Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

My heart is breaking.

It's the second full day of freedom for me, so why am I in a foul mood? You would think with the mass destruction of New Orleans I might be able to step out of my own minor heartbreaks and life upsets and feel so incredibly lucky for what I have. Instead I feel my own minor problems and the accompanying emotions involved in those minor heartbreaks being combined into a big fat pile of shitty feelings about the overwhelming tragedy in the south. All I want to do is cry.

I hate when I leave cryptic posts. Im sorry but it's all that will come out of my fingers today and it's all I am able to give right now.

Life Is Good.

Today was a Banner Day for the Summers'.

First and most importantly:

Today I used the very last of the Vat o' Mayo I purchased in a moment of extreme mania last year when Maddie had that fucking Lice. The Vat o' Mayo was huge, but I'm happy to report (but not as happy as Logan is), another of my New Years Resolution's has been fulfilled.

It is.....all gone.

Oh, and also today....my daughter marched into school like she's an almost 7-year-old who doesn't struggle with new situations. I don't cry about school, obviously. But I do cry when Maddie is scared or struggling to feel comfortable. Let's all pray she keeps on feeling as brave as she did this morning when she kissed me goodbye at the door and walked into the school by herself.

In closing I would like to ask: Why do cats love the sink so much? [link via Metafilter]

Things are going to get better now

Tonight is like Christmas Eve. Tomorrow is the first day of school. Holy fucking shit, I can not believe I made it through one more summer. Did I? Did I survive another summer break? Can we all agree it would be wise to have year-round school in Michigan, in all of Michigan? We could do that if we wanted you know, we could call it "Melissa's Law".

I was so excited to talk about the first day of school until tonight we happened to be watching the MTV Video Music awards, which took an ugly turn for us when Kelly Clarkson won for best pop act and we realized we're full of hate because we hated that she won that award. But do we know her? Have we talked to her? Who are we to judge? Way to spread the hate Logan and Melissa! Where are your journalistic standards? Anyway....

Dane Cook came on to present and I said to Logan, "Sweet fucking christ, you're going to love this guy." and then poor, poor Dane. He did a really horrible bit about a micro chip in a newborn infant which would explode if you couldn't find your child.

Uh, Ha! Funny. But not really. Exploding children. Yes, I'm a liberal, but not so funny.

A few weeks ago I heard Dane on Drew and Mike and nearly wet my pants listening to him. Then Heather also referred to Dane and his Monkey/Heist bit, which specifically made me grab my face and cover it with my hands to stop the laughing.

I wanted to talk tonight only about Maddie's first day of school and how I survived an entire summer of kids with just 10mgs of Lexapro, but then I had to prove to Logan how hilarious Dane Cook is even though he tanked on MTV tonight. We just spent $13.99 on the album download at the iTunes store and since we sat in bed grabbing our faces and shrieking with laughter for nearly an hour. It was worth it.

But even more so: School Starts Tomorrow!

Mr Important Ad Guy

Once upon a time Logan had a much less stressful job. Once in a while he even had time to log onto an IM service and we'd send witty banter back and forth during the day. But then one day he became, "Mr. Important Ad Guy" and all that stopped.

Now he rarely has time to look at the internet, which is ironic considering my position with Flogging Baby* requires me to browse the internet all the fucking time.

(*My mom called the other day to tell me I had a typo on my website. No, it's not a typo it's a joke muth-errrr.)

It made me giggle today when he sent me a link to this site, which EVERYONE has already seen. But Logan was like, "Hey! Check this out! The internet has more than porn!"

Of course, I'm a smart ass and responded with twenty links to things relating to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, including Wee Wonderfuls' lovely FSM Softy.

This has backfired in my face because now Logan would like me to buy him some felt because he's been inspired by Hilary's great site and designs.

What I'm trying to say is: My husband wants to sew.

Nobody likes a smart-ass.

Soccer Practice

Last night Madison attended soccer practice for the first time. There was a time I didn't believe she would ever be involved in sports.

When Madison was born our doctor told us she had 'turned in' feet and we needed to see a specialist about them. The word 'Club Foot' was never mentioned as an option, we referred to her feet as 'turned in' and I think we did that because the term 'Club Foot' brings to mind some fairly horrible images of feet which looked like clubs. I tried to find some images of what I imagined Club Foot looking like at the time, but when I'm honest with myself, most of the images look kind of like what Madison's feet looked like when she was born. They were twisted, and looked like she would walk on her ankles rather than her feet. I look at the images of Club Foot and they make me wince but I suppose I'm a mother because my daughter's twisted feet never made me wince.

We saw the pediatric orthopedist, a man with the bedside manner of a caveman. His idea of 'interaction' with his small patients involved clucking at them and maybe using an index finger to poke at them. Thankfully Madison was too young to be cynical about the man clucking at her in an attempt to make a connection because she was by far the doctor's "best patient". We went once a week for six months to see the doctor who put casts on our babies legs at each visit. She laid on the table while the doctor stretched her foot into the correct position and the nurse wrapped fiberglass casts around her feet.

