From C. Michon - Grrrl Genius

For those of you who found me through the Grrl Genius blog and don't know what happened to it on I-Village, I give you the following from Cathryn who responded when I posted the question of where she was (on her myspace page):

Hey L.,
It's beyond bizarre, and I still don't truly understand what has happened there.My reps will get into it next week, I am very worried that the actions of ivillage have done me real damage in terms of my public reputation, this was so weird and unexpected, and so not what we had discussed.If you'll forgive me, I'm going to cut and paste to you what I'm sending to the many, many people who have written.I've so loved hearing all your views, both of teaching, of marriage and new love and of being an expat.Thanks for being so much fun!Cathryn
See cut and paste below:

My blog is no longer on the site, in what turned out to be some strange and unexpected drama I didn't need. Two months ago I was told that ivillage was no longer paying for blog content, but I was welcome to keep writing it for as long as I liked. After soul searching, and actually adding up how much time I was spending on it that took away from other career activities, I decided I couldn't do it any more. No controversy as far as I knew. So, below, cut and pasted is what I am sending to the many people like you who are writing and asking, and also the farewell blogpost many didn't get to read.
I suppose if you don't like how this went down you can write comments to the blog of the Love and Sex Editor Josey Miller's blog "Sex On My Desk" or to the blog of Asst. Editor Marissa Gold on "Low Carb Love."The Editor in Chief Jennie Baird has an ivillage connect page that can be found at:http://www.ivillage.com/connectYou need to join ivillage.com to leave a comment there.Thanks, and I am so sorry that we didn't get a more proper goodbye....
Best,Cathryn

B.T.W. Since I wasn't paid for it, the blogpost below is my intellectual property, and you can feel free to post it on your own blog (if you have one) or send it to anyone who was part of the amazing community of readers who gathered at the Grrl Genius blog.

TO THOSE WHO ARE ASKING, "WHAT THE #$%^?": (This is not the blogpost, that's below)

I can't imagine what was so controversial to iVillage.com about what I wrote in this blogpost that they removed every trace of me, all the Grrl Genius blogs and all the archives off the site within 12 hours. In the two years I've been there, bloggers have come and gone, but ivillage has always left their farewell blogs up for weeks and months, allowing fans to follow the blogger to wherever. There was a somewhat strong reaction from readers, a few hours after I posted the blogpost below. There were some vehement protests from my very loyal fans, about 30 comments by the time I went to bed, which is alot, but many of my readers are on east coast time, and I posted this blog at 7:00 P.M. their time. Since I regularly get over a hundred comments on blogs I am sure there would have been many, many comments on this one. I can't think that would have been a suprise to iVillage. I once got over 600 comments when I suggested that maybe, just maybe, if you are married, you should consider having sex with your husband once in a while, if you wanted that marriage to work out. It crashed their server for part of the day.If I had known what was going to happen when I posted this, I'd have done it earlier in the day, allowing the people who seem to read it every day to find out what happened. It never occured to me that iVillage would do this, as my relationship with them has always been really nice. I've had nice lunches with the iVillage ladies, and they've come to my shows. I've done a ton of national media for them, and they've always seemed really supportive. No one there has ever said anything negative about my work there. My blog was the most popular blog that was originated on ivillage.com. I regularly got more comments than even Meredith Viera.I recieved no email notice from them saying that they were taking down the content. They just "disapeared" all of my writing, and the comments of my readers, which were voluminous, at an average of 82 comments per blog.Needless to say, I have gotten a lot of emails, through my website and myspace page from fans, wondering what the hell happened.Here was my farewell blogpost after over two years of writing three times a week for them. If you have any notion as to what could have offended them, I'd love to hear it.All I can think of is a. they don't want people to know they are no longer paying for blog content or b. because they are owned by NBC Universal they were concerned that I mentioned the writer's strike.Though that would be weird, because both authors and readers say inflamatory things on the blogs all the time, use foul language, criticize various corporations or political leaders etc. My contract specifically stated I had full creative control.Hey, I called the makers of Benecol "the heart healthy spread" (that contains trans fats) KILLERS (because they are) so, you know, I've been a lot more inflamatory than I was in what I wrote here.It's just very, very weird. I did not expect this at all. Cathryn
P.S. The full blogpost follows:

