Hey, Look! I’m Over There!

“Hey, I’ve gotta go. Justin Bieber got arrested.”

That’s how I ended my morning phone call with my BFF yesterday morning. Because that’s what I’m doing now.

I have about 10 minutes before I fall asleep sitting up at my desk and thought maybe I’d take a minute to fill in the five people who don’t already know what I’ve been up to about what it is I’ve been doing lately.

In a word, Jossip.

Once upon a time I had a LiveJournal. And when I had that LiveJournal, I found blogs. A celebrity gossip blog, to be specific. I was obsessed and read every day, sometimes mutiple times a day, checking back in to see if anything new had been posted. It was this weird mix of celebrity gossip and life-sharing and I was hooked. That blog’s author had a boyfriend. His boyfriend had a blog. That blog was Jossip.

I followed their story and read the original blog and then life happened.

I met Dan, we got serious, I got busy with my senior year in college, planned a wedding, got married, moved away from Athens, started teaching, and stopped reading blogs.

Until I started blogging again.

I blogged and blogged and blogged and eventually started writing for other people and one day last fall, my boss sent me a message that asked if I had a minute to chat on the phone. I did.

“So, what do you know about a blog called Jossip…”

I rattled off my Jossip-knowledge and then he asked if I had any interest relaunching it as a second celebrity gossip and entertainment news site under their umbrella, true to the site’s original intent but with my own spin on it.

Well, of course I was interested.

That conversation was one of those full-circle moments in life that only come around a time or two, if you’re lucky. The kind where the stars are in alignment and there’s the faint sound of angels singing the Hallelujah chorus somewhere off in the distance while rays of sunshine part clouds.

At least that’s what happened in my head.

The offer came at a time when we needed it, so I took it. Managing editor of Jossip.

I drop the kids off at 8, come home and write until 2:15, go pick them up, hang out with them, and then write some more. It’s not without its issues and we’re all still learning the balance, particularly on the weekends. Celebrities don’t stop doing things that land them on the internet because it’s Saturday. News doesn’t stop happening on the weekends. (And yes, I cover real news, too, sometimes.) There’s always something to write about.

So there’s an adjustment happening, but we’ll figure it out.

It’s sometimes frantic, like when Justin Bieber gets arrested and the details of his detention take over the universe. But it’s also fun. Even when I spend the entire day talking about the Biebs. It’s creative and it scratches an itch I have to learn and grow.

I love it.

So you can find me here, but you can also find me there.

(And if, while we’re relaunching this site, you find me sharing a lot of links from there, please don’t hate me. It’s just for Google.)