The best part about the casts were the questions from strangers, "Oh dear, what happened?" I would answer, "Oh, skiing accident." Or "Hockey!" Or "Well I accidentally broke her legs, you know how kids are!"

The castings lasted until she had a surgery at six months old and after that she wore special shoes with a brace at night. Her feet after all that, were perfect. Although, she has her father's hammer toes. Poor, poor thing.

A couple of years later we started preschool and it was the first time I'd seen Madison around a large group of kids her age. I'd noticed how Maddie climbed the stairs differently than her playdates did and that she was less physically active, but chalked it up to differences in each kid's development. The very first day all the children were running around the lawn of the school after class was over. Watching all the kids jumping and running so much more adeptly than my daughter, I knew something was wrong.

I asked the teachers to watch and a week or so later they told me that yes, she seemed delayed. I took her to physical therapy and at the initial meeting we found out that things were far worse than I'd realized. All these things I'd thought of as my daughter's mannerisms, turned out to be signs of her whole body weakness.

As a baby, a milestone is reached when you pull your baby's arms and his head stays level with his body as he rises to sit, rather than letting his head fall back. Madison had reached that milestone, I was sure of it. But when the therapist pulled her up to sitting she struggled hard to keep her head level with her body, it fell back behind her. When she climbed stairs, she used her arm on her thigh to help lift her body up to the next step, a sign of muscle weakness.

I vividly remember leaving the physical therapy appointment with words like 'severe atrophy' and 'degenerative' and 'Pediatric Neurologist' racing through my head. Max was about six months old at the time and was suffering through one very long ear infection we could not get rid of. On the way home from that physical therapy appointment we had to stop at the pediatricians for more antibiotic shots which hurt my poor boy terribly. Pretty soon, he was screaming in agony, Maddie was crying with fear and I was sobbing in the doctor's office.

We spent the next eight months in physical therapy with Madison and she worked so hard. We saw three pediatric neurologists during that time and each referred us to the next until we finally ended up in the office of a very respected neurologist in our area. By the time we'd found our way to him I'd begun to feel better about Madison's issues. That the physical therapy was working and maybe she was just slow to bloom physically. But the day we saw him more words I didn't want to hear came out. Muscular Dystrophy. Multiple Sclerosis. Mild Cerebral Palsy.

We took her for an MRI to rule out some of those issues and that experience is an entire other post. It was horribly traumatic for Madison and Logan, but it came back clear and we breathed a sigh of relief. Until we went back to the neurologist, who said he still thought something was wrong and we needed to do an EMG. An EMG is a very painful test involving a needle electrode which is inserted into muscle to test muscle function. My friend's 60 year old mother found the test extremely painful, I can't imagine what it would feel like for a three-year-old.

The hardest decision we ever made as parents was to go against this well respected expert and say no to the EMG. I spent many head throbbing days seeking input and information and discussing the issue with Logan but in the end we had to say no for a few reasons. The MRI was psychologically traumatizing for Madison. She'd seen so many doctors that year and had worked so hard in physical therapy, we were reluctant to put her through anymore. When we asked the neurologist what we would do if we found out she did have one of the issues we were ruling out, he said, "Well we'd send her to physical therapy, but for insurance purposes it would be worthwhile to have a diagnosis."

We already had her in physical therapy and she was making improvements. It's hard to face a specialist and tell him you disagree and that you won't do as he's recommending. I didn't feel he was wrong, I felt he was on a search for a problem to diagnose. We had taken action without a diagnosis, if she stopped improving or got worse we would have gone back for the EMG. But still there was a voice in my head saying, 'But he's a nationally renown neurologist.....'

Today she runs a little slower than the other kids. She's been a little slower to catch onto things like skipping and galloping. However, she never gives up anymore, she runs as best she can. We've never mentioned to her gym teacher or her elementary school teachers the delays she had as a preschooler and it's never been an issue anyone's noticed. She's in the range of normal and has been since kindergarten.

It's a relief to see it happen even though we didn't put her through the EMG. It's a relief to see her running around a soccer field like a regular kid. Any lack of coordination can be easily traced directly to my genes and not to her clubfoot or gross motor delays. I can't wait to see her in her first soccer game.

Antiques Road Show

Logan is a very sensitive and sentimental guy, yet we'll be watching Antiques Road Show and someone will have a collection of let's say, vintage dryer lint or Tiffany jewelry, which has been lovingly cared for and handed down through eight generations of a single family. This lint (or jewels) is the only tie these people have to their ancestors, a tangiable shared history.

He'll listen to the stories of the vintage dryer lint and how on her 18th birthday her mother handed it on to her and how she had gotten the lint from her own mother on her 18th birthday right before she was hit by a runaway horse carriage and so on and so on. Logan will say, "That's such a touching story." Maybe he'll wipe away a tear or two.

But when it turns out the collection of dryer lint is actually extremely valuable, or even just a little valuable he immediately says, "SELL IT. Sell it immediately. Buy a car."

