The New Girl

Fun Fact Friday!

* My daughter, TLNG, is going to be four on Monday. FOUR. Ohmymothereffinghell. I can't believe [we made it this far] it. Four seems, well, it seems like a little kid without any baby left and although there will always be that *residual baby* of mine who resides in there, she is longer of limb and more sophisticated of speech and just generally kid-like.

* She is also currently driving me 100% completely insane. Well. Not 100%. But CLOSE. You know how when you have a newly-minted two year old and everyone is all TERRIBLE TWOS! TWO YEAR OLDS ARE CRAZY! TWO WILL KILL YOU!! and they are and they almost do but then your two year old turns three and everyone is like, OH MY GOD, THREE IS WORSE THAN TWO! WHY DON'T PEOPLE KNOW THAT?! THREE IS TERRRRRIBLE!! and then your three year old is turning four and you think 'PHEW,' but yet, she's still wreaking fucking HAVOC in the library? and having complete temper-fits in the grocery store? and pulling kids' hair and pushing them in the gym kids' club?

Yeah. THAT.

With the added benefit of the ability to annoy you...ON PURPOSE.

I'm not going to make it.

* I find, though, that her development comes in waves. That every six months or so, I'm dealing with a week (or a few weeks) of destabilized behavior. For her that means acting out and doing things that she hasn't done in a long time. Pushing kids. Trying to hit me when she's mad. Getting super-duper frustrated with things. Then, as whatever her little brain or body is trying to accomplish gets worked out, she settles.

*Even though I know this, it's increasingly difficult (for ME) to tolerate behavior like the gym-club pushing, taking swipes when she's pissed and the darting behind the desk in the library. I start to wonder whether the behavior is *normal,* if you know what I mean. I know she has a tough temperament and I would be lying if I said I can't imagine where she gets it.  Ahem. But it's one of those things you see out of the corner of your eye and when you turn and look at it full-on, it's gone.

* What a nice birthday(ish) post, eh? I'll write a better one for Monday. Maybe. But still, let me say, that whatever intensity my girl has in these more, er, difficult traits, she carries the same dazzling intensity for her more desirable ones. She's sharp with a memory that would astound you. She's witty and funny and loves to make people laugh. She's affectionate and caring and has a shy vulnerability that makes my heart ache to see.

When she's not screeching like an owl, just to rattle my cage.

Plus, look.

Beauty.

That never changes.

Fucked Up Fact Friday!

* I have been OFF THE GRID for a long time, now, friends. I've lost contact with what a lot of you are doing. I've even been off Twitter. 140 characters were even too many, it seems. PATHETIC. At any rate, I've accumulated lots of crazy shit to talk about but no time-slash-inclination to talk about it.

* So, BULLETS IT IS. I don't even know where to start.

* Our childhood home was sold. So, officially, someone else lives in the house where I grew up. When I close my eyes, I can still picture where [the vast amounts of clutter] things lived. When I picture those things [like my wedding dress, balled up at the bottom of The Little Sister's bedroom closet] I have a sudden shock when I realize that the space is now empty-slash-filled with someone else's shit [and my wedding dress is in a box somewhere in The Little Sister's basement.]

* A week or so ago, I found out that my aunt was sick. 12 hours later, she died. It turns out she had forbidden my cousin to tell anyone about her illness. (The illness and the circumstances around its discovery and her decline, incidentally, were quite similar to those of my mother. Because of this and other things, my cousin wanted to talk to me right after the diagnosis but, as I said, her mom didn't want anyone to know.) Although I have no judgment about the way each individual chooses her way of dealing with such a thing as finding out she has terminal cancer, it strikes me as...odd? Painful? I don't know. Like I said, I don't/can't/wouldn't judge. But it was surreal to find out that she was sick only hours before she died.

* The Little Sister and I decided that the right thing to do was to go home and show up for the funeral. It's what I wanted to do for my cousins, whose pain I have known and for and with them, I mourned. I was not particularly close to my aunt (the wife of my father's brother) but I was close to my cousin growing up and those bonds, for whatever reason, still feel strong.

* It is an odd thing to attend the funeral of someone after you've lost your own mom. I remember when my grandmother died, almost exactly two years after my mother, that my grief felt...shallow. I was 8 months pregnant and very uncomfortable but it was more than that. My mom, only 58, was gone and that pain kind of...eclipsed the pain I felt when I lost my grandmother. It was like getting a few stitches two years after having had a conscious open heart surgery. I felt that way again, at the funeral of my aunt. I was also happy to my extended family and so the surreal feelings just kept coming. Weird.

