I read an article about you in the New Yorker today.
The NEW FUCKING YORKER!
You know why?
Because you make a shit ton, a butt ton of money on your blog. Because last year you made a "solid" million on the blog alone, let's not count the money you made on your books and the movie rights to one of those books.
And I am...jealous.
And bewildered.
And my finger is cut to the bone and I am typing this leaving blood on my keyboard.
Well.
Oh, Pioneer Woman.
You are the envy of every woman in the world who sits at home in a tiny apartment and wishes that she, too, would meet the man of her dreams, a pioneer cowboy, a Marlboro Man who, with his brother, owns 27,000 acres of cattle land. A man whose ass you have photographed wearing Wranglers and chaps a million times and photoshopped with a huge degree of success. Who has had four babies with that man and whom you have also photoshopped with a huge degree of success as they sprang from your loins and onto the back of a horse to herd cattle. Who has made more money than I ever will simply from taking pictures (and photoshopped with a high degree of success) of your beagle dog named Charley. Or is it Charlie?
Whatever.
Oh, Pioneer Woman. You who never mention world events or racism or politics or religion. You who are self-deprecating but who never mentions sex by name or seems to have marital problems or uses profanity...well, actually, I don't read your blog although I HAVE! I have! I have read it! I have read enough to know that you are the perfect Blogging Woman in that you give women hope that they can turn their high heels into tractor wheels and that the beautiful cows you raise could be raised by them too, not to mention your children and that those cows will never be slaughtered in blogworld and that your children will never turn into surly teenagers who say, "I hate you!" in blogworld either and that you and Marlboro Man will ride off into the (photoshopped) sunset forever and ever on the back of a perfect (photoshopped) horse.
Oh. I am jealous.
Not of your life. Oh hell no. Not even though you have a Viking Range. I had one of those once. It sucked. Or of your TWO Bosch Dishwashers even though I have NO dishwasher except for Mr. Moon who sometimes washes the dishes. Or of your 27,000 acres of cow pasture or of your four beautiful children because I have 2.2 acres and can barely keep up with that and thank-you-very-much, I have raised my own four children already.
Or of your Marlboro Man either because I have my own man who can hunt deer and fish for fish and do carpentry and garden and who brings me flowers from the woods and offers to stitch up my wounds with fishing line (haha! as if I'd let him!) and who loves me even if I'm crazy and yes, honey, I have BEEN crazy. He's been there and he did not leave, even though he probably should have.
And no, I do not give away iPads or Kitchen Aids on my blog because I don't have any to spare but if I did, you know I would. If I had a billion readers a day and sold ads I would! I would! And no, I do not have contests which allow people to come and stay with me because I am a hermit and I am not social but I tell you this- if I wasn't a crazy agoraphobic hermit who has no social skills I would! I swear!
Oh, Pioneer Woman. Here is the fish my husband and my daughter caught in a gin-clear sinkhole yesterday:
Here they are in a frying pan:
Here is my brother and here is my husband, eating those fish:
Along with the salad and grits and stewed tomatoes and so forth I made for supper. It was an awesome supper.
Can you tell? Even though it was not photoshopped?
Honestly, lady, I'm not really jealous of you at all. Okay, I admit I wouldn't mind making money on my writing one bit. Not one darn bit.
But when it comes to lives? Ah, I wouldn't trade mine for yours for a second.
And besides- you're the mama of your babies and I'm the mama of mine and so it should be.
And you have your life and I have mine.
But yes, I'll admit.
The NEW FUCKING YORKER?
Ah. Well.
Not in this lifetime. Not for me.
And in my most generous heart of hearts, I wish you all the success the blogtrain will carry you to. You obviously have a much greater need than I do to succeed and you obviously don't sleep nearly as much as I do.
So bless your heart and hey! if you're ever giving away one of those dishwashers- I'll take it!
And let me know if you ever need any advice when one of your surly teenagers says, "I hate you!"
Okay?
And now I'm going to bed because tomorrow morning Mr. Moon and I are driving to North Carolina, hauling a trailer behind us. It's going to be awesome! I'm already packed!
Sweet dreams, O, Pioneer Woman! May you dream of book signings and designer high-heeled cowboy boots and new ways to cook steak. I'll be having my regular dreams of finding abandoned feral monkey babies and living in a house with the ghosts of the Titanic in the basement.
It's all good.
Some of us can just photoshop it into better goodness than others. And need less sleep. And don't have the need to get up on their high horse about shit like religion and politics and so forth.
Sigh.
Maybe I should learn to photoshop. Seriously.
Love...Ms. Moon
You are a pioneer woman without all the photoshop, etc. You simply are real.
ReplyDeleteI like Pioneer Woman recipes, I admit it. But I don't have enough ingredients or people to cook for to use them very much. She's made a damn fortune - and shit, good for her.
ReplyDeleteI reached for my razor when I was unpacking two weeks ago and took off the whole top layer of my skin on one of my fingers. It is hooorrrrible. So I feel your pain...literally.