Let's not forget what kind of car Logan's driving. The fact that he hates the damn car and it will never die and he'll be driving it for the rest of his life is I'm sure coloring his lack of sentimentality in the face of valuable antiques.

It's entirely possible we'll be lovingly handing that car down through eight generations of our family and one day it will end up on Antiques Road Show and our future great-great-great-great-great grandson will stand in front of the camera as the appraiser says, "Yes, I know it says it has a Hemi, but this is a sticker. It's a sticker from an early 2000 advertising campaign for an automotive company called Dodge."

And our great-great-great-great-great grandson will look into the camera and send monumental curses upon Logan's long dead soul for cursing him with the car which will never, ever die.

And yes, this is what Logan's nightmares are made of.

All I can think about is Babies.

I have the world's largest and most expensive drying rack in my kitchen. Our drying rack used to be our dishwasher but a few weeks ago a repairman came to our house and said, "Blah blah blah, broken, more to fix than get a new one." Surprise! We don't have extra cash lying around to buy appliances with so we've been hand washing dishes for a few weeks and for the first time in my life I have dishpan hands. Which is just so great because there's nothing else to do around this house.

These last weekends of the summer feel incredibly frantic. We had an extended playgroup on Friday and a party late into the night Saturday and then a day at the beach today. It's all wonderful but it does feel like we're all trying to soak in enough fun to last us through the long and deadly weekend. Isn't it amazing how I can take anything good and make it negative. Believe me Logan adores that about me.

The drag about this pace of life is I really can't remember anything I want to talk about. Also the BloggingBaby thing, I don't care what anyone says, it is difficult to come up with 4-6 things a day to write about. I'm thrilled with the opportunity, but I'm feeling tapped out. Perhaps I won't feel the same once I get the kids settled in their new schedules. One more week until Madison is back to school....ONE more week.

Oh hey, it turns out you can't put 7 gigs worth of photographs on your little laptop and then complain about how slow it is. We take a lot of fucking pictures these days. My friend Leslie's husband said to me recently, "Do you go anywhere without that camera?"

No, no I don't.

I promise you're the most important to me.

I swear to God I'm not blowing you off. But the schedule they like at Blogging Baby is kicking my ever loving ass. I've committed to writing 4-5 posts a day and Jesus, it's not always easy.

I did post an update on Maddie's situation over there this morning and later today I'm showing you how to make your own "Art Clip Racks" (link won't go live until 12:30pm).

Right now I have to go to playgroup, which is on the other side of Woodward, which means I may be trapped in traffic forever. Fucking Dream Cruise. I'll be back over the weekend and I promise I won't share one bit of parent related news and I'll swear a lot.

Clearly Labeled.

Remember when I said all requests for advice would be clearly labeled? I was serious!

Design Public

I wrote something for the Baby Blog-A-Palooza at Design Public. It's about Logan, but it was supposed to be about kids. So I'm stupid! But then I realized sometimes Logan is like a child. In fact, sometimes when I'm chatting with aquaintances and I mention how picky Logan is, they say, "How old is Logan?"

He's 37.

So in that way he is sort of like a child. I had so many examples of our butting heads about design: the olive paint on our walls (Too Olive! Not Olive Enough!), the sofa we bought after we married (NO SKIRTS!!! I HATE SKIRTS!). He's an artist so he has an opinion about every single thing....even bedding. (NO FLORAL!)

So that's what I went with.

In other news: I'm addicted to news sources. I lay in bed at night wondering if something is happening in the world which relates to parents. We saw childless-friends this weekend and I dazzled them with stories about junk food bans in schools and did you know Dieter Zetsche's wife throws wicked awesome parties!

And they stare at me and drool runs out their mouths because I'm like the Cliff Claven of the parenting world.

In other other news: I think what I hate about my hair is that it reminds me of the Dutch Boy on the paint containers.

In even more news: Tonight we're going to see the Candy Band at the Zoo and there will be alcohol consumed. Yes.

Co-Written By My Sinuses

This morning I woke up with my face lying next to me on my pillow. Where my face had once been was one large, painful sinus. As Logan left for work, he said, "Do you want some ibuprofen or something for that?"

I said, "Oh no...no...I'm fine."

Then my entire head exploded. The End.

This weekend is the "Dream Cruise", I'm using those quotes ironically, because the [fingers]Dream[fingers] Cruise, annoys the ever loving shit out of me. I used to find it annoying that people complained about the event, because big woop! People in Detroit love cars and it's just one day we can't use a major road in our area. Just one day a year you have to avoid doing things on the other side of Woodward. Just one day a year you have to go out of your way to the freeway to visit your friends on the other side of the road.

But then the other night, Sunday night, six whole days before the one day event, we drove down Woodward and already there were people lining the road watching for classic cars. But instead they look like dumb asses watching my stupid minivan travel down the road. At first Logan and I were laughing about the people watching our minivan. But then, I started to feel angry at these people with their fold up chairs on the side of the road.

I said to Logan, "I sort of want to jump out of this minivan and shove all those people and then steal their stupid chairs."