* When my mom was dying, there was a long period during which she was lucid and able to reflect and converse. I say a long time but I'm talking like 4 weeks. Over the last week, the cancer was so advanced and the medicine so strong that she was only able to hold occasional conversation. During that month, she asked about my aunt and my cousin repeatedly. They had been the closest of the In-Laws and my aunt's absence was...conspicuous, made more so by the presence of literally every other Italian family member in the tri-state area. At the time, it puzzled me. Then, it enraged me. By the time they came, the day before she died, she was in the throes of 'terminal agitation' (just as awful as it sounds) and she was unable to communicate at all. I basically threw them out, the agitation was so...agitating.

* When my cousin finally called to tell me about her mom, I had kind of forgotten the anger I felt at her not showing up to see my mom. I chalked up their absence to having difficulty dealing with a tough loss and those feelings were reinforced listening to my cousin and the struggle she was having. It brought me back to those days and night of endless vigil. To the frustration and grief and sadness and tension and pain. And to what comes after. The pain that was waiting around the corner for her and her family. I was grief-stricken for her. And then she said, 'I thought you'd never want to talk to me again.' 'Why?' I asked, mystified. 'Because of your mom,' she said.

And just like that, something inside me popped. Lifted away and vanished. The anger had been there, I suppose, lurking. When she said that, I released it. For good.

"Don't think that," I said, meaning it, "everyone has a different way of dealing with things like that. I understand."

And I do.

* Sigh. Sadly, there are so many more fucked up facts--mostly having to do with the state of my kids' noses (STUFFY! AGAIN!) and shit like that but I fear that I've used up all of your patience and attention with DEATH TALK. The next thing I post, so help me, will be my son's birth story. Birth! Happiness! Babies! Yay!

* Have a good weekend, all. Thanks for listening.

Fun Fact Friday!!

Ho ho! You thought it was dead, didn't you?! (So did I. Totally.)

- For whatever reason, (it's totally a Mental Glitch, I know,) it kind of skeeves me when a man buys a woman clothes as a gift. I know it's crazy and if your man is tuned in enough to know [what size you wear] your taste in clothes and he buys you nice little gifts of clothes, that's awesome [but for whatever reason, a little skeevy. I don't know why. MENTAL GLITCH.]

- I was once watching an episode of Giada and her cute husband came home and brought her a present, a [tiny] pair of white pants and she was all excited and was all, 'I'm going to wear these awesome [size minus 4] pants to dinner!' and I was all, 'Hm. How...sweet [and a little ookey]!'

- Once, when I was dating The Tool, he bought me an *outfit* for Christmas. I'm saying that he went to The Limited, [flirted his ass off with the first woman he could find, I'm absolutely sure] approached the sales girl and asked her to pick out an entire outfit for me. She basically pointed him to a manikin and he purchased every single thing that manikin was wearing, down to the crazy bracelet with a million little balls on it. (The bracelet was the only thing I kept. Swear.)

- Do you guys remember those? The days of Pearls on Steroids? An over-crowded strand of whatever with all kinds of jingling and jangling?

It kind of looked like this, only mine was shades of bronze, copper and brown:

 

- When I was a surly pre-teen, my mom got me 'The Sweater' one year for Christmas. Jazzed as I was to get clothes for gifts back then, this sweater...it was..tragic. It was black and its front was host to a bazillion strawberries.  The strawberries were connected by a vine. On each cuff was a detail, two little berries. The sweater was expensive and well made and my mother looooved this sweater and her disappointment with my, uh, [incredibly rude and ungrateful contempt for it] reaction ensured this story remained one of the Golden Oldies in our family. You know, as in,  'It was like a STRAWBERRY SWEATER...' for any situation in which you were disappointed or disappointed someone else or when you badly misjudged another person's likes. So, it wasn't a total loss. That [horrible] sweater.

- Later in my teen years, a guy who *liked* me bought me a coat. A fucking fox fur coat. I have no desire to flip this into a judgmental, paint flinging, FUR IS MURDER, comment clusterfuck. I don't really care if you like fur, if you wear fur, if you sleep with a fur comforter, if you have fur lined gloves or undies. Whatever you do is your business and I could not be honester when I tell you I don't care. I just, you know, don't wear fur. And although I knew this guy, and he knew me, this gift was nothing short of Crop Circle Sized Sign that we were Never Ever Going To Be BFFs and that omg, he was a little, er, craaazy (not because it was fur but because it cost so fucking much and what the hell, dude?) (He actually DID turn out to be crazy, too, so.)