Anyway. Keep in touch tomorrow. Hope J is okay.
I don't even know who that is and am not interested at all.
ReplyDeleteJust keep writing MM.
You don't need no Photoshop.
Dinner looks delicious.
Sorry about your boo boo.
Thinking of you.
Safe trip.
Love that you're bringing a rose bush with you.
And for what it's worth, we ALL have a need to make things prettier and more nice when we present to the world - be it blog-world or just the world we give to our friends. You often admit that you write about flowers and sunsets and rainbows and love so that you can remind yourself again and again as you write that you have it good, and it helps to chase out your demons. Perhaps it does for her too.
ReplyDeleteOh, Ms. Moon, darling.....
ReplyDeleteYou and Pioneer Woman live and write in two different Blogworlds.
She is a master at writing about food recipes and illustrating her writing with great photos. Her blog is a wonderful, funny cookbook. She has a mate and 4 kids and 27,000 acres if you say so.(I do read her and I didn't know all that.) That's all I know about her and as for what goes on inside of her, her husband or the cows I have no idea. Two dimensions.....no heft. no real substance there at all.
As for YOU....you too write about food and illustrate it with lovely photos......but as part of a life that is so full and so three dimensional and so gorgeous, so emotional and so profound that everyone who reads your blog knows you and Mr.Moon and your whole family and Kathleen and your chickens and Elvis and Freddie and the goat who caught her hoof in the tree whom you saved and Owen and Pearl, who is taking her sweet time in dying, and Omigod a whole universe full of wonderful people of which you are the finest.
Really.....there is NO comparison! In one case we watch a food demonstration. In your case, we have a delightful or an agonizing visit with you and all the inhabitants of your world. We can smell it, taste it, feel it, laugh with you, cry with you, worry about you, dream about you and Love You.
I just wish you could be monetarily rewarded for your extreme gift.......and perhaps, hopefully, you shall yet be.
Meanwhile, envy away but please don't change one damned thing!
As I said before, there is no comparison....The New Yorker be damned.
A made Pioneer Woman's biscuits and they were hockey pucks...even the birds and squirrels in the middle of the god-forsaken winter wouldn't eat them. And let me say, my woman can cook.
ReplyDeleteShe's also made your angel biscuits and they were melt in your mouth divine.
And let me say, that there's one thing I know about and that's good biscuits.
Anyway you would have to leave your lovely 2 acres to go to book signings and you'd be miserable. Hugs to you Ms. Moon.
Honestly, the reason I read blogs is because I want the blood and guts. I want the raw emotion. Happy, sad, grieving, angry and confused. I want to look at other people's lives and see that we are all on the same playing field. It makes me feel a sort of peace that everyone else out there is as just as confused as I am.
ReplyDeleteI would rather sit with you and your chickens eating fried fish off a paper plate at your house than a woman that considers she is pioneering anything. (WTF is she pioneering? The right to use birth control? The right to vote? I mean seriously!) But I digress. I am sure she is lovely but I want to see the blood. (And your grandson because dear god he is cute and maybe he can teach me how to use my phone!)
damn!! i say GO pioneer woman!!! go forth and make a huge awesome success of yourself, and good for you. women who can create successfully run businesses (which is what her blog is, not a 'home' but a business) are amazing, and one kind of role model for me. you are another kind. all kinds are needed. loveyou!!!!
ReplyDeleteOh, and I want to see just how mean that rooster is when he is fucking! ha!
ReplyDeleteAs an 8th generation pioneer woman in the heartland, birthplace of Willa Cather who can write pretty well but is banned because she may or may not have been gay......all I can say is:
ReplyDeleteI'm with you Moon.
Fuck that shit.
I read that New Yorker article too and thought WOW. Just like you. It's truly amazing. We live in a weird, weird world.
ReplyDeleteI do adore your blog, your piece of the world, your Lloyd. I honestly don't know what I'd do without it, frankly -- coming here each morning and each evening.
Aw. I understand. I don't read Pioneer Woman though - and as you so clearly haven't linked to her, I won't now either (grin*)
ReplyDeleteI don't read the New Yorker either, though I'm sure I should.
I read Bless Our Hearts!!
You have a type in here suggesting you DO have competitions for people to come to stay with you. You kinda do offer for people to come stay though, don't you?
i'm to ghetto to read the damn new yorker. i gets my culture here!
ReplyDeletei'm sure her blog is scintillating, yet i have no intention of reading it. they can keep her- she is like what happened to that band green day. a good idea at first.....
xxalainaxx
ps i check in for the rooster too!
well....
ReplyDeletei dont know who pioneerwoman is...BUT i do know who m. moon is...and i wouldnt trade that knowledge..no no never^^
Pioneer Woman? Don't know her and won't read her. I hate perfection because you know its a lie. Anyone who believes in it is an idiot.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you can bet she had her contacts long before leaving her high heels behind. She was likely bored and depressed as hell out in no where land when she began her blog but still in contact with someone back home. Probably sends her photos out for photoshopping.