Logan just stared at me and I realized I was maybe overreacting so I said, "Look, my sinuses are really painful right now."

On the bright side, Logan designed a vinyl wrap for a vintage school bus a local radio station will be driving through the cruise. It's really cool but I don't think I can show you until after the fact but I'd like you all to imagine designing a piece of vinyl large enough to wrap around a bus. I'll give you a hint: It takes a long ass time.

*Have I mentioned there are 13 days until school starts for Madison? Because there are 13 days.

I'm now the Mindy Cohn of the blogging world!

I don't want to write about every piece of hate mail I get because that's all I'd be writing about: who doesn't like me this week. They don't like my foul language or use of the word 'retard' or they think I'm stupid and for the life of them they don't know why people are reading my drivel. I mainly delete those or send back a form letter Logan helped me write:

"Dear Suburban Bliss Reader,
Thank you so much for your note. Readers like you make my day!
Keep reading!
Melissa"

This infuriates some of the people who send me 'input', because they were trying to tell me they DON'T LIKE what I'm writing. Why did I ignore their input? I ignored it because I disagree or because I didn't ask for it or because I don't like it.

So I can't really write about every piece of annoying mail I get. But then this week I got a piece I really disliked, heartily and I was going to ignore it but then I got another piece of annoying mail and decided, "Well what the hell! I won't talk about that one but the one before it, I can talk about now."

The amusing thing about this email was that it was not at all intended to be offensive or annoying. The woman who sent it only meant to give me advice and maybe tell me a few things. The problem is the subject was: "Hi Michelle!" (My name is Melissa)

But I thought, well okay. The note started with this: "I've been looking at the pictures from Blogher and I think I like you the best because you're not skinny like the others. I can relate to you."

Which, okay. Now you've called me Michelle, the fat, relateable one. I was sort of offended (because my fatness has been on my mind a lot lately) but I decided to keep reading because the note was 5 robust paragraphs long. It turns out this person wanted to call me Michelle the fat, relateable one but she also wanted to read my archives and give me all kinds of unsolicited advice about 'Michelle's' spending, 'Michelle's job hunt and job training'. She also wanted 'Michelle' to give up her finances to Jesus.

Never mind that the advice was for someone named Michelle. Never mind that the advice was unasked for. Never mind that the advice was totally useless since it was based on information from 5 to 18 months ago and my situation has changed since that time.

I tried to take a deep breath and respond rationally. I came up with this.

"Hi Mau****:

My name is Melissa, not Michelle. The fact that you've called me fat was bad enough but that you just wrote 5 paragraphs of advice for a person named Michelle and not Melissa shows exactly why people should not give advice to virtual strangers on the internet.

But uh, thanks? I guess?

Melissa"

She wrote back and told me, among other things, that I am a "wanker", that bloggers put themselves "out there" so they (I guess) deserve whatever they get.

Yes, yes, I guess because we write on a website we "deserve" to be treated however some ass on the internet chooses to treat us. Somehow we aren't allowed to draw boundaries. We must smile and nod politely when someone gives us five paragraphs of totally outdated and unhelpful advice, doesn't know what our name is and calls us the fat, relateable one.

It's incredibly frustrating and it's not the first time this week I've heard that argument. That because we write on these websites we are asking for nastiness to be returned to us. It's fine to disagree with my opinion or something I write but when you call me by the wrong name and give me a metric assload of unsolicited advice I am somehow forbidden from having my feelings hurt? Or responding unkindly?

Personal website or not: I am allowed to draw boundaries and expect that they will respected.

All requests for advice will be clearly labled. Please remember my name is Melissa (my email address is actually MelissaSummers_at_wowwaydotcom, so uh? What the fuck?) and I am sensitive about my weight so starting any emails to me with a comment about my weight, will not be met with openhearted kindness.

I'm glad we had this talk.

*Mindy Cohn
**I call Alice gets to be Tutti, but only if she has roller skates.

Happy Birthday To Pants

Tonight Logan will blow out 37 candles on his birthday cake. Then the house will burn down.

I know I've used this picture of him before but when I asked where all his baby pictures were he said, "I think they're at my mom's." I have a feeling his mom wouldn't exactly love to turn over her family photos for me to publish on this website, so an old picture it is.

Also especially for Briantology, here's Mr Rock and Roll hair!

Happy Birthday Baby. Only three more years until you can have that mid life crisis!

My dreams are wearing me out.

I've been very overwhelmed lately. There are a lot of things to get done and when I go to sleep I think about those things and instead of my sleep offering me relief from my to-do list, I end up dreaming about doing all the stupid things I have on my list. I'll tell you, you haven't dreamed until you've dreamed about all the mundane things which make your life work.

In the last week I've dreamed about exotic things like taking mail to the post office, folding laundry (and putting it away!), doing the grocery shopping (and putting it away!) and going to the bank. I have also dreamed about cleaning the bathroom, writing something amusing, which is unfortunate because I have yet to do that.