- He dropped the present off or had it delivered or something, because he wasn't there when I opened it. I was in the living room with my mom, my sister and my friend, I think.  When I moved the paper back and the soft, silky, silver fox fur became visible, my mother sucked her teeth and blew out a low whistle and chuckled. I swear, as she walked back into the kitchen, I heard her murmur under her breath, 'That poor sucker.'

- I never wore that coat but neither could I figure out what to do with it. It sat in my closet for years and years. And years. AND YEARS. When we went to clean out my dad's house (so weird to call it my dad's house. It was my mom's house, too. And mine and my sister's. So, the family house, then.) I found that coat in the closet, along with a GREEN MINI SKIRT. Made of SUEDE. omfg. Whaaat? I put them both into a bag and donated them to The Goodwill.

- I hope the same person buys them both. And rocks them OUT. At a costume party.

 

 

Fun Fact Friday!

* It is 6:23am.  My son woke up at 4something and warbled in his crib, sounding like a cross between a baby tiger and a musical saw.  My daughter woke up in the early Fives with the half-asleep-yelling-cranky-crazy-shit (which always, ALWAYS seems to end with the word: MOMMMMMMMYYYYYYYY!) only to have no idea what was wrong when I went in there.  The Man is taking the day off work today. AND SO, after a nursing in one room and a back tickle and a sip of water in the other room EVERYONE ELSE IN THIS HOUSE IS ASLEEP.

* I quit watching Grey's Anatomy, what? Three years ago, maybe?  It was all too much for me.  It was painful to watch the glooooom and the deprezzzzion and the whiiiiiining.  So, I was all pffftttt, DONE with Mer and Der and all that and I've never looked back.  Then, last night, Twitter went nuts about the season finale and so, this morning I googled and got the spoilers and you know what? NOT SORRY I quit it.

* For real and no shit, I was the subject of a graduate student's research. In the process, she recorded an interview, transcribed it, and blah blahblah, the long and short of it is that she sent me an email that had parts of the interview written out into different 'topics.' Seriously? I am the reason that she will be able to use the word 'Boobs,' and also...ALSO the word 'Shit' in her Master's Thesis.  Oh, I hope that she's grateful.

* I'm starving right now (up! since the FOURS!) but The Man and I have plans to take everyone to breakfast before we hit a THEME PARK to which we own SEASON PASSES.  That is all I shall say but I never wanted an egg sandwich more than I do RIGHT NOW.

* My dad has gone MOBILE.  If you are in the greater Philadelphia area, look out.  He got prisms for his glasses and the double vision is resolved with those and so he's been in his car, running short errands.

* In what I'm sure is related news: My dad is totally coming around and I couldn't be happier.  He has been staying at The Little Sister's house and right now, they are away.  I asked him how it was over there, curious to see if he liked the solitude again after a long time in the bustle of family life or if it would feel a little lonely.  He said, 'It's..quiet.'  I think he's starting to feel a little more connected to what's happening here.  The Little Sister said that if he did go back home right now, he'd probably sink into a major depression...being alone so much after living among real people and all.  I think she's right.  I think he does, too.

* He's also turning out to be quite the little Mother's Helper.  You know, like a 12 year old girl.  I'm saying, I wouldn't leave him alone with my children, but he can push the stroller or hold the bottle or run to the store to get me a can of tomatoes.  It is honestly a help.  Plus, I think he likes it.  He said on a walk yesterday, 'Eet seems like wherever I go now, I'm pooshing a stroller with me.'

Which, translated, means he likes it.

Fun Fact Friday: Let It Effing SNOW Already.

*So today there's supposed to be a [great big cluster fuck of snow] a snow storm and just now, before AH FLAKE of snow has fallen, a SALT TRUCK just rode by my house. Ahhh, Philadelphia area, you KILL me with the Pre-Snowstorm Hysteria. Not to mention the Snowstorm News Reporting Boner.

