Who am I?
Welcome to “Do I have chalk on my face?” My name is Denise and I write this blog as a creative outlet and an avenue for highlighting everyday stuff that seems funny and absurd to me. I have been married since the 90’s and I have two adult kids who are mostly launched. Bottom line, I am entirely irrelevant to anyone under 40 but still hope that I am entertaining to people who believe their dogs have feelings, are slightly clueless about social media and can laugh at how weird most of us can be.
So, what’s the deal with the name of the blog? (origin story)
While we started our family and until our kids were in middle school, I taught economics at a community college. My classroom was originally equipped with an old school chalkboard and very few of the students attended class with laptops or cell phones. Since I was standing in front of a room of fifty students who were an average age of twenty and not distracted by technology, I was very conscious of what I wore to teach class. I wanted my outfits to be malfunction-proof – meaning no accidentally open zippers or buttons and definitely nothing see-through or revealing. As much as I tried not to embarass myself, I would often leave class, get into my car and realize that I had chalk all over my face. Eventually, I became comfortable enough in my role as a teacher that I would just ask my students, “Do I have chalk on my face?” And, more often than you would think, I did. Luckily, the college updated all of the classrooms with white boards and computer projection and this problem solved itself.
What is this blog about?
The seeds of this blog started over 20 years ago when my son was starting kindergarten. Friends of mine made a new friend at their local public school who said she went to college with me and that we were in the same sorority. Long story short, I ended up finding out that this woman was inexplicably lying about what sorority she was in. This became known as “the fake Kappa” story. From there, I realized I had lots of stories, possibly had a knack for telling them and that I wanted a way to get these stories out of my head and distribute them to friends who might appreciate them. I wrote, posted and sent the first four posts to my tight group of fourteen friends from UCLA knowing they would be my best cheerleaders. Over the last five years, I have surprisingly found lots of support for my odd topics and funny moments from my fellow Bruins as well as a growing group of readers that I know from growing up in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California, attending grad school at UCLA, working in San Francisco, volunteering, playing tennis, raising kids in Silicon Valley and being pushy with acquaintances and strangers.
What else?
Now that I am five years into this project, I have decided to enlist the help of one very fabulous 20-something to help me get more organized, produce content on a schedule, be more savvy on social media and finally put my name on this blog. Get ready for an updated look and feel, more features on my site and, hopefully, lots more comments!
The majority of my writing on this site varies from friendship pitfalls, organizing my closet, and even a discussion of throuples, Also, a bunch of my posts are about living experiments in New York City and London. These are arranged in a series and are an informal travel/living experiment sub section of the blog. Additionally, there are a few repeating series including “binge reports” – my recommendations of content to watch, read and listen to – as well as new year’s resolutions (for myself and others).
If you are new to this blog and are not sure where to begin, here are a few my favorite posts:
And, here are a few of my friends’ favorite posts (thank you to Catrina, Courtney, Victoria and Sook for doing a deep dive):
Do I have chalk on my face? by Denise Geschke 
One response to “about the blog”
Since I was not a reader of your blog from the very beginning, I am very happy to finally understand the fake Kappa references (and what a bizarre thing for that woman to do, knowing you could easily debunk her claim)! People are so weird.
”Getting to Know Work Husband” was always my favorite one of your blog posts, but now I want to go back and read all of the other favorite columns!
And maybe it’s the Jersey in me (probably) but I don’t think of you as pushy at all! I’m afraid that might say more about me than about you though. 🙂
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