The thing which is so depressing about dreaming about your everyday life is that you wake up and still have to do it all over again, even though you just spent the last eight hours doing it all in your dreams. The 'good news' is that last night I had a dream unrelated to my daily chores.

I was Jennifer Garner, except I was possessed with the devil. In this dream I would look at myself in the mirror and think how I didn't want to be possessed with the devil, I mean, look at me! I'm Jennifer Garner! This is an obvious mis-casting! I'm cute and adorable! How can I have the spirit of Satan in my soul?

But then someone would talk to me and I would growl back at them and I felt horrible about that. I was cute and loveable (and also skinny) but possessed with the devil.

I'm currently in a really self loathing place and I'm thinking this was my mind's way of saying: You could be cute and loveable (and skinny!) but then you'd be married to Ben Affleck and possessed with the devil.

Thank goodness, I'm not cute or married to Ben Affleck. But most of all, thank God I'm the fattest I've ever been in my life!

(PS: Don't send me email about how I can lose the weight because duh, I know how to lose weight.)

Remedial Bartending.

I almost killed my husband this morning. He was attempting to complete a simple task (burning a few images onto a disc for a freelance job) and the children were playing 'Wolf' and I said, "Do you see what I'm talking about? It's hard enough to simply transfer jpeg's to a disc, it's impossible to concentrate enough to actually write out a complete thought in this house." (three weeks until school starts! Thank you Jesus!)

He replied, "I just tell them to go play somewhere else."

"Oh really," I said. "Go ahead, try that and let me know how it works." I then turned to Madison, "Daddy just has all the answers doesn't he?"

She said, "No he doesn't."

Logan yelled from the next room, "Actually Madison, I do! I know everything!"

I tore out his aorta at that point and came to the coffee shop for a little quiet so I could actually contribute to Flogging Baby.

I don't have much for you internet. This was a crazy weekend and Logan claims he's taking the entire week off of work, but I'll believe that when I see it. Friday night we did end up at the Tigers Game and I took a lot of pictures. My friend and I were discussing how we're victims of our babysitters. I was so desperate for a sitter, I paid my friend's neice $50 to keep them until my other sitter could pick them up at 9:30. That's $50 for 3 hours...that's how desperate I was.

On Saturday afternoon my friend Stephanie and I went to work the beer tent at the Highland Games with Chrissy. I took a lot of pictures there also.

The thing I love about working at the Highland Games beer tent is that it's remedial bartending. There are only four types of beer and a few bitch pops and everything costs $5. I am very bad at math but even I know how to count by fives. I can't mix cocktails but I can crack open a bottle of Smirnoff Ice or pour beer out of a tap.

The other nice thing about the beer tent is free samples and no kids. The only bad thing is when a really short stocky man kisses you. Which makes your face burn with the toxic-ness of the whole thing. No one ever flirts with me, ever. The one time someone does he's really gross. So typical.

It's like a yearbook entry: "Stay Sweet!"

I promised I'd get the blogher handjob over with because as fun as it's been for people to know what they missed, after awhile it's got to feel like SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY.

But I'm not shutting up because how could I tell you what I thought of my companions? How could I tell you how healing it's been both on the internet and in my real life to find women I really love?

I've met people from the internet before and I don't know exactly why this felt so different. Maybe it's because in the last two years since I've had this website I've become more comfortable with myself? Instead of being filled with self loathing (though I still have all that) I've come to realize that motherhood can look different and still be fine. In my case motherhood looks incredibly whiney and needy and sometimes funny. Like I said earlier, I bare my soul to the internet and these people still like me. I have the same benefit from my real life friends reading this website. Maybe that makes me more comfortable just being? Probably I need more therapy.

The last time I met women from the internet we went to Las Vegas. It was supposed to be a trip to regroup after a particularly painful October. The fall of 2002 was quite possibly the worst time in my entire life and these women loved me and worried about me and wanted me to get away and catch my breath a bit. Logan and I spent money we didn't have, because we never have money, so that I could go to Vegas. When I arrived I almost immediately had an intense anxiety attack.

The anxiety centered around both the women I was meeting who I didn't know except from the message board forum and the fact that I just spent quite a bit of money we didn't have and I felt intense pressure to have a whole lot of fucking fun. This is something I've learned about the difference between blogging and the parenting forum: you can be as honest as you want on a blog without worrying about disrupting the community of diverse mothers. What you don't like you don't read but you're probably getting a pretty honest picture of who you're reading.

For example, I couldn't make fun of Olive Garden on my message board because to some of the women on the message board, Olive Garden was a big fancy night out! But see on my website, I laugh at Olive Garden. No character, huge portions of mediocre food with hoards of overweight Americans asking for just one more basket of bread!

I worried when I arrived in San Jose I'd be overwhelmed with that same pressure, to have fun! Because I owed the internet that much for all the whining I did to get here. I felt antsy as I waited for Alice at the baggage claim, but when she grabbed me by the hair and gave me a full on the mouth kiss, well then, I knew everything was going to be just as I dreamed. No really by the time we were sharing the worlds most expensive sandwich at the hotel (I'd like it noted I did not order a drink) I knew things were going to be fine.