*When I was a kid, there was a WICKED HUGE (actual) snowstorm in my hometown. It dumped SO MUCH snow that my mother took MULTIPLE pictures of The Little Sister and me in it.  I think that she used us For Scale, because there we were, all snow-suited, booted and bescarved: on TOP of the snow mound, in FRONT of the snow mound, NEXT to the snow mound, ON THE OTHER SIDE of the snow mound.  Oh, if only I could locate those photos. I'd do it up like my girl, BOSSY.

*When I lived in center city, there was a gigantic, for real snowstorm that dropped 30-some inches in only a few hours. The Man drove in the storm to be snowed in WITH me, instead of WITHOUT me (aw) and he was in a Hooptie (Hoopdie? Hoopty?) and thankfully, he made it. Downtown Philadelphia was a ghost town.  The Man, The Kid and I walked down the middle of Walnut St. and EVERYTHING was closed.  Strangers talked to each other. It was SUPER SURREAL.

*On the night we walked down the middle of the street, I SHIT YOU NOT, we saw a Chinese guy, DELIVERING FOOD. Dudes. On his FUCKING BICYCLE. On. His. BICYCLE. In 30in of snow. Slipping and sliding like a mofo.  omfg.

*One kid I know watches the weather channel. He loves storms of all kinds. He put it this way and it's one of my favorite lines ever, 'I love big weather events.'

*When I first came here from the land of It Snows A Whole Fucking Lot All The Time So Everyone Is Used To It, I could not BELIEVE the 'Snow Coverage' in this area. (You know this was a long time ago because I was still watching the news.) Anyway. The news would cover The Snow. And then? The Snow. And then, hmmm, The SNOW. And then THE FUCKING SNOW. I would keep thinking that in the next segment, we were for SURE going to get back to the arsons and rapes and murders, but no. They would go to another reporter in a DIFFERENT part of town to report about the snow that was falling THERE, 2.5 miles away from where we JUST SAW THE SAME FUCKING SNOW FALLING. omfg. They had RULERS (still do, I imagine) and they would measure. Neighborhood by neighborhood. They stopped motorists in cars! Q:'How is it out there?' A: 'SLIPPERY.'  omfg. AHAHAHAHAAAAA!!

*I would call my mother and hold up the phone as they went from reporter, to reporter, to reporter and we would LAUGH and LAUGH and LAUGH our Snow-Experienced HEADS OFF. Don't get me started on the lines at the grocery store. Don't.

*The Man, who has lived in this area his whole life, is accustomed not to the snow, but to The Coverage. And when it snows, he WATCHES the coverage and actually ENJOYS it, in earnest.

*We have this interaction every single storm:

TNG: [after two hours of constant news snowstorm boner coverage] 'Can we turn off the tv now?'

TM: 'NO WAY! I want to see the coverage. I have to know what's going on with the storm!'

TNG: 'Welp. How 'bout you just look out THE FUCKING WINDOW, then?'

Seriously.

*I, too, like big weather events and I'm looking forward to the storm.  I just won't be watching the news.  (If I can help it.)

Fun Fact Friday--Two Tears In A Bucket Version

*  I have been feeling super maudlin for the last couple days.  I am feeling overly-sentimental (which for me means, like--at ALL) and I've been thisclose to tears numerous times each day, about such earth-shattering things as having forgotten to run the dishwasher before bed and the fact that my kid looks so fucking cute in pig-tails.  Is this a sign of impending labor and delivery?  LET US HOPE SO. 

*  I was so impressed by the tone and the caliber of the conversation about the (inexplicably) hot-button-topic of Meds During Labor, I can't even tell you.  I read the comments through again and have to say that I had more than a few incidents of, 'DAMN, I never even THOUGHT of that.'  I like when that happens to me and I think that when an issue that tends to get heated starts to attract trolls and assoholic anonymous commenters, the discussion gets muddled and I just get all fired up and learn really NOTHING new. 

*  I did/do agree that you could substitute a lot of things/issues into that conversation and find that Judging occurs in a widespread fashion and that it's a wired-in part of life, group dynamics and the human psyche.  I don't believe that there's a Utopia in which Judgment of Others will be forever forsaken but I do think it's nice to sidestep it once in a while.

*  On a related note, I don't believe that judging and/or being judgy about others' behavior/choices is an exclusively Woman on Woman crime.  In my own opinion/experience, men judge others and each other just as much (and as harshly) as women do.  I just think that they express it/communicate about it differently.  Dynamically, they are much less apt to group up the way women do (women's social networks being more community-focused, etc.) and so I think that the criticism and judgment that they wield sounds/looks [less dramatic, maybe] different and/or may be less noticeable.  It may also be about issues that are more relevant to them but even in the comments about Medication for LABOR, there were people who talked about the Judgment of Males.