Econ 101
My Dad is an economist, and a businessman, and he taught me one thing I will always remember:Time is money.Everybody needs money, and the money that we get comes from how we spend our time. We all make choices everyday how to spend our time (in order to earn a living) and hopefully have some time left over that we can spend with friends and family, knowing that we are sheltered and fed.A few months ago, iVillage.com brought on a new editor in chief, Jennie Baird. I haven’t met Jennie, but she has been highly regarded in the world of the Internet. Previously she was at AOL and was a great success there.Probably because she has observed the trend of free content on the web (most evident in the overwhelming popularity of Youtube) Jennie has made the difficult business decision that iVillage.com will no longer pay for blog content.Which means I can no longer afford to write this blog, and as of next Friday, there will be no more Grrl Genius blog on iVillage.com. I don’t know how long the archives will remain on the site, but I won’t be creating any new content. No one will be taking over the blog because Grrl Genius remains my intellectual property and franchise.It was my decision when I took on this blog to make sure that every blogpost was a well crafted stand-alone column I would be proud to have anyone look at, even if they only read just one posting. As often as possible, I wanted the blogposts to be truly funny, not “funny-esque,” while still being about topics we all cared about. For me, that takes a lot of time to craft. Further, I wanted it to be a real conversation with the readers, not just a one way blurt from me, which took further time. I wanted it to be positive, uplifting and most of all, fun.A fun look at dating and relationships. A blog about love, in all its incarnations.I managed to keep up the pace of three columns I wasn’t ashamed of per week, while making a feature film, working on a network TV show and traveling doing performances (as well as maintaining a constant backlog of upcoming projects, due to the tremendous amount of failure inherent in show business).To survive doing what I do means cooking on high all the time, using all the burners.It’s scary times here in my hometown of Los Angeles. This month the Writer’s Guild (of which I am a member) is taking a strike vote over some issues that are pretty crucial to all artists in my industry, mostly involving, well…(ironically) free content on the Internet, and artists not being paid for the use of their work.For example, the episode I wrote of “Side Order of Life” has rerun on Lifetime, for which Lifetime sells commercials, for which I will get paid with a residual (an ever decreasing fraction of the original amount I was paid to write it).But that very same episode runs on their website (with paid commercials) and millions of people can download it and own it forever and I get paid nothing for that. Most artists in Hollywood also get paid nothing for DVD’s.So the odds are that there will soon be an industry-wide strike in Hollywood over these issues. The networks and studios want us to believe that instead of residuals they will give us a fair share of profits from DVD’s and the Internet. But when a film like “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” which cost 5 million dollars to make and grossed $368 million in theatres (and even more in DVD) is declared by the studio to be “not yet in profit” things don’t look good for artists getting their fair share through this promised "profit participation." That’s why Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Nia Vardolas are suing to get their portion of the proceeds of that film.And that’s probably why there will be an industry-wide strike of actors, writers and directors. Every single business in L.A. suffers when there is an entertainment strike. It’s like what happens in Detroit when they stop making cars. I so wish it wouldn’t happen, but smart money is saying it will.Like most of my fellow actors and writers I am just a middle class person in show biz (not a superstar with oodles of money to live off when I’m not working) so I have to spend as much time as I can creating projects I can live off of when there is no paying work to be had as a writer or actress here.Which means I can’t afford to spend the 25 hours a week or so that I spend on this blog.I couldn’t be sadder to say goodbye to all of you. Sharing my writing with you, and reading your responses has been a true pleasure. But I wouldn’t be living the Grrl Genius philosophy I espouse here if I didn’t take care of myself first.I am currently part of a venture that is backed by a major female celebrity who I am not allowed to name (or even coyly hint at) that will be a website that has video content, where I will have a video blog. That’s not due to happen until next year.If you want to stay in touch with what I’m doing, I will post updates to my myspace page www.myspace.com/cathrynmichon) and I will send bulletins to you directly if you join the “new membership” section and leave your email address at (www.grrlgenius.com).So, like my Dad taught me, I have to face up to the fact that my time is my money. I wish I had more of both, so I could afford to spend more time here with all of you.However, as I said here recently, “The meek may inherit the earth, but I didn’t inherit a thing, so I have to work for a living.” I feel blessed that I have been able to do work I love as well as eat three meals a day and have a roof over my head (plus some cute shoes). I’m a lucky Grrl Genius.Please feel free to use the time remaining while this blog is active to promote yourselves, to remind people here where to find your blogs or myspace pages or websites or whatever you are up to, so that you can keep up with each other in whatever way you like.Turn the blog into one big commercial for YOUR genius. I’d like nothing better.It’s been a pleasure to write for you, and to get all the delicious doses of your genius back. I have written 223 blogposts here, and received over 18,000 comments back (18,491 comments to be exact). That means that collectively, you worked on this blog much harder than I did. Thank you so much for being the greatest Internet experience I ever had. I will miss you, and your genius.