You all know Alice is funny, since I deemed her the Funniest Woman In The World. What you may not know is that very few people (especially catholics) can attend my family's Christmas Eve celebration without gasping for air and/or leaving early to shower before midnight mass. I have no doubt Alice would fit right in with our totally inappropriate "Night Before The Birth Of Our Holy Savior" debauchery.

At on point I told Alice how I never floss, yes we were talking about dental hygiene but I don't know why, and how my hygienist always asks me if I floss and I lie and say, 'Oh yes.' My hygienist knows I'm lying but doesn't want to call me a liar so she says 'Here let me show you how to do it correctly."

Alice said, "What? She thinks you've been rubbing it on your head or something?" On Tuesday morning guess what my dental hygienist did? I thought of Alice and laughed, and then I told the hygienist the joke and we all laughed. Thank you Alice!

Mrs Kennedy was the first, but not the last, person I met while at Blogher who made me feel incredibly portly. She is very tall with lovely skin and a graceful and long neck and I decided it's all yoga all the time for me. On Saturday she was totally overwhelmed by the chatter and the meeting of new people and probably, though she's too polite to say it, all the stupid things Alice made me laugh about. When we came back to the room and saw her sprawled out on the bed with her arms over her chest like a corpse, I wanted to take all 9 feet of her on my lap and cuddle her. Which actually would have made things a lot worse. The thing I'm realizing about Mrs Kennedy is that she says things that are subtly funny. Like on her website, I'll read something, laugh and then go back a day or two later to find more funny things I missed the first time around. Also she has all the best toiletries, I know because I looked at all of them each time I went to the bathroom. I really should have taken a picture.

I don't remember how it is the three of us started emailing all the time. It started when Alice was called an "Unfunny Whore" by a group of hooligans. (Hooligans!) But then we just kept emailing and sometimes Mrs Kennedy would ask to be entertained and so while I played Whack A Mole with Max all winter I would try my very best to entertain her. I'm so happy I got to meet them and they are exactly as I imagined. For all the weeping I do, I don't know why it's so hard for me to say how Alice and Mrs Kennedy are now among my best friends. I feel silly saying that.....but it's true. Not only are they funny and smarter than me but they even pretend not to notice how portly I am. No, see? I can't be serious. They're supportive and kind and not judgmental and they love their kids and can sometimes be just as annoyed as I am by the job of raising them. They're not afraid to admit that and they aren't upset when I admit that too.

Okay this is getting so fucking long.

JenB: Jen does so have an accent. How the hell can you be from fucking Edmonton and not have an accent you silly little freak. My sister likes to call Canada, 'our gentle brother to the north' and JenB is my gentle sister to the north. She brought us all lipsmackers and candy and she even brought me a book to read (she has also mailed books to my house) because she's selfless and kind. But the thing I loved best about JenB at this conference is how she'd be intently looking at Flickr photos or giggling with me about something stupid during a Political Blogging Session or whatever and all the sudden her hand would go up and I would think, "What the hell are we even talking about?" Because most of the weekend I was like a hyperactive puppy waiting for someone to make me laugh again. But Jen would raise her hand, get the microphone and say something which sounded so smart I almost wished I'd been listening so I knew what she was talking about. I also love how she is really proud of the fact that she farted after hugging me. I was mortified about pooping in the hotel room with Alice and Mrs Kennedy on the other side of the wall, but JenB announces to the whole internet that my hugs made her fart and if that isn't the work of an Awkward Hug then I don't know what is.

Amanda was so good natured about my drunkeness in the face of her sobriety. God love her. She goes with the flow and if she had a superpower it would be her hair. On Friday her hair was pulled back and on Saturday I honest to God didn't recognize her for a moment with all that wavy goodness flowing down her back. Then in the MommyBlogging session she started to talk about how being a stay at home mother was all she wanted for the last year and a half she was forced to work to make her family's ends meet. She started to cry when she talked about the joy being 'Just A Mom' has given her since staying at home. And hey! I started to cry. I cried because I sometimes forget how blessed I am to have this choice. I also cried because Alice was pinching me under the table very hard at that moment.

Sweetney is like a version of my actual real sister...except blonde. Perhaps I could convince my sister to get married and have a child if only she could spend time with Tracey. I love how she just joined right in and after reading how nervous she was about attending this event I am even more impressed. When I am nervous and afraid I won't know anyone I walk around as if I don't see anyone and then everyone says, "Who's the Ice Princess?" and I cry in the bathroom. She's cynical and funny and also so cool she didn't even care how NOT cool I am! She has enough cool to go around. (Note To My Real Sister: They have concerts in their backyard! See? She's cool!) Don't even get me started on The Most Awkward Hug In The History Of Awkward Hugs.