* I think, think, I might be getting a cold.  That makes me want to sputter curses that would take up the rest of the WHOLE INTERNET. Because, SERIOUSLY??

*  I [finally got] asked The Man to transfer the video from the camera to DVDs and so, I've been [obsessed with] watching The Littlest New Girl when she was Littler and Newer.  There have been so many times that I thought, 'WOW! Everyone was RIGHT! This shit goes FAST!' I can't believe how different she is now and how quickly she's changed.  I also can't believe how much I FORGOT from when she was little.

*  I also laughed because I have not ONE video of my kid screaming her head off, which was, you know, how she spent MOST of her first SEVEN MONTHS.  This may sound like Common Fucking Sense, because what kind of nut-job would want to keep that shit for posterity?  And, you'd be right, obv.  It's just that I'm finding that my MEMORIES of her earliest months don't match the DOCUMENTATION.  And that's a little disconcerting. 

*  I'm writing this at 4:30 in the morning. Because I can't sleep. And? I wake up HUNGRY.  WTF?

*  I'm now officially OVERDUE.  

*  Did I mention how cute my kid is in pig-tails?

Pony tails, too.

I hope you have a great weekend!

Fun Fact Friday!

* Today is The Man's 40th Birthday.  We're celebrating with the regular MIL dinner (she's bringing the Chocolate Mousse Cake--HOLLAH!) TLNG told me yesterday, though, that we should, 'Have a party foh him, with PARTY HATS.'  I said that we certainly could, that we could have [left-over and readily available] Sesame Street Party Hats!'  To which she replied, 'No. WONDER PETS party hats.' OMFG.

* Twice last week, I walked out of the kitchen and back in to smell gas.  I looked at the stove and the middle knob was turned just a little.  [After freaking out and opening all the windows] I asked TLNG if she had been playing with the knobs on the stove and she said yes. [I] We had a long talk and I told her that it was dangerous and blahblahblaaaaah.  Then, the next morning I was making pancakes and I reached over the stove to get something to put on the counter and when I turned around, the knob was in the EXACT position it had been the two other times.  It was MY BELLEH. Geeezuz. (I took the knob off, yo.)

*  If you're doing the math, you will figure that The Man is almost exactly one year younger than I.  Every year, for the two spare weeks in between, I have to hear about how I'm TWO years OLDER than he is.  I'm never sad to see that go. [Jackass.]

*  Oddly enough, my grandparents had the Same Exact Situation.  And my GRANDFATHER used to make the same [jackassical] joke to my grandmother.  Not even the knowledge of this dissuades my husband from his folly.

* I don't have fears about not loving this baby as much as I love TLNG.  I had those fears the first time around and so, I feel like I know better.  I mean, I knew I would LOVE my daughter, I just was so unaware of the deeeeeep-ass, emotional (and even physical) connection I would feel to her.  I know that the connection I have to my son will be different but no less stupendous, so the thought that I might not love him enough doesn't keep me up at night.

*  The closer I get to delivering this kid, though, the more I am watching the development of TLNG and thinking, holy SHIT, am I going to miss it all now that I'll have a whole OTHER PERSON to watch?  Not that it would be a totally bad thing, to have my prying eyeballs out of every speck of her not-so-gradual unfolding of skillz and what-not, it's just...you know.  THAT is the fear that kept me up last night.  That and the general vulnerability of children which actually made me WEEP a little at 4am.  Ahem.

*  Last time, I was weeping about Stamps.  And this time? The vulnerability of children.  WTF? And I STILL have the post-partum crazy to deal with.

*  I am sitting at home, waiting for the baby's furniture to get here.  They did not give me a *window,* so I have no idea when they are coming. ::YO! NOT EVEN KIDDING! They just called me and they are ON THE WAY!::

*  Thank goodness, because I was afraid that I might not have time to go and get some Wonder Pets hats and balloons for our PARTAY tonight!

Have a great weekend!

Fun Fact Friday!

* Tomorrow is my 41st birthday.  I haven't thought about it at ALL.  I've been forgetting it, lost in the sea of chaos that is my existence right now.  I don't really care much either way about a birthday, though, so it's not all that out-of-character for me to forget.

