Look at us being all cute and pretending to drink coffee at Starbucks! From left: Joy Larson, Tracy McCray, Jen Koski (me!), Missie Freetly, and Dawn Sanborn.
For the last five years, I've been the editor — and one of the official Chatters — of the Post-Bulletin's The Chat column. This column, for the uninitiated, consisted of three people, almost always women, chatting. About very important current topics. Like kindness in politics, and how to talk about gender issues, and what to do about panty lines. (And how the word "panty" should never, ever be used.)
Sometimes we had expert guest Chatters and sometimes it was just us — but no matter the mix, our goal was always to have frank discussions that would introduce varied opinions and ideas to our readers.
We liked doing it. And, as far as we could tell, our fabulous PB subscribers liked reading it.
Except for that one person who criticized our parenting skills. But he called us "girls" and spelled "parenting" wrong, so we didn't take him too seriously.
Anyway. In an effort to cut costs, the PB powers-that-be recently decided to cut The Chat from the Weekend Edition. Or any edition, actually.
So we took a few weeks off, celebrated the end of The Chat at a super fun happy hour with our new reader-friend Donna (see below), and then regrouped.
Regrouped? Yes, regrouped. As in decided that we didn't WANT to be done. That maybe it could be even MORE fun to do The Chat as a blog because then we could say ANYTHING we wanted and not worry about newspaper editors, well, editing us.
Oh... the possibilities.
So watch this space, people. Or, rather, watch this site. Because in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to figure out how to add another page to my website just for The Chat. And then we'll REALLY get rolling.
And I'll tell you what, I don't make a lot of promises, but I will promise you this: None of the future Chats will ever use the word "panty."
Sometimes we had expert guest Chatters and sometimes it was just us — but no matter the mix, our goal was always to have frank discussions that would introduce varied opinions and ideas to our readers.
We liked doing it. And, as far as we could tell, our fabulous PB subscribers liked reading it.
Except for that one person who criticized our parenting skills. But he called us "girls" and spelled "parenting" wrong, so we didn't take him too seriously.
Anyway. In an effort to cut costs, the PB powers-that-be recently decided to cut The Chat from the Weekend Edition. Or any edition, actually.
So we took a few weeks off, celebrated the end of The Chat at a super fun happy hour with our new reader-friend Donna (see below), and then regrouped.
Regrouped? Yes, regrouped. As in decided that we didn't WANT to be done. That maybe it could be even MORE fun to do The Chat as a blog because then we could say ANYTHING we wanted and not worry about newspaper editors, well, editing us.
Oh... the possibilities.
So watch this space, people. Or, rather, watch this site. Because in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to figure out how to add another page to my website just for The Chat. And then we'll REALLY get rolling.
And I'll tell you what, I don't make a lot of promises, but I will promise you this: None of the future Chats will ever use the word "panty."
It's The Chat's we're-done-but-we're-not-really-done Happy Hour celebration! Clockwise from top left: Dawn Sanborn, Missie Freetly, Jenny Rand, Pam Whitfield, Jen Koski (me!), Donna A. (she of the cool glasses and even cooler attitude), and Tracy McCray.