Other Girls of Gilmore Girls: The Lindsay Lister Story

Chapter 29

View Along: n/a

Every morning after Dean went to work, I picked up around the townhouse. I loved each clean surface and all the space we had in the kitchen. We owned only six plates, and they sat perfectly in the middle of the cabinet, the rest of it empty. So much room. After emptying the dishwasher, I took a picture.

||||     I guess six plates is a normal amount for someone my age to own. Maybe that's even more than the average. But look at the room we have to add more! The best part is sometimes knowing you have room for more. ||||

After cleaning and updating my blog, I went to my parents on Mondays, the grocery store on Tuesdays, Erica and David's co-op in Woodbridge on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and I left Fridays for whatever I felt like or for whatever might come up. I tried to be home by four every day so I could plan dinner and what I would write about it after. Now that Dean knew about my blog, I could take pictures any time I felt like it.

It was a co-op day, and on the farm David was pacing back and forth. "What's up with him?" I whispered to Erica. "We are deciding if we are going to invest in the co-op. Like with money. Not just our time."

"What would you get out of it?"

"We'd be part owners." She shrugged. "Could be easier than having our own? We talked about adding a subscription, they call it community supported agriculture, so you pay a certain amount of money for the season and you get a box of whatever we grow each week. David also wanted to open a co-op grocery store. Same concept except other producers provide eggs, bread, whatever, and you get that each week."

"What's the downside?"

"Failing?" Erica laughed. "Seriously, what if no one buys subscriptions?"

"Think about how much time you put into this." I stopped to look around us. The land that I struggled to pull weeds out of was now lined with crops and beehives. "You can make anything happen with time and effort. We all do."

"How do you even explain to people what a CSA is? How do I get someone like you, don't take offense, but you are just the type of person who we'd want to buy from us. So how do I get you to join our CSA?"

"Me? Literal me? I'm already in." I looked at Erica and back to the land. There were bushy greens with white arches over them, prepared to be covered for the winter. Neatly kept rows of cabbage popped round with giant leaves protecting them. A man in a baseball hat carried a bushel of radishes, carrots, and lettuce greens in front of him. "I know." I reached into my bag and pulled out my camera. I had started carrying it with me when I was still hiding my blog so no one could find the pictures, and I never got out of the habit. I started taking pictures of the fields and the people. The sun lighting the scene from behind apple trees.

"Look." I showed Erica the photographs on the tiny screen of my camera. "Show anyone this and they will want it."

"But how do I show them?"

"I can show them. You don't know this, but you should. I have a blog and 6,000 readers a day visit it."

"What was that?" Erica grabbed my arm.

***

Writing about the co-op would mean I would be revealing a little bit about who I was. Everything on my blog was as anonymous as I could make it. I never mentioned Connecticut; I never named anyone or any place. If I started writing about the farm, my readers would know where I was located. However, if I started writing about the farm, my readers would know about it, and it would help Erica.

I started writing about the farm.

Not every one of my readers was from Connecticut; it was just as likely they were from Athens. But my analytics started to shift a little. I could see on the map where my readers were from, and the dot above Connecticut seemed to be getting larger. I had my blog stats emailed to me weekly, but I wasn't always sure what I should be doing with them. In my inbox there was also a message from Café Us. What was that?

The message was only a paragraph long. They were looking for the owner of my blog and had used some of their connections at Blogger to get my email address. They mentioned the traffic that was visiting my blog and wanted to help me grow it larger and integrate advertisers. Advertisers?

I searched for Café Us and found a website that was larger than any blog I knew of. It was filled with article after article where women debated hot topics. At the top of the page it said: Entertainment, Food, and Parenting: Coming Soon!

I heard Dean at the front door. I left Café Us and walked toward the door. "Dean? It's early."

"Shift cut short," he mumbled, and he tossed his keys on the chair by the front door. "I'm going to shower before dinner."

"Sure."