*  Three out of four birthdays in this little immediate family of mine will be in September.  Well, the latest one BETTER be in September.  I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that it will be in October (*gets choked up and starts to weep*) but I'm clinging to hope.

*  The thought of going into labor spontaneously is scary for me.  I honestly didn't mind the induction last time for that reason. As strange as it was it know exactly when I would start the process, it was also oddly relaxing, in a way.

* My general lack of sentimentality makes me a HORRIBLE friend in relation to others' birthdays and special occasions.  Seriously.  This year, I owe at least FOUR (close) friends birthday gifts.  The only reason that I don't owe more, is that the YEAR ISN'T OVER YET.  Not to mention that I still owe one friend a WEDDING PRESENT from, like almost two years ago.  My one friends' kids get their birthday presents and Christmas presents at the same time--uh--CHRISTMAS.  Cripes.  I totally suck and I KNOW IT. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse.

* Sometimes when I'm looking at pictures of friends of mine on facebook, especially the ones that I know have relocated like me, I wonder how in the HELL they have so many pictures with friends all around them.  It makes me wonder if I'm anti-social or whaaaat.  Weird.

*  Despite my [striking lack of thoughtfulness] significant character flaw(s), I've managed to get and keep some of the best friends that a girl could ever want.  They all live hundreds of miles away, though, so there aren't any facebook pictures of me with all of them. 

* For the record, I DO remember the dates: 1/24, 5/7, 7/9, 7/24, 8/8, 11/14.  I usually just can't get my shit together to send things out.

* In the way that I'm secretly relieved when someone else's kid is the one acting up at the playground, I am also secretly relieved when I don't get a birthday card right-on-time from one of my friends.

*  How's this for crazy-ass?  When I deliver this baby, I will be (roughly) SIX MONTHS YOUNGER than my GRANDMOTHER was when _I_ was born.  That would make me TWENTY YEARS OLDER than my MOTHER was when she had me.  Crazy, right?  A girl could CHOKE on that kind of crazy.

Happy Weekend!  I'm going to be trying to convert an office into a nursery.  GEEZUZ.

Randomly Random Fact Friday!!

Proud Parenting Moment:
I was in the kitchen with The Little Sister and our kids were around the corner, in the living room, *playing.* (Which is usually a duration of 4.3 seconds during which The Nephew gets THISCLOSE to TLNG's face and lets rip a jungle-dweller-type scream, after which she yells, 'NOOOOO!' and BAAAAAAHPs him, kicking off a screaming-slash-wailing episode that measures something on a Richter Scale.)

But today they were talking to each other.  Asking and giving and 'pleasing' and 'thanking' and 'you're welcoming' each other.  The Little Sister and I were impressed [from our food-filled hiding spot.]  And then I heard my kid yell out:

'GREAT SHARING, GUYS! GREAT SHARING, GUYS!'

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The Little Sister called as I was making dinner to see if TLNG was 'okay.'  Then she told me that The Nephew had a temperature of 103 degrees.  So now, I'm WAITING, with DREAD for the middle-of-the-night-fever-spike-puke-fest that kicks off virtually any illness that TLNG gets.

Does this happen to anyone else's kids?  I mean, it's not even usually a puking virus.  It usually turns out to be a cold-like thing but the puking always comes first (and in the middle of the effing NIGHT.)

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I wrote it on Twitter and on Facebook but in case you don't follow and/or don't think of me as a friend, I'll tell you that some douchebag double-asshole motherfucker broke into our cars the other night.  They took my GPS and my sunglasses and he took The Man's work bag (which contained nothing but ALL HIS WORK.)  They even left the change (dollars worth!) and a couple gift cards.  The cop said that they are only after electronics and that they pawn them right away. Awesome.

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Speaking of Twitter, it's been fucking with me ALL DAY.  I know it got hacked and I can see your updates but I can't publish any of my own and I never realized how much I want to REACH OUT and bitch into the Universe.  The article about the hacking of Twitter ended with this quote:

"The lesson, he says, is 'not to limit yourself to Twitter and live or die by Twitter.'"

Baaaa ha ha haaaaaa!

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My kid, the comedian, has started to 'make faces.'  I have some photographic depictions for you:

Here is a neutral, 'What the fuck do you want me to-do-now?' face.

