partner has been very understanding and has featured in some posts in the year we’ve been together.

One of my good friends and biggest cheerleaders actually ran into my parents at a party I was not at and sung my praises so loudly and proudly that they felt compelled to go read the blog that day, and said they enjoyed it. It has not, however, compelled them to return.

Morning Coffee with City Mouse Country at Polka Dot Cottage

How important are reader comments to you?

Reader comments are INCREDIBLY important to me. If I got no comments at all, I would still blog, but only if I were getting feedback IRL: “Hey, I loved that one post,” or, “I shared that thing you wrote with my cousin, who shared it with his rabbi.”

I do not write in public for the joy of writing. I write for an audience (granted, a small one). If I didn’t have one, I’d stop. Does that make me a narcissist?

In what ways has blogging enhanced your life, if any?

It was extremely soothing when I first moved, just as a way to maintain ties to my friends in DC. It still serves that purpose, which is neat, but also, it’s been a great way for me to explore Big Ideas — often with some humor inserted.

Do you think blogging makes you smart and funny and good-looking?

No. I think I’m just lucky that way.

Morning Coffee with City Mouse Country at Polka Dot Cottage

Thank you, bzzzzgrrl, for taking the time to answer my questions and for allowing me to use your photos to illustrate our conversation. It’s been a pleasure!

Want more?  You can find bzzzzgrrl at City Mouse Country.

LET’S KEEP IN TOUCH!

Sign up for occasional Polka Dot Cottage news and get a coupon for 10% off your next order!

Don't worry, we won't bother you more than once or twice a month!

Posted on 2 Comments

2 thoughts on “Morning Coffee with bzzzzgrrrl

  1. One of my readers commented: “Excellent interview. But come on, no college dirt? I demand a follow-up conversation with some flashbacks.”

    You don’t have to provide a whole follow-up conversation, obviously, Lisa, but if you have any college dirt you would like to share, you should feel free to do it either here or in the comments over on my post. Thanks for interviewing me. 🙂

    1. College dirt, eh?
      Hmmmm. I will have to give that one some thought 🙂

Leave a comment!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.