By the way - I LOVE your chicken photo. THAT is my kind of perfection.
Brilliant.
ReplyDeletep.s. Enjoy NC. I'm jealous.
I love this blog/letter, Mary Moon - you are so honest and real, and I can totally relate to your feelings about Pioneer Woman's brilliance and perfection (and spotlight in The New Yorker!!). Although I must say it kind of makes me want to start my blog back up. Maybe I will......if I can come up with a good moniker. Hmmm......
ReplyDeletePee Ess. Damn, that fish looks good! I do love me some fried bream! Sweetest meat in the water!
ReplyDeleteOh Ms. Moon, you made my day. I used to read the amazing Pioneer Woman, I still look at her recipes from time to time, but her perfection and humor and luck just makes me feel so inadequate. I wouldn't change lives with her either, and I would rather read your blog any day. And I've actually used your recipes, repeatedly! Angel Biscuits! Yummy Pancakes!! Don't learn to photoshop, don't! It will just eat up your time.
ReplyDeleteI would, however, recommend you get yourself a dishwasher, I grew without a dishwaher or a shower, and I won't live without either of them again, ever!
Safe travels. You're headed to my version of Dog Island. We head to the NC hills every chance we get. I expect Jessie will make herself right at home there.
Hugs, and thanks for the real photos and the real funny posts.
I hate Pioneer Woman. She sucks shit.
ReplyDeletePioneer Woman's recipes suck. She puts salted butter in everything uses Philly Cream Cheese to thicken sauces and uses tinned veggies whenever possible. In other words she cooks like Betty Crocker cooked in the 50s. Ugh. Pretty soon she'll come out with her own line of TV dinners. There's lots of other stuff I'd like to say here all the Christian shit for instance but for now I'll say I wouldn't buy her book if it was the last book on the last shelf in the last Barnes & Noble on earth. And that's a distinct possibility.
ReplyDeleteps. I don't read the New Yorker and I won't until I'm in it.
Who cares about the Pioneer Woman? What I want is some of that fried fish! Wait, did you have some hot sauce? You didn't mention hot sauce. I need hot sauce. . . .
ReplyDeleteI just don't like Pioneer Woman. Even though she's wildly popular, I just don't get her. Things that SHE does, just doesn't seem 'me'. YOU are tons better than she is because I can identify with you. You keep on writing and doing what you do best Mrs. Moon.
ReplyDeleteI visited that pioneer woman's blog once. And I never went back. But I come to your blog every single day, even when I am too brain dead to comment, I come here, because this is the real deal and I don't have to be blond and photoshopped perfect and rich to be in your world, i can just be human, i can just be whichever me woke up today. i love you mary moon. don't change a thing. have a great trip!
ReplyDeletebut this post did make me laugh.
What Angella Lister said. Every bit.
ReplyDeleteI am giggling and agreeing and loving you.
ReplyDeleteI believe you're not feeling jealous.
ReplyDeleteBut I do think you're feeling a bit superior.
This post was not photoshopped.
I wasn't jealous of her until today when I saw she had published a children's book about that droopy dog of hers. THAT's when the green crept in.
ReplyDeleteHey, Pioneer woman doesn't BLEED on her keyboard. You do that. So I say, fuck the NFY (New Fucking Yorker) and her lily white hands and her millions. You bleed....and I'm your champion forever.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Beth
Exactly what Lo said.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm a little jealous too.
(And if you ever get a hankering to have something photoshopped, just send me a secret email. I won't tell anyone as long as you also send biscuits.)
I love that you live in the "real" world - I used to read the Pioneer Woman a lot and was enthralled at her fancy words BUT now her entire site is like a big advertisement. And I have a dishwasher that I never use - so I may put it on my blog and give it away!! Be watching!
ReplyDeletefromthedepthsofmyheart.wordpress.com
Fuck the Photoshop. And the dishwashers and the Kitchen Aids. You don't need any of it. I have no idea how to do Photoshiop either.
ReplyDeleteYou're perfect as you are. Love you very much xx
You may have noticed that the article in the New Yorker was not entirely complimentary of Ree Drummond, in fact, quite the opposite.
ReplyDeleteI have read her blog, and I find it boring as hell, so it speaks more about her followers than it does about her. There's a sucker born every minute.
Personally, I find her children unattractive, her husband ... ho, hum ... and if I have to look up one more cow's nostril, I think I'll barf. And she's not a great writer, but she knows how to market her brand (no pun intended...).
There are so MANY brilliant blogs out there, I don't understand her popularity. But ... what do I know...?
I went to her blog once and left disappointed. I expected her to live like Laura Ingalls Wilder. I thought she would show us how to work the land and live on this earth respecting it. When I saw she didn't, when I saw that she relied on appliances and staff and her home was as large as the mansions in my town, I never returned.
ReplyDeleteI am disappointed in the New Yorker. I expected better of them.