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This is the first attempt at a 'Mad Face.'  Also, she says, 'Grrrrrr,' while making this face.

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Second attempt at 'The Mad Face.'  Clearly, it needs work but the 'Grrrr' is pretty impressive.

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'The Scared Face.'

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This one she calls, inexplicably, 'The Bunny Face.'  I have no idea why but she says, 'Dis is deh Bunneh Fache,' through those comically stretched lips.  I've never seen a bunny make this face, though, so wth, kid?

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This is her 'Happy Face.'  It's the second attempt but how many pictures of my nasty grout do you need to see, really?

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And here, folks, is her NATURAL EXPRESSION, after she asked me to see the pictures that I just took and I told her to 'Wait one second.'  I call this one 'The My Mom Is An Effing A-hole Face.'

Have a great weekend!

Fun(ish) Fact Friday!!

* One of the interesting/surreal things that I experienced at Blogher that I didn't write about in my post on the subject (because, seriously, HOW LONG COULD IT BE?) was the level of connectedness there.  And by connectedness, I mean, to electronic devices and the internet (when you could get a connection, that is).  Initially, it struck me as almost surreal.  I come from a background of mostly [boring-ass] conferences where everyone faces front and uh, takes notes.  On paper.  At Blogher, it seemed that no matter WHAT was happening up front, EVERYONE was on iphones or laptops.  Or both. 

*  I have never seen so many iphones in one place.  Seriously.  Apple should sponsor Blogher because Bloggers?  Are sponsoring Apple.

*  I should have had a shirt made that said, 'Technical Din-o-SAUR' because, there I was, Twittering from my cell phone.  That, uh, FLIPS OPEN.  OMFG.

* It struck me that this was just a complete social norm for this group and that these super-connecters had totally FOUND THEIR TRIBE.  It must be a TOTAL DRAG to have that inclination and to be in a crowd of people who would find this behavior odd or out of the ordinary.  It was interesting to me, and made me wish that I'd purchased a Blackberry before I went.

*  I am, and have always been, a MAD DOODLER.  Grade school, high school, college, grad school, conferences, meetings, ET CETERA.  Any materials that we've been given have inevitably been COVERED in doodles, drawings, designs.  Depending on the peer group in the setting, this behavior is: 1) completely acceptable and shared by most of the other participants or 2) makes me look like a complete asshole who is not paying attention.

*  I totally AM, though.  Paying attention, I mean.  I'm not a complete asshole.  You'll just have to trust me on that one.

* I started a book on the plane about a kid who is bullied for his whole young life and then shoots up his school. 

*  Having worked with kids for a long time, I have seen my fair share of the range of bullying behaviors to which some kids are subjected.

*  I can unequivocally say that (for me, personally) if my child was being (for real) bullied in school, I wouldn't take a New York Hot Fucking Second before yanking her out to homeschool.  Not that I think that she'd shoot up a school or anything.  In fact, I think that the profile of a real school shooter would be a bit different than the one painted in this (fictional) account.  I'm just saying, I know how difficult the situation can be and how difficult it is for the adults in charge to actually effect change.  If you or your child was ever bullied, you have my UTMOST empathy because the whole situation sucks, Sucks, SUCKS.

*  After re-reading, I seem to have [careened out of control] veered away from the FUN and drifted solidly toward the ISH, in regards to the Facts in this post.

*  So, let me make it up to you.  Here's a fun fact about my days as a waitress (more of a story, really):

One time, I was walking into a PACKED dining room with a giant tray of food hoisted onto my shoulder and a plate in my other hand.  A rookie waitress came into the kitchen through the out door and caught the side of my tray, tipping it off balance.  THE WHOLE ENTIRE MESS came CRASHING to the ground, right outside the kitchen, in front of the whole dining room.  I turned and bolted into the way back, to compose myself (I swear, doing that is like being in a CAR ACCIDENT, that's how shaky you get).  After it was all fixed and things were calm, the [smart-ass] cook called me over and here was our conversation:

SAC: 'TNG, can I ask you a question?'

Me: 'Sure.'

SAC: 'You had a loaded tray, right?'

Me: 'Right.'

SAC: 'And you had a plate in your other hand, right?'

Me: 'Riiight.'

SAC: 'So, what happened to the plate in your other hand when you dropped the tray?'

Me: '------?'

SAC: 'I mean, did you just say, 'Aw, fuck it,' and throw it onto the heap?'

Have a great weekend!