Maggie I was afraid to meet but her hair grabbed me by the neck and forced me to make eye contact and pretty quickly I loved her. My friend Leslie has thick luscious hair I fantasize about gnawing on, but Maggie's was red and I kept thinking it would taste like smoked paprika! Or cinnamon! Frankly, I don't see how you can't love her. Explain how you could not like her? She is charming and warm from the minute you meet her. Mrs Kennedy called her well adjusted but I would say she is comfortable in her own skin and it shows. In fact I would like to borrow her life (and hair) for a few days just to see what it feels like.

Heather....I don't want to sound like a kiss ass but I'm puckering up. No, not really. Most of the internet loves Heather and the rest of the internet hates that we all love her so much. Like everyone said, if you could meet her you would love her. You would also be stunned by the sheer mass of her limbs. She must have the smallest torso I have ever seen, every where it's legs! Arms! Her sharp and beautiful cheekbones have caused me serious internal bleeding. You have to be careful around them. I remember the first time I heard back from Heather was one night when I'd been drinking too much. (Surprise.) I was reading about how great breastfeeding was going for Heather and Leta. I was so happy for her but I wrote her a note and said, "My husband is going to ban me from reading you because I cry seeing how you're falling into motherhood so easily." She wrote me back and said something like, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU STUPID IDIOT...this is not going well." And from there I kept trying to help and to hear that it did: it made me cry. Surprise.

The one thing all the women I met and was touched by (I'm including some women I haven't even had a chance to go into here) have in common is that they each have a quality I aspire to.

Alice is so fucking funny but also so smart and not afraid to stand up in a room full of women and say what she thinks. The one time I grabbed the microphone I felt like I was going to throw up, then I sang the opening bars of 'Moon River' and promptly began sobbing about something really stupid. (what the ever loving fuck?)

Mrs Kennedy, I think, lives in her head a lot of the time. She obviously thinks a great deal about the things happening around her and doesn't feel the need to talk all the time to feel okay with herself. (Like me, Ms Verbal-Diarrhea Mouth) She also said something in our emails after the fact about how she's reached a place where she is mostly okay with her body. What a wonderful place that would be. Yoga......

JenB is a nurturing soul who thinks so much about others. I consider myself empathetic (thus all the fucking crying) but Jen takes it one step further. To be so selfless even when she has her own very real struggles. (Also, Jesus she multi tasks like a pro! She appears to not be paying attention and then Blam! She has the microphone and is making sense.)

Amanda is so happy being home with her son and we all know I'm not particularly happy here a lot of the time. I wish I was at a place where I felt the blessing everyday instead of just when someone tells me how it is on the other side.

Tracey defines motherhood on her own terms. She just doesn't seem to care that the Gymboree Moms are different. She doesn't care that most people don't have concerts in their backyard. She lives her life and includes her kid in it.

If I could just have Maggie's hair and maybe her smokin ass, I would be set for life. But if we're talking personality traits, I'd really like her open heartedness and warmth. To walk into a party and look everyone in the eye and start earnest conversations as though we've known each other for years. This trait would come in handy since I'm married to Mr Fancy Underpants Loves To Party! which doesn't exactly mesh well with Ms Ice Princess Refuses To Look at People and Might Cry!

I would like Heather's southern drawl, her poise and her ability to drink straight bourbon. [Insert Gag Here]. Watching Heather this weekend I think she lives a lot in her head as well. I think she watches and listens a lot and that is what makes a good writer. Hearing what is happening around you and what is happening inside of you. I'm often too busy filling silence with my chatter and tears, I need to live in my head more.

I didn't get to cover everything I wanted to but Fuck! you guys I have more to say. I still want to tell you what Alice said. We'll just frame what Alice said outside of the Blogher Hand Job. What Alice said spoke to me so much about why I love this website and why I love myself more because of this website and why it's opened me up to people in the virtual (and now real) world and also in my regular life. I want to tell you all why, in my opinion, MommyBlogging is a radical act.

"Blogher Hand Job"

Last night Logan finished reading Alice's fabulous take on Blogher and said, "Look, how long are you going to keep this Blogher Hand Job going? Get it over with for fuck's sake."

My husband, with his delicate underwear, has a point. Only I appear to have bit off more than I can chew. Especially when my spouse doesn't appear to understand how much I'm chewing. Tonight, as I boiled pasta for dinner, stuffed envelopes, refereed arguments ('No punching below the belt Max, you cheating bastard!") and tried to come up with something for Flogging Baby....I realized that with a big salary, comes no kids to deal with and yes! I am bitter!

I hope tomorrow is a better day because right now I am feeling as if I have ADD and I am not enjoying that feeling.

More. Soon. I promise.

PS: Are there any devil worshipers who want to babysit Friday at 6:00pm? Because we are in a serious bind and will accept even mass murderers as babysitters for this event. We'll even let you emotionally scar our kids and pay you $50 to do it so long as we get to go out with our friends to see the Tigers. I can't believe we can't find a sitter, this is ludicrous.

I know I have a debt to pay to the internet. Consider this your payment.

Someone calling herself "PMS", which is totally untrue because I've been having my period all fucking weekend, in case you wanted to know, told me I have a debt to the internet. That I needed to write something "substantial" about Blogher because I was lucky enough to go and other people weren't. I was lucky...maybe that's why I cried all the fucking weekend because I couldn't believe that people like me enough to make this happen for me.

Maybe PMS who told me she has proudly earned every letter in the word Bitch because she is a Bitch, might rethink her bitchiness because maybe then someone would want to see her have this once in a lifetime chance to meet some of her favorite people in the world. Instead I have a debt.

Today I just kept writing. Writing and writing trying to say something "substantial" about Blogher and when I was nearly finished I read everyone else's take but it appears that what is true about Alice in real life is also true on the internet.

She's funnier than anyone else in the world. There I said it. She is the funniest person in the world. So even though I'd written 1000 words about this weekend: I deleted them all when I read this and you must go read it right now and release me from my debt to you internet. (I still owe you, Ms Hamster. I intend to pay you back in various way, the most logistically challenging way is nightly foot rubs since you live in New York.)

I am at a coffee shop and I often laugh in public because as everyone has pointed out: I laugh and cry a lot. It must be my medication or my family where every Christmas started with laughs and ended in tears. It's all the same! I have never come this close to rolling on the floor laughing my fucking ass off in public, while alone. Like a crazy homeless person.

Other things I need to touch on....will these be "Substantial" enough?

*My impressions of each of my blogher companions.

*What everyone has said about me, specifically Dooce because holy shit, no one has ever said anything about my smile. In fact in my entire life I've heard, "You don't smile enough." And guess what? It made me cry!

*My impressions of Koan, who has been absorbed into my psyche and doing so made me face my knee-jerk judgmentalism (I made that word up didn't I?).

*My thoughts on the marginalized mommy bloggers and the publisher woman who called us Whiny Bitches because what the hell! We were in the TIMES! Even though we were called neurotic hand wringers....whatever.

*I will also reveal what Alice said to the whole entire group in response to the woman who urged us to write something "important" and not just mommy blogs, which made me cry. (Surprise!)

*I'd also like it noted that during the day I collected, I am not kidding 8 drink tickets. My reputation is unfortunately well deserved. I gave away at least 3 of them though, one to a pregnant woman who begged at my feet for a water (a water was a full ticket?) as I debated another Sierra Nevada....but my guilt won out. (I didn't really make her beg at my feet. But I did make her beg. Dear Pregnant Lady, I'm really sorry I did that.)

This has been a great couple of weeks to be me. Thank you universe.

My Blogher Story.

Yesterday morning I was back in my life. My life which included cleaning the litter boxes because the basement stunk. How is it that my husband can't smell it. He also can't smell skunk so I'm not sure what I expect. Also, I hate repair people because they NEVER give me good news. This time the bad news is that our dishwasher is kaput. I spent almost an hour washing dishes. Damn you sippy cups! Damn you to hell!

However at noon we had a playgroup and it helped swallow up that odd feeling of let down you get after a really fun weekend. The playdate lasted from noon right through to dinner time when our husbands joined us for food and it was so nice. It was the perfect day to be surrounded by the friends I've come to love here.

I was thinking about this a lot over the weekend. Sometimes it's very hard to be yourself in Michigan. Diversity isn't exactly embraced. You can argue with me if you want but normal seems to be very important here (look how I laugh at those different than me like a close minded bitch) and it's been nice having Alice as a friend who lives in Brooklyn, where motherhood looks so different than how it looks here. And Mrs Kennedy who is older and wiser and also in California where just about anything goes. I'm lucky I've met them through the Mommy Blog phenomenon but I'm also so lucky my blob has let these women I know now in my real life in on who I am really and they like me anyway.

I've been attempting to write this all day. I didn't have time yesterday and I'm supposed to be getting back into the swing at Flogging Baby but I just can't seem to pull it together. I keep looking at Flickr and crying. Then I read others takes on the conference, and while they're all interesting, I really just came to meet Alice and Mrs Kennedy. Then JenB decided to come and Hey! There's Sweetney. And also there was Heather and it was emotional in a way I wasn't expecting to meet her. And Jesus christ, Maggie, I'd no idea what a fun person she was.

See and now my list is getting really long and I'm still missing people I met but really I wasn't there to learn about advanced tools (I have several of those in my regular life. Get it? I stole it from Sweetney). I wasn't there to find my voice in political blogging. I wasn't there to learn how to get naked, Alice taught me that in private. No no no...I already know how to be personal on my blog. In fact, my husband often wishes I would put more proverbial clothes on in this realm.

All I really wanted was to meet and spend sometime with these women I know on the internet. Spending time with those women brought up emotions in me (Read: I sobbed like a stupid crybaby) and I want to spend sometime talking about those things but I can't right now because my life is literally falling apart around me as I look at flickr photos and read and read and read.

I'm going to give you a recap of the weekend though because the next time I write this I want all of that out of my head.

Thank you so much Crouching Hamster for making this happen for me. I can not imagine how I would have survived seeing all these photos and all this fun and not being there. Soul crushing comes to mind. So, thank you again.